I Worked at Spooky World for a Night

Clowns are the most terrifying things in the whole goddamn world. They make me want to pee myself. They’re the antithesis of childhood merriment, and anyone who disagrees with that statement makes no sense to me at all. They’re just fucking evil. Whenever I see one I’m constantly reminded of this creepy clown picture that my grandfather used to own. It hung all awful and clown-like over the bed in the guest room of his house and whenever I’d sleep over, I’d open the door, walk into the room, slowly turn the corner and instantly lock eyes with that piece of shit painting that looked like it wanted to eat me. I cried, naturally, because I was a big wimp-wimp, and my gramps took it down from the wall and banished the picture to a darkened corner of the basement where I couldn’t see it, but where I knew it was thinking of ways to eat my brains. Stupid clowns.

So of course, the moment I set foot inside “Freak Show 3D,” a wondrous world of 3D clown smut that was a top attraction at this year’s Spooky World/Nightmare New England festivities in Litchfield, New Hampshire, I shook, I cowered, I became that little kiddie wimp that was too much of a pussy to face Pennywise’s distant cousin long ago, and I was forced to face it all alone. My photographer/friend, Karen (who is NOT a pussy), was all caught up in taking pictures of everything and anything because taking pictures on Adderall is apparently a fun thing to do.

Now in its 19thyear, America’s Mutha FunkiN Horror Theme Park: Spooky World—one of the largest, independently owned horror parks in the country—has had its fair share of location changes. From the isolated backwoods of Berlin, MA, to the not-so-scary realms of Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park (seriously, who the fuck decided on that?), the people behind Spooky World/Nightmare New England (two North Eastern horror parks that joined forces in 2008) finally put their (severed) heads together before the 2010 season and brought the world of fake blood and maniacal screams to a remote part of New Hampshire where breaking down in your car during any other time of the year would probably get you dismembered or Deliverance-d.

Since its beginnings as a haunted hayride, violently enhanced by Hollywood special effects, the three-hour-long line and random appearances from Halloween-y figures like Alice Cooper, Linda Blair, and Elvira (one of my first girl crushes) in the early 90s, has since morphed itself into a fairground of family-friendly terror that’s now broken up into six, three-hour-long lines instead of one, and that no longer sends out invitations to Hollywood’s B-list elite. Needless to say, this disappointed me some as the possibility of seeing, or even meeting, Elvira was exciting. “That’s the number one thing that people ask: ‘Who are the celebrities?’ We want to be known for the haunted houses and the actors and the show. We don’t want to mask it with like, bringing celebrities in and have that be the reason why people come up here. We want people to come here for what it is that we built,” explains Spooky’s PR man, Mike Krausert, as I wipe away the sad from my eyes.

Eh, fair enough, I guess.  And then, due to ADD that I sometimes can’t control, I asked if what they’ve built over the years has ever scared the life out of someone, literally:

“In the first year [in Litchfield], a lady had a slight heart attack. I don’t think it was from us [yes it was].  I think that you’re more likely to see people piss themselves [then die]. So, it happens [pee, not death]. People react differently. You’ll see.”

And I did see, indeed. For 30 fantastical minutes straight, I saw the frightened looks of the old people and children that I tormented back-to-back, and I saw my hand pat my back all congratulatory-like for requesting to scare the crap out of people and have it immediately ok’ed without hesitation.

Moments before the park officially opened, Jesse, a graduate of the New Hampshire Institute of Art, transformed my already scary face into a mangled mess that looked as if I’d been attacked by a legion of wildebeests on bath salts, and then proceeded to send me towards the haunted Brigham Manor where I’d frighten stupid mortals behind creaky wooden doors momentarily. Jesse’s boyfriend, Chase, a former scare-master-turned-manager of some sort, gave me a few pointers beforehand on how to effectively open the doors I was hiding behind while screaming things like “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!”/ “I’M GONNA EAT YOUR CHILDREN!!!!!!” /”EEWWW, YOU’RE A HICK!!!!!!!” in a loud and vulgar way that anywhere else, at any other time, would have landed me in jail. But I did great and I screamed in the ears of those I didn’t know and cast wicked glares of evil over frightened faces, and it was great.

The night was coming along famously. We crossed off the 3D clowny weirdness from our things-we’d-already-seen list, traipsed through graveyards, made friends with a British dude who thought my fake, British accent was the real deal (I’m really great at accents, by the way), watched monsters and devil-clowns scare unassuming victims emerging from port-a-potties, and talked with actors about fetus consumption as a way of protesting the Republican party (?), all within the first hour of our arrival. We also met a zombie prophet who encouraged passers-by to paintball his non-prophet, zombie friends in a game of Zombie Paintball and warned the unconcerned about the upcoming zombie apocalypse: “PREPARE FOR THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! WE MUST REPENT! THE GATES OF HELL WILL OPEN! HEAVEN HAS CAST US ASSUNDER! THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE IS NOW! THE DEAD WALK AMONG US! SHOOT THE DEAD, IN THE HEAD!” and we also met a guy with real fangs named Tom, and burrowed our way through “the Claustrophobia Bag,” inside of Torment: a tight, blown up hole that required you shove your way to the other side without shocking yourself on the electrical currents that ran through the wall. Seriously. I felt like I was lost in a vagina (that shocked people); worried that I’d never make it out alive but thankfully did. And soon enough, our time in Litchfield had come to a mildly bloody end (no it didn’t) and we bid NH adieu.

Overall, Spooky World/Nightmare New England was enjoyable, but it lacked the psychotronic violence of its yesteryear that I fell in love with as a kid. Maybe next Halloween I’ll head down to Manhattan and fulfill my horror fix at the infamous Blackout, a horror house that makes you sign a friggin waiver before you walk through and then apparently hurdles rubber penises [EDIT: They're real!] at your face and really fucks you up after it’s over. But to be honest, I’d rather deal with flying, plastic appendages than deal with 3D clowns that ignite my anxiety/PTSD symptoms in a way that I’m still not comfortable addressing.  Clowns really are the worst.