I’m 48 years old, wearing red nut-huggers that don’t belong to me and are several sizes too small, scrambling on hands and knee pads across the increasingly soiled floor of a North Hollywood horror show, screaming in the faces of strangers.
In other words, I’m living my dream: working as a scare actor for the night at one of L.A.’s most extreme haunts.
Last Friday, I got jumped into the cast at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater to join the maze that runs along its annual autumn spectacle, Urban Death Tour of Terror, currently in its 20th year and holding the #2 spot for “Scariest Attraction in America” on Yelp.
The notorious production begins with a haunted maze, leading off Lankershim and into the dark warrens of a small, black box theater, sectioned off by black vinyl. Inside is a nightmare-scape of live creatures in various states of psychosis, deformation, and nudity. Guests are given a weak flashlight to find their way through it all, until they eventually grope their way to sit before a small stage.
From there, an unrelenting attack of disturbing vignettes, featuring oddly beautiful atrocities, dark humor, and shocking imagery takes over the stage in short, speechless bursts for a scarring stage show based on horrors both phantasmagorical and all too real.
20 minutes later and guests are pushed back through the maze to encounter a whole new set of grotesqueries and scares, basically getting bitch-slapped with a lifetime’s worth of nightmares in a breathtaking 60-minute surge.
I volunteered to join the actors haunting the maze that evening, playing two wholly different characters and fulfilling a nearly lifelong dream of legally scaring the holy crap out of people for a living.
Here’s what I learned.
It’s A Job.
You are part of a tradition that goes back tens of thousands of years, Denise Devin, Urban Terror’s longtime director, told the assembled cast before showtime, inspiring me with visions of campfire explorations of the cosmos, Eleusinian initiation rituals, and Grand Guignol shock fests.
“This is one of the world’s oldest occupations,” she said of acting and storytelling, making the work to come feel more noble and bigger than ourselves.
Urban Terror, with its shocking scenes and intimate proximity to the audience, is inspired in part by Antonin Artaud’s experimental Theatre of Cruelty, in which audiences are intentionally shocked out of complacency and their comfort zones. Halloween at Disneyland, this is not.
After arriving two hours before showtime, Devin helped me develop two different characters, escorted me into the specific hallway I would be responsible for haunting, and did some brief character work, showing me how to gesticulate slowly and weave menacingly to be more terrifying and if needed, guide confused chickens to the next part of the maze and keep it moving, without breaking character.
Before showtime, Devin reminded the cast that the people waiting outside had made the drive from far and wide just to see the show. They paid money and for some, this was one of the experiences they most looked forward to during their Halloween season. This was her encouragement for us to push ourselves to be as scary and believable as possible, and do nothing but our very best for them.
It’s Hard Work.
Grueling even.
We performed five back-to-back shows in a pitch-black maze, from about 8 p.m. to midnight. That’s two mazes per show, book-ending the onstage performance from Zombie Joe’s troupe of very talented actors.
In the maze going into the show, I used a stocking mask of my own printed with the image of a skeletal Jack O’Lantern from Hell, with a heavy hooded robe and thick leather O.J. gloves. In the maze that leads one out of the theater, I wore the aforementioned briefs with an expressionless paper mask, knee pads, gloves, socks pulled to my knees, and a ripped, undersized jersey.
I spent my time sliding across the floor at people, wriggling and scream-pleading “please!” in a mix of ecstasy and torment.
After the first show, during the roughly three minutes we had to change before the new crop of guests came in, I could feel the damage I was doing to myself already. Screaming from the abyss right in people’s faces, I could tell, was shredding my vocal chords, inevitably leaving my voice somewhere in the range between Paul Westerberg and R.F.K. Jr. the next morning.
My elbow signaled distress, a sharp nerve pain spreading up my forearm from my time on the ground. My nearly 50 year-old knees, despite the pads, were telling me not to go back to the concrete to slip around in skivvies while narrowly avoiding guests stepping on the fingers that earn my keep.
There were still four hours to go.
After performing the first maze, we had to silently change our costumes while still within the light-less maze to not disturb the stage show going on, looking for a misplaced mask, glove, or t-shirt while trying not to rattle the vinyl surrounding us. Some actors in Urban Death perform without their clothing, too, giving me some extra obstacles to avoid in the tight confines of the maze.
Characteristically soaked in sweat as I was, my belongings jammed furiously into a hiding place under a prop box, I increasingly did away with anything unnecessary, keeping the knee pads and tight Underoos on under my other costume and furiously learning to retie the string on my damp, torn paper mask.
The next day, a job well done, the skin on my knees throbbed, hot and raw, my shoulder felt shredded, my throat incapable of swallowing, and my voice now vanished.
Still, I’ve never had so much fun getting so battered. But can’t imagine doing this more than a night, let alone a whole season.
It’s Fun Scaring People
Serious fun.
When you really hang a good one on somebody leading a group and make them leap back on the friends they’ve sworn to protect, screaming at the top of their lungs, as they all fall apart in fear, something like an adrenaline surge spreads up your spine. At least it did for this sadist.
People are let into Urban Terror in groups of 3-5, spread out from the other guests. My favorite were the people who could not take it at all. The ones with shuttered eyes, hanging off of friends, saying things like, “Seriously Becky, I can’t take this anymore. I want out!”
