Haunted House Hustle

As we get to the colder months and the leaves begin to change there is one holiday that can really take your breath away. I, of course, am talking about Halloween and all the screams that come with it.

With this sacred tradition of tricks and treats come some wonderful side hustles that you may not have thought about; Haunted Houses. I'm sure you've seen many free ones run by your neighborhood or church, but there are plenty that turn a profit and in turn look for even the green actors to hire.

Personally, this hustle served as my first job when I was 14/15. I know that's pretty young to be working, but some laws allow this as long as you're done by a certain time, working for/with family, or various other legal qualifications are met.

The haunted house I worked at was called Nightmare on Grayson. It was the oldest haunted house in San Antonio. Sadly it's no longer in business due to gentrification and rising prices. They did try to revive it as Fearista, but the new location and new name did not do them any favors. Two seasons at the new location and they were closed.

Now, the question is how did I even find this paying gig and when did they start hiring? Haunted House's generally start looking to hire early September as many open their doors the end of September. The hiring process can vary. Some will hire friends (small neighborhood or church house). Some of the bigger ones will post on their social media pages, job websites, or hire from within (like in the cases of pre existing theme parks). Personally, I found this job on Facebook. I know I know the dangers of Facebook, but to be honest this was near the time Facebook was just coming out and all the teens were switching from Myspace to Facebook.

The ad at the time gave a Gmail to submit your acting resume or job resume to (whichever you had, though they preferred acting). Acting resume just lists your talents/skills and looks (hair color, eye color, height, weight, clothing sizes); as well as previous acting jobs (if any). It also stated to bring a hardcopy with a headshot (a nice professional picture some people have multiple to fit various rolls and take the one that applies) to the auditions on such and such time/date/location.

The next part is how Grayson auditioned. Some things may be similar to other houses while some may not. Either way at least you will have a general idea of what to expect.

The auditions can go a few ways. For me it started with a basic run down. They explained that this would be a night job that was mainly weekends except it would become nightly the week before Halloween, the week of Halloween, and three days after Halloween. They told us the day before Halloween and Halloween everyone had to work. Calling out on those two days without a true emergency would ban you from working next season.

They then explained that if we had to call out there was a call out line that would be checked an hour before call time. If you did not call out an hour before call time you would be expected to show up or forfeit employment barring extenuating circumstances. Call time was 6pm for those that needed black light/3D makeup. Call time for normal makeup or masks/costumes was 7pm. Everyone needed to be in their scenes practicing, cleaning, and checking props no later than 7:30pm as the doors opened at 8pm.

They further explained that the line would be cut off at Midnight-2am depending on the day. After the last group went through we were to clean up our scene and go to the green room for an end of day meeting that generally takes 10 minutes. This meeting was to report the number of guests, who won the best scare of the night (bonus to your bi-weekly check), report anything broken to the crew, and any other relevant news. To top it off they did say that this is a warehouse that is not air conditioned. They do have overhead fans, but those don't always help. They said to be prepared for cold or heat and that it was mandatory we got gallon insulated water bottles. It was highly recommended that we drink two of those a night; ice and cold water would be provided. There was also a Medic on staff just in case any medical emergencies arose; as well as security that would be hired. To top it off there would be some daytime rehearsals the weekend before opening week that were mandatory.

If we could not commit to the long hours in a physically demanding job and make sure we were available to work we should leave now. A few people did get up and leave at that point. They then moved on explaining that this was a seasonal contract job. We would be listed as 1099s and taxes were our responsibility. Depending on the scene and our skill set we would be paid anywhere from 11-15 an hour. The 15 was for stilt walkers, scene floaters (aka those that could do multiple scenes to fill in for others who took breaks as well as working the crowd in the line and usually they had to know stilts or acrobatics as well), and those that could do more acrobatic stuff. Parking would be free for us. We would get 2 free tickets for friends or family. If we would like to go through the house we were allowed to do so on our break.

The next part of the audition/interview was the improv. To start they have everyone stretch and do some vocal warm ups then they go into the acting. There's two ways I've auditioned. The first season there were popsicle sticks. One was green and one was red. All of them were face down. The green gave you a character and the red gave you a scene. You would have to act as that character in that scene. They had some of the returning actors start to help the newer ones break the ice. The second season I auditioned they called two people up and gave them a scene and character to act with each other. Some will call people up a few times to break the ice while some houses will only call once.

After the general improv and usually a lot of laughs we were taken on a tour of the haunted house. At each scene we were asked to walk around to get a feel of the props and space. Then we were asked who would like to attempt to "work" the room. Those that volunteered would then be given a character and told to do some movements, sounds, and test out "scares" we would do to people (aka jump from behind a prop, crawl out from a grave, etc.). Some scenes had specific scares that had to be done while other scenes were up to the actor.

After the scenes we were shown the makeup room and the green room as well as all of the actor hallways (so we could get scene to scene or other actor areas and not disrupt the customers). Then we reconvened in the original room where we had copies taken of our social or passport and our ID or License. We filled out job paperwork, so they could do a background check and we were told we would be contacted in about a week if we got the job.

As you can tell from this article I did get the job. Let me tell you it was one of the hardest, but most fun jobs I've ever had. I was a full time high school student working from 6pm to 2am (poor mom had to be there due to laws, so she worked at the ticket booth for money and to stay awake) then getting up for school at 6am to 4:30pm. I was tired, but I couldn't let my grades slip or mom would make me quit. Many people quit after the first weekend because they couldn't deal with the heat (I personally got heat exhaustion once during my second year there). I also was on the receiving end of the fight or flight response emphasis on fight. Yes, the people who fought were quickly ejected from the house, but not before I had a few bruises to wear as a badge. I also had to deal with the occasional drunk or high patron and some "messes", but the hilarity of the scared reactions and the money made it a nice little gig. It's not something you can live off of, but it does put a little extra money in your pocket.

Note about the cover: A local magazine called San Antonio Current ran a story on Nightmare on Grayson's final Halloween season. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the monsters who got to model (girl in the off white dress). This was after the house had closed for the night (so about 2/3am). I had been playing La Llorona with a demonic baby doll under strobe lights in a hallway that was full of bloody hand and footprints. I was exhausted, but willing to still act for the camera.