![]() ![]() ![]() Terebus, who runs the four-floor haunt he opened with his brother, Jim, in 1998, wouldn’t say how much money the operation pulls in every season, but he said the attraction does well enough that he and his team can work on the haunt year-round. “Operational costs are huge,” he said.Įrebus opened this year for its 17th season. Perry costs about $1,000 an hour to run during the peak season. ![]() Haunted house operators have also followed Hollywood's lead in using computer graphics, mounting flat-panel video screens in place of windows filled with scenes of zombies or using them as paintings whose subjects can move and age visibly.Ed Terebus, co-owner of the Erebus Haunted Attraction in Pontiac, estimates tens of thousands will pay for the privilege of being frightened at Erebus this season.Įrebus employs hundreds of actors, make-up artists, security guards and ticket-takers. "Bigger is always better," said Kevin Alvey, Gore Galore's owner. Its jaws, which can entrap as many as four people, are so huge the operator must rely on a video camera inside the prop to see the patrons. Gore Galore, a maker of props for haunted houses, sells a puppet that looks like a toothed clam. The older animatronics - with their overly mechanical movements and hinged jaws - have given way to puppets. "With the sensors, you can time it so it's not always the person at the front of a group that's getting scared," he said. "They aren't on timers where something is going ka-junk, then 30 seconds later, ka-junk," says Billy Messina, a co-owner of Netherworld, an Atlanta haunted house known for its innovative use of silicone masks on actors to create extremely realistic monsters. To make the monsters a little less predictable, operators combined air-powered devices with computerized sensors. That allowed operators to easily build moving props - from floors that shift under patrons' feet to monsters with moving mouths and limbs. Haunts began getting more complicated about 15 years ago, when the price of air-powered pneumatic devices dropped, Simmons said. "I'm in Pittsburgh and could connect with someone in Texas." "The Internet allowed all of us to connect," he said. "People my age grew up going to these and started thinking, 'Wouldn't it be great if we could do this for a living?'" said Scott Simmons, the 43-year-old co-owner and creative director of Pittsburgh's ScareHouse. ![]() Technology has helped drive change, making it easier for operators to devise new thrills as well as to share ideas around the country. "Haunted houses are trying to create these immersive environments, and technology often does that," said Brett Bertolino, director of operations at Eastern State Penitentiary, a decommissioned Philadelphia prison converted annually into a giant, sometimes claustrophobic, haunted house. The commercial attractions collectively bring in from $300 million to $500 million annually. plus another 3,000 haunted houses operated by charities that open for only a day or two every year. Haunted house operators have borrowed heavily from Hollywood, using programmable controllers, modern computer graphics and professional make-up artists to create increasingly vivid and horrific thrills.Īmerica's Haunts, a trade association, estimates there are 1,200 large-scale, for-profit haunted attractions in the U.S. ![]()
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