There was a time when, every autumn, the vacant lot at 2070 Waldorf would come alive with the twinkling lights, rumbling rides, and cotton candy smells of Collinsworth’s Colossal Carnival. But over the years the carnival lost business to competitors and slowly declined. Eventually it went under, leaving the grounds silent and lonely…
Until now.
“The spirits of the carnival have come back to haunt this place,” says Thomas Johnston, a casting director for The Haunt, West Michigan’s largest haunted attraction, of the story behind this year’s show.
This season the nationally renowned attraction will fill its 25,000-square-foot space with demented carnies, mutilated monsters and undead dancers. On show nights, these ghouls begin arriving at what is through most the year a nondescript gray warehouse at around 5 p.m. Backstage is a muddle of floor-length black dusters and slasher flick T-shirts, gleaming facial piercings and neon hair. A few of the actors stare quizzically at me (the freak in the beige cardigan and ballet flats) through Technicolor contact lenses.
And this is before they get into character.
Over 100 volunteers and a small crew of paid staff have worked year-round to transform a corner of an outlying Walker industrial park into a truly spooktacular display of eerie sets, weird costumes, and macabre make-up.
Unlike attractions that rely on animatronics, special effects, and gruesome images, the actors are the main ingredient in The Haunt’s recipe for fear. Following a communal home-cooked meal, the talent makes their way to wardrobe and make-up to begin their terrifying transformations.
The make-up room is a cross between Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory and Santa’s workshop. Crusty vials of dark blood, slimy-looking silicone skin, paint, glue, glitter, and tiny tools and brushes litter high-top tables. A tangle of rainbow colored wigs and grotesque masks line one wall, a boom box is blasting spooky tunes.
“Even if actors are in a spot that patrons can’t see them, make-up still puts them in character,” says Joe Beuker, who performs double-duty as both make-up artist and actor. “They are less inhibited when they have the ‘I look cool’ factor going for them.”
With scary faces on, actors are ready to wreak havoc.
“It’s an adrenaline rush,” says Katie Hartzell, adjusting her complex plant-like costume. Hartzell, a former West Michigan resident, comes all the way from Tacoma, Wash., to perform in the show each year.
Krazy Kyle, a character in the Dark Maze, one of two secondary attractions, reports with pride that he once scared eight girls so badly they fled into a single nearby porta potty, As he insists, “There is no better feeling than making someone piss themself.”
Beuker agrees. “It’s 100% about the scares,” he says, deftly painting a blood red mouth onto a clown, while the theme from "Ghostbusters" blares in the background. “It’s seeing that 6-3 biker dude hit his knees and crawl away leaving a wet trail behind him.”
Little shop of horrors
Praised for its clean safety record, sophisticated storyline, detailed sets and PG-13 rating, the Haunt has distinguished itself as one of the most unique Halloween attractions in the Midwest, terrifying hundreds of thousands of visitors since its launch in 2001. Originally located in a vacant retail space on 28th Street in Grand Rapids, the attraction moved to its current permanent facility in Walker for its second season.
Those that manage to escape the 25,000-square-foot house of horrors unscathed can now also get lost in the Dark Maze, a 15,000-square-foot outdoor labyrinth lit only by moonlight. Another dollar buys a walk through Claustrophobia, a brief yet surprisingly panic-inducing mind-twist.
“It’s Alfred Hitchcock, not Freddy Krueger,” says Joe Beuker, who has been with the Haunt for six years. “It’s a psychological scare.”
Aspiring scarers find out about acting opportunities via the Haunt website, word-of-mouth, or when they visit the show.
“Our actors are our No. 1 fans,” says Haunt owner Jim Burns. “They live for this.”
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
In light of their proclivity for the dramatic, it is perhaps surprising that many came to the Haunt with little or no prior theater experience.
“When I started I was a terrible actress,” confesses 18-year-old Nicole Lang, her voice a near whisper, somewhat unexpectedly, coming from her vibrantly painted, multi-pierced face.
Now in her third year as a performer, Lang has graduated from basic pop scares to “Nightmare”— a role requiring advanced, aggressive scare tactics. “Now bigger guys throw their girlfriends at me and hide behind them because they’re so scared,” she says with a slightly bashful smile.
When he saw an advertisement for Haunt auditions in 2001, Cyril Yob – who plays the top-hat-wearing, arrow-wielding “Professor” – saw a chance to hone his dramatic craft. A self-described “class clown,” Yob had always enjoyed performing but had few opportunities to pursue acting. “The creative involvement here is better than any in the real world,” he says.
It can also be more demanding.
“This is a really different style than traditional theater,” says Burns, the Haunt’s founder. “Actors have to maintain high energy for five hours while doing the same thing about every 15 seconds.”
“It’s way more work than people think,” says Lang. “I give every scare 110 percent. At the end of the night, I’m exhausted.”
Even with how extremely taxing the role can be for actors, they still keep coming back for more. Burns estimates that 40 to 60 percent of Haunt actors return the next year — pretty remarkable considering that, apart from non-monetary awards and prizes, actors are not compensated.
The thrill of the scare isn’t the only thing that brings actors back each year. This is a community of ghouls: An intense emotional bond shared by cast and crew fuels them each grueling season and keeps them in contact throughout the year.
“It’s like your family. It’s something that can never be replaced,” says Lang, winner of the cast’s “Lives and Breathes the Haunt” award and proud owner of a Haunt logo tattoo. “The Haunt has changed every aspect of my life. I was really shy. I couldn’t go up to people and talk to them. Doing this has made me more social.”
Lang is not the only one who has had a life-altering experience at the Haunt. Steve Villaneuva, another actor in the show, met his fiancé there. He proposed to her in the green room.
After the season ends, cast and crew try to get together at least once a month. They even celebrate holidays together — on Easter they played hide-the-monster in the Dark Maze.
“Doing this is like going to war,” says Yob, a seasoned Haunt veteran. “So when we come together it’s like family. It’s something very special to us.”
Ruth Terry is a freelance writer and artist living in the East Hills neighborhood. She also works as a fund developer and consultant for local nonprofit organizations. She recently wrote for Rapid Growth about the artists of 1111 Godfrey.
All Photographs courtesy of The Haunt