Haunted houses are given in the season of fall, especially on Halloween. Whether it’s been the scariest thing you have been to or the weakest thing you’ve ever experienced, haunted houses are a way of life for loads of people, specifically the people that work at them.

   We often neglect the idea that there are people behind the masks of these horrifying creatures, most likely due to adrenaline or just straight up not caring since you’re being chased with a chainsaw and don’t have time to process the life of this person. Speaking of which, we have our very own haunted house worker with a lot of experience of horror under their belt.

   Trinity Hopper, a sophomore at Guilford, works passionately at the Karnival of Karnage, a haunted house in Belvidere, IL. 

   “I wanted to work at a haunted house because I wanted to dress up for Halloween and I went through (the Karnival of Karnage) last year, and it was really awesome,” said Hopper. “I just hoped for a year I would be allowed to volunteer and finally I was able to come out and help.”

   A haunted house has many positions and duties when it comes down to the “work” part of it. 

   “My area is considered the ‘kitchen’, there’s a lot of pots and pans. I really like it there but I would honestly like to work in the ‘graveyard’ area because I’m dressed as a skeleton.” said James, one of Hopper’s co-workers.

   The idea of a haunted house is a very talked about subject, but the thing that I feel like we should bring up a lot more often when haunted houses are brought up is that being rude to these workers isn’t funny or cool or anything like that. Being mean to a haunted house worker in character is like going to someone’s desk in an office and being mean to them for no reason. 

   “I usually just ignore rude people because it’s not really my problem and I’m just like, ‘no, I am not dealing with you right now,’” said Elliot, another one of Trinity’s co-workers. “If they start screwing with props or something though, I just text our company’s group chat so they can promptly get them out of there.”

   In short, haunted houses are just like any job, and as such, you should either give it a shot or just be respectful to the people working here. This kind of thing is other people’s passion; don’t knock it!