Thread: Samhain gone wrong

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last year,08 that is, I was a killer clown-like every year.I had a small display because I had a bad motorcycle crash in july,but the show must go on. Call me evil,but I stay in charactor,If you have little ones and you bring em up past the black crosses dripping blood,a coffin with a rotten skull that shoots up,rotten corpses on pneumatics, then step on an alter w/ a pentigram,with small bloody hand print smears on it your gettin the full monte,(right?)well, I didnt know but a lady brought her "special needs" kid up there, yeah,I went all out,rust plyers,chain saw, the alter has a drill motor under it with chain welded in the chuck so when you turn it on it shakes,bangs,buzzes like mad.They take off running.get to the side walk,and Moms mouth starts running,so I did what any good clown would do,limped towards her screaming,"IM GOING TO BE UNDER YOUR BED TONIGHT!"my wife told me later about the girl.I feel bad about that but,shouldnt the mother feel worse for being an idiot?

I think thats hilarious haha. You need to stay in character. Its the golden rule. And the mom shouldn't bring her special needs kid up to a house looking like that. I would have done the same. Cause I love staying in character too

As long as you didn't realise about the girl, then go for it!

From your description, cutesy doesn't come into it, so parents don't expect cutesy if you go in.

Obviously with little ones in general, you need to take some care. Encourage them to appreciate Halloween, they are the haunters of the future. If you scare the life out of them, they will probably never want anything to do with it again!

We get between 1500-2500 every year. Most years I spent my time walking around making sure everyone and everything were working as planned. This year was different, I had an animated ticket booth that had to be manned. The thing I noticed being in the ticket booth was that the people that attended my haunt were mostly parents bringing there children which aged between 8-12 Years in most cases. My haunt is not geared toward the very young but for the mist part the kids did fine. I do feel you need to stay in character but you also need to know when turn it down a notch based on the reaction of the child. There is a pretty clear difference between being scared or startled from a good scare and being outright terrified. We do encourage parents to bring their kids back during the daylight hours so we can walk them around and show them how things work. I will also walk kids through and tell them where the scare are in advance so they enjoy Halloween.

X2 /\

We had a greeter, and if the kids were to young, but brave, we did a guided announced tour. IE turn it down. Otherwise it's on!!!!!
Working in the haunt, again, I agree with Homestead Haunt, if we see the kid totally freaked we step our character down, or just turn away.

I want them to have fun, enjoy Halloween and all our hard work.

To the special needs child. The mother, I assuming, saw other people get shocked at the alter or should have heard the screams. There is NO WAY an outsider could possibly know of any persons condition. Some special needs kids look sorry to say NORMAL. It is the accompanying person's responsibility, not the haunt/actor

=PB

The girl was fine,the mom is the one that freaked.that caused the girl(teenager) to get scared.the house that year was very satanic looking from the begining.I nerver did one like that,in order to "not offend" the thumpers.but it was my last haunt there,and decided,toooobadddd!

Don't sweat it, Jeffhawk. The mother, in this case, badly mishandled the situation. That was unfortunate, but not your fault.

I found a pic. from your lord of the flies halloween,its one of the t.o.t.ers

Jeffhawk, I think you'll find that in the case you describe it was the mother that was terrified judging from her actions and just using the fact that her daughter has special needs as an excuse for her own extreme reaction.
Just because a child has "special needs", it doesn't necessarily follow that that child should be treated differently to other children, (except of course if the child has mobility problems or a physical disability). I have never found any evidence to suggest that children with special needs are any more, or indeed less, prone to being traumatised than any other kid.
The onice is firmly and squarely on the parent to ensure that the environment that they are taking their child into is suitable or appropriate for that child. I do think a good practice is to have a warning notice at the haunt entrance, advising that the haunt may not be suitable for very young children or those of a nervous disposition, particularly if you consider your haunt to be "intense". We also have a greeter at the entrance to answer any questions that people may have with reference to content or suitability.
Once inside, they are fair game.
However, although a good haunt actor should never break character, they should have the maturity and common sense to step down or step back if they perceive that their performance is causing undue or chronic distress to any individual.
As haunters, we want to provide the scares and shocks to get the adrenaline running but we also want our patrons to enjoy their experience and to appreciate the time, work and energy we expend on our haunts (not to mention the money!), and we often tread a fine line between scaring and traumatising.
We want our TOT's to come back for more scares next year, not unable to come back because they are still receiving counselling...

Scared for life! LOL She will get over it. With plenty of therapy. LMAO