Or the people who saw nothing but a glimpse of my considerable bulk and foul smile from down the pitch-black hallway and simply said, “Oh, fuck no. I’m not going down there.” But ultimately had no choice.
That’s like symphony-in-the-head levels of happiness for a wannabe ghoul. And a sure sign you’ve done your job well; paid with their pain, joy, and eventual nightmares.
You Get Better At It.
As the night stretched on, I felt my performances getting more refined, as I could tell what was scaring people and what wasn’t. I attend many haunts each year, and have learned when I can slip by a character or get ignored as an attendee.
With the roles reversed, I used that knowledge to my advantage.
I tried my best to block the only way out for as long as possible, giving people the perception that they’d have to confront me or touch me to get through my part and onto the next. Much like in a good horror movie, the impending sense of dread and test of your mettle can be more terrifying than an old fashioned jump scare.
When that failed to reduce people to piles of quivering flesh, a well-timed scream, shout, or evil growl could get them flying. As the guests passed by, a Ned Beatty-style pig squeal, snort, lip-smack, or mocking of their own screams helped deal with any hold-outs as I followed closely on their heels, prepared to follow them forever.
All around them, doors slammed, walls were pounded, howls echoed, and you could not tell which screams were coming from actors and which came from the embattled guests.
The Later the Show, the Bolder People Get
Which is to say, the higher and drunker some of the guests seemed.
Occasionally, dank and yummy scents peeled from off some of the guests, penetrating the darkness with smells of OG Kush and Durban Poison. As the hour grew later, there seemed to be a slight increase in belligerent people getting in my face.
Devin put it to us straight before the doors open. Every year there was someone whose edibles were just coming on, undetectable at the door, who usually couldn’t take the horrors at Urban Death Tour of Terror and had to be taken out of the maze.
She provided a safe word anyone of us could yell out should there be this kind of incident, or in the case someone gets hurt, endangered, or aggressive with the actors.
As the hour got later, it felt to me like some of the guests were becoming a little more defiant, from the torta who yelled, “Oh you can touch me, but I can’t touch you?,” after my big belly grazed her shoulder. Or the frat boy who went around screaming in every actor’s face.
But can you really blame them? Urban Terror takes some stones to get through. Or maybe something stronger.
It’s Harder Not To Touch People Than I Figured.
The rules were set. Do not touch anybody. They are not allowed to touch you. Makes complete sense.
But in a mask, in the dark, in tight confines, putting your finger out accusingly to beckon someone to their doom could very well result in someone getting poked in their eye.
All of which is to say, sorry to the dude I may have poked in the face.
Sorry, dude.
“Those Who Are Unaware They Are Walking In Darkness Will Never Seek The Light.”
Bruce Lee said that shit, so it’s gotta be true.
What I mean to say is, I think I got to know myself in there, sitting in total darkness in someone else’s underwear between maze shows. No phone. No book. No T.V. Only the bizarre musical cues of the stage show beyond the vinyl curtains, pulsing U.F.O. sounds, haunting strings, and scrambling claws, to moor me.
Is this the kind of mind-clearing bliss and spiritual rebirth Zen acolytes seek out in punishing cave meditations? If nothing else, it eradicated any vestiges of a childhood fear of dark rooms and Halloween mazes.
While playing my first character, I tapped into a dominant, bullying, and mean side of my shadow that I’m fully aware of in daily life. That felt easy for me and a healthy outlet for my anger and aggression.
For my other character, a sort of partially undressed, begging gimp, I had to expose a side of myself that was considerably more submissive, vulnerable, and defenseless. A reminder that acting allows you to use all sides of your instrument, including ones you might even hide from yourself.
Shouting at people as both characters was also quite cathartic, a primal scream therapy that pushed me to shout, shout and let it all out. Who doesn’t need that right now?
We’re Just People Behind The Masks.
Scare actors don’t rise from the grave to shuffle into work. They arrive in sedans and trucks, before limbering up for a night of heavy movement and vocal exertion. They debrief, get their pay, and go home late in the witching hours to homes as far away as Moorpark and Fullerton in anonymity.
The people I had the pleasure of meeting and acting with came from different walks of life. The maze volunteers that night included an Army veteran, a guitar player, sword swallower, and numerous professional actors. All of them nice, encouraging, and supportive of each other and the show to deliver the best performances.
The only bad men in masks around here seem to be the ones outside, covered frequently on this website terrorizing hard-working Los Angeles families. These monsters have even taken to wearing Halloween masks of their own now.
In Conclusion
I would 100% like to continue my career in scare acting. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try and getting the chance to frighten people lived up to my expectations.
Beyond that, I learned how seriously the professionals behind this small, independent theater take the horror business, doing incredible and demanding things for the thrills of the audiences they covet.
Along the way, I exorcised emotions that needed to get out and learned that the purification of a good haunt, like a good mosh pit, works both ways, for the artist as much as the customer.
Urban Death Tour of Terror has its final performances this Friday and Saturday at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater in North Hollywood, with tickets from $24-$28.
Additionally, it has a show in Las Vegas right now. The theater also runs bold and experimental productions year-round, including a current, gory piece on Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein.
I encourage everyone to experience this treasure of local theater, driven by talented casts and dedicated directors.
And as far as our career as a scare actor goes, we’re probably only able to survive it once a year at this age. But look forward to the next time.
Perhaps I’ll see you there …(evil laugh, evil laugh)
Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater ~ 4850 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601
