I woke up and my muscles are sore. My legs, my
right arm, and the muscles in my fingers are all tense and aching from
Halloween Horror Nights. A little bit in my abs too. …ladies.
I’ve
been involved with Halloween Horror Nights since 2004, and for seven of
those years I’ve been a scareactor at the event. Four in Universal
Orlando, and the last three at Hollywood’s park. And now, I
have finally made the choice to retire from it. And before anybody who
knows me says anything, Yes, I have said that before. I decided not to
do it in 2008 and instead enjoyed being a guest at the coolest event yet
(in which they finally took my idea to do nothing but fairy tales gone
wrong), but the next year I auditioned for Hollywood’s event while
visiting Los Angeles, and was back in the game. And I’ve said it would
be my last year plenty of times… but I think blogging this will make it
official.
It’s a great event, and I’m proud to
say this was the year that Halloween Horror Nights became the number one
Halloween attraction in Southern California, beating Knott’s Scary
Farm, which has been leading the race since they came up with the idea
thirtysome years ago. I’m also proud to say our house, “Alice Cooper’s:
Welcome to My Nightmare”, was consistently leading in points (or
something) through the entire month. And personally, I loved our haunted
house. I haven’t been so proud of a house or it’s cast since I first
joined HHN with Castle Vampyre, a house that won House of the Year and
was repeated the next two years. Alice Cooper’s Nightmare was just an
awesome, ass-kicking house, full of tons of crazy, scary stuff and Alice
Cooper references. Not to mention the rockin’ soundtrack. And for it, I
got to play an 8’ tall version of Alice Cooper who was commonly
mistaken for a pirate. All of this together made this the perfect year
to go out on. I don’t know if I could top that role or that house.
All
in all it was a good year. It was exhausting, grueling, demanding,
physically stressing work, like it always is. We had to endure cold
weather, hectic schedules, lots of prosthetic makeup, and a crazed guest
who trashed our backstage break area on the last night. The other stilt
walkers and I also had to deal with cheap stilts that were always
unstable, until most of us upgraded to the much better, but much heavier
stilts. Then we started this rotation system, it was weird. The point
is, we had it tough in having to deal with a set of nine pound metal
stilts; carrying them around the Scare Base where there wasn’t always
room for us to do, waiting for a van to take us down to our spot that
would still have room in it for us and all our stuff, and then
performing quick, repetitive movements with weights strapped around our
calves. Which is why so much of me is sore.
And
like I said, this year will be my last. I got some brutal scares, a
richly colored bruise (which you get every year), and I broke the set
(like I do every year), and I was there almost every night, still coming
up with crazy new ways to freak people out. The event really is
something special, and it has always made the Halloween season epic. But
while I'm working, I can never go to other Halloween events or parties,
or even see all of HHN for myself, and it pretty much takes over my
entire life for the time. I'm either working or recovering. But I want
my October back. When next year comes around, I’ll find something else
to do. It’s time for me to move on… I’ve done as much as I can... yada
yada. Point is, Horror Nights was fun, but I’m done now. I went out on a
"hell week" as a stilt walker in an amazing house in an impressive
year... that's a good way to finish.
Plus I scared Alice Cooper's family.
No comments:
Post a Comment