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Howl-O-Scream's haunted house is seriously demented

By Joshua Gillin, Times staff writer
In print: Friday, September 26, 2008

Okay, we have to report that even when confronted with this scene of a gory mess, Josh Gillin didn’t scream like a girl.
	[Photo courtesy of Busch Gardens]

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I'd like to think I don't scare easily, but I'd be lying.

When Busch Gardens invited me over to try out one of Howl-O-Scream's new haunted houses I thought, sure, why not? It's not like I haven't been to a haunted house before, and those things are rarely scary.

Two things here: 1) I haven't been to a haunted house since high school; and 2) They were going to send me in alone.

That second part was what bothered me. I remember haunted houses being big fun precisely because it was me and group of friends, lumped in with strangers and running through a confined space where people shouted and wailed and jumped.

Not here. Here it was just me and the house, populated by people I knew were actors focusing all their attention on me. And Busch Gardens was going to film it.

You know, with one of those Fear Factor-style face cams, for which I had to don a harness and battery pack vest. Wearing it gave me new-found respect for reality shows, since after a moment of self-consciousness, I almost completely forgot I was wearing it.

How long? Try three seconds.

That's the length of time it took for the first actor to get me. Right at the entrance to Reconstruction (which is based on surgeries gone wrong), a woman mumbling to herself and playing with a cell phone sprang up, revealing a ruined face and shouting something my mind rendered incomprehensible.

It was then the lizard brain took over, and I was back in high school, shouting at each spook and scare, if only for an instant, while instinct took over and was quickly replaced by fun-loving adrenaline, pasting a near-constant smile on my face. And since I was being filmed, I was sure to substitute "dude" as my own surrogate four-letter word. Y'know, for the kids.

Howl-O-Scream's actors obviously were enjoying themselves. One specter gleefully answered my rhetorical question about where everyone was with a hiss of "RIGHT HERE!" over my shoulder. They knew what they were doing, all right. "We have people who count down the days," communications managers Jill Revelle said of the actors. "They love it."

And when it was over, I was able to walk out into the warm sunshine, think about the haunted house, and laugh a little. Isn't that what Halloween is all about?

Joshua Gillin also writes and edits the Juice .