*cacophonous screech*

[Kittie]

Especially since i'm head in Radiance's torture team now

[Matrim Cauthon Jr]

Welcome Scaregasm! You'll fit right in!

[Scaregasm]

I've considered pointy sticks but then Tolkien's goblins from The Hobbit always come to mind.??And they always made me laugh even though they are supposed to be scary (ORCS are scary ).??Their elongated limbs, tiny torsos, and leathery donkey ears in addition to dull, chipped schimitars and/or pointy sticks was just too comedic for me to take seriously.??Hell, even Gollum fed on the occasion goblin.

Kitchen knives is one I have not considered.??Kitchen knives scream of many things frightening:??latenight opportunistic home invaders, psycho serial killers, exasperated wives.??Plus, they are one of the few things that are made scarier the better condition they are in.??(Seriously, a dull rusty kitchen knife can give you tetanus, but a sharp Ginsu will sever the aorta effortlessly).

In any case, when wandering the middle of a forest on a moonlit night the sillhouette of an ax is far more frightening than your prized Ronco chef's knife.??Cleavers are nice but too cliche.

An ax just says violence.??There is nothing smooth, gentle, or clean about murdering someone with an ax.??It's angry, bloody, psychotic.??Ax murder says "I hate you and I want to make sure you stay dead."??


Edit - I was just sitting here considering the intimacy of the kitchen knife.??The necessity of proximity with the knife says that you want to embrace every aspect of the death of your victim (keep in mind here that the main focal point when working a haunt is that you want your patrons to believe their lives are in danger.??It is all an illusion.??I'm truly a philathropist at heart... I just love scaring people lol).??Wielding a chef's knife high and screaming is effective, but for maximum benefit one would do best to play the insanity card.
Rather, you get close and speak in a calming voice about how much blood the human body holds, where the threshold is for supporting consciousness, and how long it would take to reach this point when different areas of the body are subject to incision.??Perhaps you don't want them to scream or a certain facial feature would look nice in a jar by the door.
This is a very, very interesting path I will consider.
The other people who work here just jump out and make the stereotypical monster noises.??I play on people's phobias.??Not everyone is scared of sudden movements and loud noises.?? A lot more people are scared of psychos with weapons.
Everyone is scared of the apathetic intellectual with a ginsu knife and all the time and patience in the world...

[Matrim Cauthon Jr]

So shall we call you Lizzy Borden?

[Scaregasm]

There was actually little proof to suggest Lizzy Borden murdered her parents. It was a classic Kurt Cobain scenario. Everyone thought she did it so therefore she did it.

[Incarn]

I love you.

[Idiom]

Scaregasm Wrote:An ax just says violence.??There is nothing smooth, gentle, or clean about murdering someone with an ax.??It's angry, bloody, psychotic.??Ax murder says "I hate you and I want to make sure you stay dead."??

Perhaps that is why axes don't scare me. While it can represent somebody who just wants to kill kill kill, it also seems to denote somebody who cares more for blind destruction than the death of their victim (thus making them sloppy), or simply somebody who is unskilled in performing the actual act (making them sloppier still). With the shape and balance of the axe, it makes it rather unsuitable for actually killing somebody as opposed to other methods. While a really good swing can potentially chop right through bone, this is simply not necessary to kill and leaves unnecessary holes in the offense. If the object was *stationary*, however -- either by being bound, being asleep, etc -- then I could consider the axe something worthwhile, as the strengths of the weapon are played to their fullest without the drawbacks in that situation. I think the main reason axes works as a major scare tactic is largely because most people don't get exposed to it beyond horror films. A kitchen knife, it's hard to *not* see it every now and then. An axe? Not so much.

Quote:...for maximum benefit one would do best to play the insanity card.

Rather, you get close and speak in a calming voice about how much blood the human body holds, where the threshold is for supporting consciousness, and how long it would take to reach this point when different areas of the body are subject to incision.??Perhaps you don't want them to scream or a certain facial feature would look nice in a jar by the door.

Hm. I can't really argue with you that this would potentially be effective. It feels off for me simply because it's not how I would prefer to handle things, but it would probably work.

