As the natural light dims, and dusk settles over the Santa Maria Elks Unocal Event Center, things begin to pick up at the Grimsley Haunt. Fog machines, strobe lights, lasers, and eerie music coalesce within the plywood labyrinth of the haunt, where gruesome tableaus and claustrophobic spaces await willing visitors. But of course, the visitors aren’t alone in the dark, meandering maze.
This year marks a departure from the Grimsley Haunt’s usual venue, explained Barrett Grimsley, who has staged his interactive scare attraction at his home every year until now. He’s collected props, equipment, and techniques over the years, Grimsley explained, but nothing he’s attempted before compares to the scope of this year’s event.
“As haunters, we call it going from a home haunt—because we did it from our house—to going pro haunt. Getting a location,” he said. “All the special effects have been updated. We’ve got more lighting, more sound, animatronics, bigger and better fog machines—I mean, these aren’t the ones you get at your local Halloween store, these are like the ones you see at Universal Studios. Those ones are pro.”
Grimsley and his team began constructing the haunt in early August and have dedicated “uncountable man hours” getting it together, he explained. Lots of old props, walls, and other pieces were adapted from previous haunts, but much more had to be made from scratch.
This year’s haunt has a ghoulish psyche ward theme. Visitors enter a disheveled and mysteriously stained waiting room, where Nurse Rachet greets them and informs the fear chasers of the haunt’s rules. The actors, though terrifying, won’t touch the visitors, and the visitors are expected to keep their hands to themselves as well.
The maze itself is designed to amp up fear, Grimsley said, from pitch-black hallways to confusing side detours. Those navigating the maze can’t see too well and get easily disoriented, he explained, which creates a perfect environment in which his actors can deliver some scares.
“I think it’s part of something that has to do with the senses. When you’re a child, there are certain things you’re afraid of automatically, like loud noises, which is why, a lot of time with the actors just doing something like that,” he said, slamming a plywood wall with his hand, “will scare people. It’s what the darkness does to the senses.”
Back in his home haunt days, Grimsley had anywhere from eight to 10 actors participating in the scare tactics, but now, with double the size, he needs double the actors—between 15 and 20—inside the haunt during its business hours on Fridays and Saturdays through Oct. 31.
Some of these actors are new to the Grimsley Haunt, but others have haunted with Grimsley for years and have honed the finer arts of jump scares and general ghoulishness.
“I love the acting aspect of it; I think it’s really fun to scare people,” said Cori Matherly, who will have scared with the haunt for three years this year. “The first year I was involved, I was a screaming banshee, all I did was scream, and my favorite scare was a gentleman in a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man costume, and I screamed at him and he fell right to the floor. It was the best thing ever.”
Every member of the team—from Grimsley himself to each actor and technician involved—guard the secrets of their production carefully. Whether it’s how they can appear in one part of the maze in one moment and be in a whole other area seconds later, or exactly how many active scare actors there really are, it’s all part of the uncertainty that helps get the fear response going.
The haunt is designed to be scary and disorienting, Grimsley said, so it may not be the best place to bring a youngster in a Disney/Pixar costume or anyone who truly suffers from claustrophobia or epilepsy due to the strobe lights.
“It’s a scary place for kids, but we allow the parents to make their choice if they want to take their kids in there,” he said. “We’ve absolutely had 7-year-olds in and they cry like crazy, but then we also have other 7-year-olds come in, and they absolutely love it.”
While the Grimsley Haunt delivers at a pro haunt level, there are still plenty of locals putting on home haunts, or vast front yard scenes of anything eerie, spooky, or ghoulish.
Local couple Wayne and Wendy Steller turned their front yard, driveway, and garage into a massive Old West themed scene, which they call the Halloween Ghost Town. The couple began the tradition years ago as a celebration of their engagement anniversary. They were engaged in 1996 at the Santa Maria Inn, when Wayne crashed a Halloween ball as Darth Vader, carrying a jack-o’-lantern carved to read “Marry Me?”
