What does it take to be scary? Professional scare actors know the secrets

It’s a dark October night. You find yourself being ushered into a small illuminated elevator, unfamiliar but deceivingly cozy. A haggard elevator operator taps his cane firmly against the floor as he slowly introduces himself: “My name is Henry,” he says, shrinking into himself. “I’m excited to introduce you to the family.”

As the elevator operator clicks a button and the door slides shut, the lights flicker off. The operator begins to move around in the dark. The cane he carries thumps against the elevator floor with every step. Outside the elevator’s small room, the moon hangs high in the sky. The wind whistles a tune you can’t recognize.

Is that a bite of cold air creeping up your neck?

Then, whoosh, as the lights flick on, the operator is gone. You hear a blood-curdling scream as the door opens to reveal zombified millworkers, who screech and lurch toward you, happy to find their next meal.

“I’m the elevator operator, so I click a button, the door shuts, lights go on and off, and I’m moving around in the dark,” said Quinn O’Malley, an Algonquin College radio broadcasting student by day – and a professional scare actor by night. He plays the role of elevator operator.

“My whole shtick is a disappearing act,” said O’Malley. “This year I have the cane so I’m able to play into it where I’m walking around and you hear it. And then the second the lights go off, you don’t hear it, and then the second they come back on, you hear it.”

This elevator ride is an attraction at Frightfest at Saunders Farms. O’Malley and fellow radio-broadcasting student Fiona Smith study by day and fuel nightmares by night, when they assume their roles for Frightfest.

O’Malley plays a front-of-the-house character in the Sawmill attraction at Frightfest. There, it is his responsibility to be a ghost-host with the most. The Sawmill is an attraction that has guests descend into a hidden underground society. The society is full of lost, zombified millworkers.

This is one of the new attractions at Saunders Farms this fall.

“I will say a lot has changed, especially with the Coven. Sawmill was never a part of Saunders. Originally, it was a Lansdowne installment that they had for people that couldn’t necessarily make it out to the farm,” said Smith.

Smith is part of a different haunt than O’Malley, playing a possessed maid in the Coven. The Coven’s story was revamped for 2024 and now tells the tale of a vengeful Goddess who walks the farm grounds.

“Coven has had their story revamped because a lot of people weren’t finding it as scary,” she said.

Other new changes on the farm include changes to the hayride, which has a new accessibility platform so people with disabilities have an easier time accessing the ride.

In terms of scaring, Smith and O’Malley said that a lot of thinking is required to perform the perfect haunt. The thinking process is developed in their training period. The actors are encouraged to develop their roles as soon as they are assigned.

“Well, for your characters, some characters are very specific, like Quinn’s elevator operator,” said Smith. “They get lines. They get a premise to go off of. And some are a little more liberal, like mine. Mine’s just housekeeper, and my prompt was, ‘I’m being possessed by the part of the goddess of the haunt that I’m doing.”

You internalize the prompts that you’re given, explains Smith.

“You try to give that character a personality,” she said. “As you’re getting into character, you kind of go over in your head what things you can do to really put that character into fruition.”

Part of the process is naming the character you play, according to Smith and O’Malley. The reason is that naming your ghoul does two things: it makes it less scary, and it makes it easier for you to assume your role.

“Well, they call me Henry,” O’Malley said, his body folding in on itself, leaning in as he answered. “It’s my job to make sure my family gets what they need.”

“I also gave my character a name. Her name’s Penelope,” said Smith, sharpening her fingers and clutching herself tightly, twitching as she changed positions. “I can feel the goddess, she’s in my skin… and there’s no way out.”

But what happens when scare actors actually manage to get the reaction they seek?It’s interesting to see how people actually react to you, Smith explains.

“They know you’re a person, but you can bend reality to make them believe that, oh, that’s not a person,” she said. “I don’t look that intimidating as me, per se. But if I’m sitting in the corner, twitching and convulsing, or I turn around and I let out this huge shriek, you can even scare adults that are even, 30 plus.”

Guests often find themselves excited to get scared. What they don’t know is how exciting it is for the actors to give a guest a successful scare.

“Boo! That is the easy premise of it,” said O’Malley. “It is an utter adrenaline rush. I don’t mean that in like a mean way, because obviously someone’s terrified of you. Hearing those screams and knowing that you’re putting on a successful performance as someone whose passion is acting, it’s like no other joy.”

As it turns out, scare actors are not immune to their own tactics. O’Malley for instance, has a big fear of clowns. He also happens to share a breakroom with actors from Frightfest’s new Circus Macabre attraction. He credits the suspension of disbelief and the Saunders Farms actor’s toolkit for helping him with his fear.

For Sara St.Clair, a first-time Saunders Farms visitor, getting scared is simply an autumn activity. Her evening included going through haunt attractions such as the Coven and the Haunted Hayride.

“Honestly, I wanted to be scared,” she said. “Everyone here is so nice. The show was ten out of ten. The scare is everything.”