June Casagrande Somewhere in the shadows of...

June Casagrande

Somewhere in the shadows of the psyche lies the place where fear,

surprise and horror add up to thrills. A bizarre and guilty glee --

the very essence of Halloween -- comes from combing a precise measure

of shock with just-so doses of revulsion, danger and death.

Every year, countless millions of people file through haunted

houses across the country in hopes of hitting this nerve. They stick

their hands in slimy spaghetti, jump sky-high as ghouls lunge at them

from the shadows and luxuriate in gory scenes of corpses and hearses.

“It’s a combination of all sensory things -- your auditory senses

and your smell factor, the sight of smoke, the effect of the lights.

You try to wrap somebody in this sensual experience that creates the

‘Ooooh!’” said Jim McAleer, who on Thursday was helping to set up one

of the creepiest haunted houses in town.

What was first shaping up as a “kiddie haunted house” evolved on

Saturday into a full-scale fright factory: the haunted house portion

of the one-day Newport Coast Cares Halloween Carnival, a fund-raiser

for Corazon de Vida, which feeds orphans in Baja California, Mexico.

With donated space from the Newport Coast Shopping Center, donated

handiwork from contractor Tom Daily and donated talents from haunted

house experts Bloodline Productions, the house evolved into a spooky

spectacle beyond even McAleer’s wildest dreams.

“The haunted house is really the icing on the Halloween cake of

this event,” said McAleer, executive director of Corazon de Vida. “It

has turned into something really impressive.”

Meanwhile, across town on Saturday, there were reports of ghastly

events at the site of what was once the serene-seeming Andersen

School. Here, as part of the school’s annual Pumpkin Patch Carnival,

a haunted house continues today to tingle the spines of all who dare

enter.

“It’s a seven-room haunted house with different live scenes in

each room,” explained Mark Craig, a parent volunteer with Dads

Eliminating Andersen Needs, which puts on the event every year as a

fund-raiser for the school.

The hardest part of putting on the perfect haunted house, he said,

is not creating the dark and ominous atmosphere. It’s getting the

volunteer actors to deliver the same scream-inspiring performances

every few minutes.

“The guy in the electric chair having the switch thrown on him,

getting shocked, he’s got to act like he’s getting shocked every

couple of minutes for two or three hours,” Craig said.

Luckily, they have some good volunteers: parents of Andersen

students and even members of the Corona del Mar High School Drama

Club.

“A good measure of success for us is when people come back through

the haunted house one or two or three times, maybe come through on

Saturday then come back Sunday,” said Craig, who has been involved in

the Andersen fund-raiser for all three years of its existence.

Jim Reed, a parent of two Andersen students who this year is

heading up the school’s haunted house, said that a key ingredient is

dedication.

“To put on a haunted house requires a lot of help from many

volunteers,” said Reed, whose kids helped conceptualize this year’s

Andersen haunted house.

The volunteers from Bloodline Productions, creator of the Newport

Coast Cares haunted house, have had plenty of experience creating

things that frighten. The Orange County-based company’s whole

business is haunted houses. Perhaps best-known among locals for

creating the haunted house at the Irvine Spectrum, the company works

its macabre magic to create mobile haunted houses it rents out for

businesses and parties.

Kami Safadari, manager of Bloodline Productions, said the key to

serious scares is in the detail.

“When you’re in a suspended state of reality, you can believe

you’re actually part of the scene,” Safadari said. “we try to put in

as much detail as we can to make people believe they’re in that

scene, then the ‘scares’ are most effective.”

Like Andersen’s haunted house, the Newport Coast house uses live

performers to give a pulse to the heart-stopping frights. But the

Newport Coast house also has some hands-on (or perhaps better stated:

hands-in) events for younger kids. A front room of the house included

tactile terrors like wet spaghetti punctuated by some ghouls jumping

out with a “boo” or two. But from there, only the older kids were

permitted to pass through the door to the anterooms of the haunted

house, where more serious shockers took place.

“The biggest element to a haunted house, to me, is surprise,” said

McAleer, who projected that proceeds from this year’s event will

probably be enough to feed one orphanage for a whole year. “It’s not

the headless horseman. It’s the fact that you’re not expected a

haunted horseman to jump out at you. With little kids, you want to

entertain. You don’t want to put them in therapy for years. But when

a kid hits 12 or so, what’s entertaining is the heightened scare

factor. Oh, and it’s important to note that nobody gets grabbed. The

performers don’t grab anyone. That’s too terrifying. You’re trying to

instill fear, not terror. Terror bad. Fear good.”

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at

(949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at june.casagrande @latimes.com.