The two have created a scene every other year ever since, Wayne Steller explained, because the amount of work the two put in each year is staggering. They began construction on this year’s scene in January, he said, prowling antique shops, thrift stores, estate sales, and garage sales looking for antique furniture to create that Old West feel.
“Every other year it’s something different,” he said. “We had a doctor theme, a married and buried theme, we had a twisted Christmas and Halloween one year …”
The Steller’s Halloween Ghost Town doesn’t include any live actors, they explained, and is open to visitors beginning in the late morning or early afternoon most days. This makes the scene more approachable to youngsters, they said, who might be too afraid to approach a scene populated with zombies, skeletons, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolf Man at night.
Interacting with people and seeing their reactions is the payoff for the couple, but especially the kids, Wendy Stellar said.
“For me, I was raised Jehovah’s Witness, so I had my first holidays at 30,” she said. “So maybe I’m making up for lost time, reliving my childhood a bit.”
The scene reveals plenty of playful creativity, from a pet cemetery inhabited by a number of skeletal Chihuahuas to a whole bar scene in their garage, complete with a decomposing country band. It’s a great way for the couple to get creative together, they said, and they’re happy to display it all month long.
Just down the street from the Stellars’ home on East Mariposa Way is Allan Hancock College, where the men’s and women’s basketball teams have created a massive haunted maze on the baseball and softball complex that is also home to the college’s vineyard.
The fundraising attraction, named Frightmare Forest, winds around the 3-acre piece of land, beginning and ending in the softball field, and meandering around the vineyard, explained the men’s team head coach Tyson Aye. The setting is a great place for an open air haunting experience, he said.
“It’s outside,” he said, “and being outside, walking through a vineyard at night, that kind of adds to it. There are no lights on that property.”
Frightmare Forest is less of a maze and more of a thrill walk that guides visitors in a clear direction, Aye explained. The rows are wide, so anyone uncomfortable with close spaces won’t feel boxed in.
But it will be dark, and there’ll be live scare actors, he said, including members of both teams.
“The players are really looking forward to scaring some community members,” said lead assistant coach Joshua Motenko.
“A lot of them can’t wait to see the coach get scared,” Aye added.
Even under so much darkness and with agile actors ready to pounce, Aye said the event is designed to be family friendly and not too scary for kids. They’ve even devised a simple measure that allows visitors to choose the intensity of their experience, he explained.
“Everyone coming in will get a glowing wristband,” he said. “And we’re going to give the younger kids that don’t want to be scared so much a red wrist band, so the scarers see that and think, ‘If it’s red, let’s pump the breaks.’ So in that way we will be able to cater to all ages.”
There’s already a buzz around Frightmare Forest, Aye explained, as volunteers and other students joined the members of each team in constructing, furnishing, and manning the large outdoor attraction.
The proceeds raised from the ticket prices go toward the teams’ expenses, Aye said, which include anything from jerseys to transportation. It’s a great chance for the student athletes to have a direct relationship with the community, he explained, while everybody gets to have a good time just before the basketball season starts.
“We’re a community college, so we want to do things that get the community involved,” he said. “We want to do things for the community to bring people on campus to meet me and my coaches and players, so they think, ‘That guy that scared me, he’s a pretty good ball player.’”
Halloween Ghost Town
Halloween Ghost Town is open through Oct. 31 on weekdays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on the weekends from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at 513 E. Mariposa Way, Santa Maria. Free.
Grimsley Haunt
The Grimsley Haunt is open Friday and Saturday through Oct. 31 from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Elks Unocal Event Center, 4040 S. Highway 101, Santa Maria. Cost is $10, $5 for kids. More info: 757-0658 or grimsleyhaunt.com.
Frightmare Forest
Frightmare Forest is a benefit scare maze for the Allan Hancock College basketball teams happening Fridays and Saturdays from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Allan Hancock College Baseball and Softball Complex, 800 S. College Drive, Santa Maria. Cost is $10. More info: 922-6966, Ext. 3918, or joshua.motenko@hancockcollege.edu.
Have a scare?
You can add your haunted house or other scare attraction to the Sun’s community calendar by emailing calendar@santamariasun.com or directly submit online.
Contact Arts Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 22-29, 2015.
