[Once
again I'm going to attempt to do a horror(ish) movie review a day for
the entire month of October. I've done this the last few years on The
Cleveland Movie Blog. Most of the time I succeeded (usually with the
help of a few other writers). Other times I didn't. We'll see if I can
pull it off this year.]
The documentary film HAUNTERS:
THE ART OF THE SCARE focuses
on three figures in the "haunted attraction" scene: Donald Julson, a former Hollywood prop designer who makes an
elaborate but still fairly traditional haunted maze in his home every Halloween,
Russ McKamey, a wedding singer and D.J. whose extreme “McKamey Manor” haunted
house goes well beyond most people's comfort zones, and haunt actor Shar Mayer, who has been dressing up
to scare people for decades now, working in just about every variety of haunted
attraction one could imagine. There are also brief asides to visit Blackout,
another extreme haunted attraction that goes so far as to include nude actors, and an interactive "haunted play" that has a storyline that incorporates its audience.
One of the major aspects of the film seems to be determining where
the line between good, scary fun and physical/psychological abuse is drawn. Given that a
large segment of the public seems to want more extreme scares, that’s not as
easy to pin down as one might think.