I feel that distortions are the most frightening, personally. Contrasts. While something horrible can most definitely be frightening, something that is horrible that contrasts heavily with our preconceived notions of said object is far worse. The sincere doctor who wants to "open you up to see what's wrong". The little girl who details an interest in your internal organs, all with an innocent smile on her face and a *purity* about her.

Even a simple change of "Please don't scream" could indicate a measure of politeness and sincerity that clashes so heavily with the intent as to cause so much more damage than a simple "don't scream" command.

The insanity card can be useful, most certainly, but I feel that it causes the victim to see the perpetrator less and less as a "human" and more as a monster. Outright Insanity is an effective monster, to be sure, but monsters can only manage so much.


~~~

Nearly forgot... >_>;;

Welcome to heRO, may your stay be both enjoyable and fruitful.

[Mochi]

This thread feels like one of those ... vampire.. witchcraft....dexter fanclub forums ...

[Shikari]

Scaregasm Wrote:There was actually little proof to suggest Lizzy Borden murdered her parents.??It was a classic Kurt Cobain scenario.??Everyone thought she did it so therefore she did it.

Actually, all the evidence was circumstantial.

Either she was crazy and someone else killed her parents, or she was crazy and she killed them. Most of what she told the cops were lies, however they couldn't find evidence to the contrary (or in favor of her lies).

Lizzie Borden took an axe
and gave her father 40 whacks
after she saw what she had done
she gave her mother forty-one.


Weapon of choice are knives, machetes are nice though, I own and old rusty one (:

[Scaregasm]

I'm not sure of your physical stature nor of what variety of axes you have handled but my ax is perhaps 16 (MAYBE 20) ounces in the head with a hickory handle.??Its very light and easy to manage.??Plus I have good aim.??

Different things scare different people which is exactly why I don't like our current setup.??With the exception of (literally) four stations, everyone is set to just jump out and scream a pathetic scream.??Startling maybe, but definitely not scary.

I've put to the owner several ideas I've had which play on actual phobias.??Like digging a hole about three or four feet deep but presenting the illusion that it is much deeper then making acrophobes cross it on a steel I-beam.??Driving agoraphobes into a miss-mesh maze of chainlink fences from which it seems there is no escape.??We already have something for the clautrophobes that works wonders on even those who wander through not being phased by anything.??We have an evil clown for those types as I've mentioned somewhere.

I want there to be a spot where the path opens into a wide clearing and when the group gets to the center they are advanced upon from all sides by zombies!??I want to replace the nylon string guides (or at least some of them) with 1/8 inch steel cable so when we run our machetes across it it sparks!??For people afraid of strangers I want to incorporate them into various places.??Plant an employee in a group as a tag along and have something happen to them or perhaps have them do something to the group.??Or the same thing but the stranger is found somewhere in the woods after his own group ditched him.

There is so much we can do but we aren't.??The formula has worked for over twenty years so they are reluctant to change.??But it could work so much better if we played on more than a few fears.

Between me, the chainsaws, and the "dog house" (a three foot high shelter people have to crawl through for about ten feet and which a guy hits the sides of when people enter and progress through... the thing that gets the claustrophobes and probably some agoraphobes) it's hard to tell who gets the most screams.??But one out of about five groups are those people who just aren't scared of any of this.??They laugh at the chainsaws, lazily look my way when I scream at them, or just advance through the doghouse like its a damn queue at McDonald's. Nothing gets these people and they aren't getting their moneys worth.

We need to provide the illusion that people's lives or well being are in danger.??Tweens in rubber masks going "BLAHGAHA!" does not adequately provide this.??:/


Lizzie Borden's mom and dad received 17 and 19 whacks if I remember correctly, btw.

I don't do vampires (or vampyres) or witchcraft (I do love Dexter, though).??This is only about a job I do for a month out of the year that is slowly grating at me because of the potential it has which is not realized by the proprietor.

I should design my own scare house and find an investor...


Edit - Oh yeah, my favorite idea is to have one station come to life suddenly when a group is in front of it.??Bright strobe lights blind while the heaviest of heavy metal (like Lamb of God, Sepultura, Cannibal Corpse, or Slayer) deafens - both of which cause disorientation.??Then at least four people come running from all sides, at least two have chainsaws, and all are making a racket.??Just from a quiet, serene forest to a bloody amalgam of sensory violence.??It may not scare people but it will shake them which is perfect for what else is to come further up the path...