It’s pitch black out and I’m about to enter Alien Abyss at Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt. I’ve promised myself to go through every scare zone and maze. I figured this maze would indeed be tamer. Maybe an ET-gone-wild sort of thing. How bad could it be?
Still on edge, I ask the associate in front just how bad it is. I’m reassured by her words, and enter with what was, in retrospect, hubris.
Two minutes later, I’m pathetically lost, pretty much stunned in the pitch black portion of the attraction. So stunned, they have to send another flashlight-wielding associate to come in and lead me through the rest of the maze.
The rest of the evening is filled with more terrors, and a new understanding of just how high-pitched my scream can get.
Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt has a wealth of jump scares. For more than two decades, lights, sounds and even scents have cultivated a terrifying atmosphere, especially for weenies like me. From the artistic sets to the talented scare actors and everyone who works behind the scenes, it truly does take an army of the living to raise the dead.
Waiting in the Wings
Marketing and Sales Director Jennifer Hogan welcomes me into a warehouse-style building in a staff zone behind the scenes. We enter a sprawling floor space, with racks upon racks of over 200 costumes and baskets of accessories (including substantial backstock – accidents happen), organized by maze, zone or show.
It’s about an hour before Haunt, and folks are trickling in (I catch Bigfoot – one of this year’s roaming “Feature Creatures” – taking five on a bench outside). A team member stitches black feathers onto a costume, as scare actors slip into bodysuits nearby. In total, there are about 180 scare actors. Maria Smith, senior supervisor of costuming and makeup and 10-season Haunt veteran, and her teams get them ready for the night.
Preparations for Haunt – which include conceptualization of characters and backstories – usually begin in April. About a dozen folks work on costuming, while around 20 handle makeup. Save for the IP attractions, like The Conjuring: Beyond Fear and JASON: Blood Reign, whose costuming and wigs are delivered to the park, pretty much everything else is designed and brought to life internally. When it comes to newer attractions, Smith and her associates are often given a concept, and they brainstorm and conduct research to bring characters to life, keeping in touch with individuals involved in set design all the while.
The team also tries to keep more established, “staple” attractions fresh – and they’ll try out the conceptualized costume pieces, including wings and stilts, themselves.
“They’re wearing these outfits for up to eight hours in the day, and moving that entire time, so you always want it to be as comfortable as it can be,” Smith explains.
The actors, especially those who portray the same role over time, also get to bring ideas to the table. The Undertaker/Dr. Nightmare/self-described “Master of Scaremonies” is portrayed by Mike Rochester. Rochester has worked Haunt for over two decades, beginning as “Head on a Stick” in a maze in the back of the park, and having portrayed perhaps the most emblematic persona of the entire event since 2008.
“All along the way, I’ve had so many people really see my idea, and kind of go, ‘Okay, we’ll make that happen,’” Rochester shares. “Maria – she literally takes my crazy and goes, ‘We can do something with that.’ And I appreciate it every time.”
In the next room over from costuming, an Order of the Dragon actor has “Skin Tite” adhesive slathered onto their face to attach their mask for the night. Racks of matted, bloody wigs, and more wholesome options for the park’s daytime Tricks and Treats event, stand nearby.
There are two additional rooms dedicated to makeup, applied via airbrush; the make-up, by pure coincidence, evokes an olfactory sense of Halloween, smelling like fresh green apples. Handwritten signs on the walls list staggered arrival times for the actors associated with each Haunt experience, alongside notes about thematic considerations (“Possessed not dead”) and which make-up colors to use; options range from “Rotted Flesh” to “Swamp Moss.” In the back, prosthetic pieces and masks, and the molds for making them out of hypoallergenic silicone, line rows of shelves.
Marinda Allred is the team lead for makeup and has six years of Haunt under her belt.
“I’ve had a terrible accident,” she tells me, as she holds up a make-up stained hand caused by a bursting airbrush.
Allred explains that, on average, five to 10 minutes are spent airbrushing an actor, and that more seasoned members of the makeup team can paint about 30 to 40 actors a night. The signs on the wall serve as general guidelines for the actors associated with a given Haunt experience, while certain makeup artists are tasked with remembering and executing the signature looks of the “Feature Creatures.”
Allred has become so familiar with these looks over time that there are certain subtleties that may never cross the mind of a person being jumpscared, but that she herself just can’t unsee.
“ I’ll go home, and I’ll be like, ‘Man, did I accidentally paint a pirate with like the wrong color base today?’”
There’s also a (perhaps self-explanatory) “Blood Tent” outside, with different options for consistency and color.
“You just have to lean into what people find scary or unsettling to look at, and kind of expand from there,” Smith explains
There’s a sizable line for already-costumed actors in each space. As Flo Rida’s “Get Low” plays in the Blood Tent, and a mix of heavy metal and K-pop blasts in the airbrush rooms, a variety of phrases that might be cause for serious concern elsewhere rise above the music.
“What kind of blood do you want today?”
“Do you know where the extra bat head is?”
“Do you want me to put your hooks back in?”
Throughout the night, the make-up and costume spaces remain active. Back behind the scenes, the giant bat – the extra head successfully tracked down – is practicing walking on stilts near the Blood Tent. “Nurse IV” winds tattered bandages around her arm. “Knife Guy” fixes an unfortunate rip in his pants. The “Tooth Fairy” (not as wholesome as it sounds) gets help with her corset.
“We all want to make sure that we put our best foot forward, even if it is, you know, a little scraggly, and might be torn off some other corpse somewhere,” Rochester says.
There are still a few more days of fear. Haunt officially ends on Halloween night. Click here for tickets and more information … if you’re brave enough.
