So last night, Christopher and I went out to dinner and we were kicking around the idea of going to one of the local theme parks for their Halloween event. We weren’t sure if we wanted to do Halloween Haunt and Knott’s “Scary” Farm or Halloween Horror Night at Universal Studios. And that’s when I told him that the one haunted house I’d been to at Universal was pretty damn scary.
Christopher: When did you go there?
Me: When I was running camp. I took the kids. Didn’t I tell you this story?
It turns out I hadn’t told him the story of my day at Universal with the 7 – 12 year olds that were in my camp for a week. I told him the story and by the time I was finished, he was laughing hysterically — possibly because he finds anything that puts me in a difficult position funny– and he told me I absolutely had to re-tell the story on the blog. So here goes…
Most of you know last summer, I was in charge of a camp at a YMCA and there were 16 or so children in my care for one week. One of the day-long field trips associated with the camp was a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood. And the kids were very much looking forward to it.
So the day before we’re supposed to go, I print out a map of the theme park (in retrospect I must’ve had a brain tumor for even thinking this would work) and try to plot out our day to make the most efficient use of our time. In doing so, I realize that Universal has opened a brand new “walk-through” haunted house positioned very close to the entrance of the park. Thinking this would be a great place to start, I get the kids all excited about the haunted house (I’m persuasive like that).
So the day comes and we’re there. It’s me, 16 kids, and a guy named James (the male adult chaperone who accompanied us so I wouldn’t have to send the boys into the public restrooms by themselves to be gang-raped by pedophiles. I was glad to have James along). Everybody’s all psyched up about the haunted house UNTIL… we get to the front of the line and it’s time to actually enter the house. James calls my name. I turn around. Half my kids are bailing, too chicken to go in. Dammit, I think. Those little pussies… they’re messing up my whole time efficiency thing. The problem is, the other half are still jazzed about going in, so James yells up to me that he’ll stay outside with the other kids and we can meet ‘em when we’re done. I yell okay and head into the haunted house.
Except it turns out that the brave souls who decided to go in with me weren’t even close to getting to enter the haunted part of the house. There was a whole other line inside that wound around and around until you get to the “real” haunted house. Those sneaky fucking haunted house designers I think as I cursed them under my breath. They entice you to go in thinking it’s a short line, but in reality, it’s all a big ruse. Oh well… what can you do?
So here we are, me with 7 kids, all in our hideously bright orange impossible-to-lose-sight-of-each-other camp shirts, slowly making our way through the inner maze a few inches at a time. On the walls of the “inner holding pen/line area” are movie posters of Universal Studios’ famous horror movies. Battling boredom, the kids start to ask me what the movies were about considering none of them were born before 1995 and had no business seeing some of these films.
Sweet kid: Miss Christine… what was Dawn of the Dead about?
Me: That was about zombies.
Annoying kid: What’s a zombie?
Me: They’re dead people who aren’t really dead and they come out of the ground and eat your flesh.
As soon as the words escape my lips, I realized that maybe I should’ve toned that down a little. Their eyes get wide. They all go silent for a minute as their young little minds start to absorb the idea of flesh-eating corpses.
Me: Zombies aren’t really that scary though.
It was a decent effort, but I don’t think they bought it. By the time we got to the poster of Hannibal Lechter and Anthony Hopkins’ scary ass face behind that iron mask that prevented him from opening his jaws enough to cannibalize people… I’m praying they don’t ask me what that movie was about.
Overweight Girl: Miss Christine… what’s Silence of the Lambs?
Fuck. I look at the picture of Sir Anthony in his mask and wonder if I can make up something believable about that mask.
Me: You know… I’m not sure because I never saw that one.
They bought it. We move on.
A good forty-five minutes later we are finally nearing the end of the interior line and approaching a holding room for the “real” haunted house. I look up to see a big white sign prominently posted on the wall. It reads…
“This attraction is too intense for children under 13. It is not intended for pregnant women or anyone with: a heart condition, claustrophobia, high blood pressure, a fear of the dark, or the elderly.”
Oh. Fuck. 1. Why the hell couldn’t they have put that sign on the “outside” line so we could’ve seen it before we wasted 45 minutes standing in line, and 2. None of my kids are 13 yet and the youngest one with me is 7. The last thing I need is for their parents to be calling me up bitching about why their children have turned into insomniacs because I took them on a ride that was clearly posted as being inappropriate.
Thinking fast, I decide there’s no turning back now. Besides… it’s a haunted house… how bad can it be???
I stand in front of the sign so the kids can’t see it.
We get up to the entrance of the “real” haunted house. There is an employee standing there with a flashlight.
“Is this really that scary?” I whisper to her. She looks at my kids in their orange shirts, every one of them already needing to hold on to some part of my body. Two share my left hand, one has my right hand in a death grip, the overweight girl has her hands on my shoulders behind me, the shortest one is holding on to the hem of my ugly shirt. She nods. “Yeah… it actually is.” She says.
I was about to find out just how serious she was being…
We walk into the haunted house and let me give you some visuals… the entire house is a maze of rooms dedicated to different fucking-ass-scary movie monsters. With all the technology you’d expect from a theme park dedicated to special effects, there are all kinds of disgusting things everywhere. Vampires, Frankenstein, serial killers, witch trials, people being tortured, people being murdered, Chucky, Bride of Chucky, bodies hanging from the ceiling in plastic body bags, executions. You name it, it was there. And not only that… there was an army of demented 20-something boys dressed up in various costumes with plastic weapons who were paid to jump out of the darkness and fake like they were going to hack you to pieces. And they must’ve been well-paid because they took their jobs very seriously.
My kids turn into a complete MOB. They are screaming at the top of their lungs, stepping on my feet, tearing at my clothes, trying to hang on to me for dear life… They’re trying to run from the attacking creatures, dogpiling onto one another, crashing into the people ahead of us and behind us…
And it’s the longest freaking haunted house I’ve ever seen. It must’ve been three full stories of tightly wound rooms filled with disgusting images and psychotic “actors” fulfilling their fantasies of being “Jason.”
We finally get to this part where there is a single-file, swinging foot bridge over pitch darkness. The seven of us are simply not going to be able to stay together. They freeze. With tears streaming down their faces they beg me not to make them go… as the line is backing up behind us…
Me: You gotta go guys. We’re almost done… Just go one at a time and hurry…
I no more than get the pep talk out when a 6-foot “werewolf” with bloody claws steps out of the shadows and BLOCKS the exit of the bridge.
The youngest one looks back at me with terrified eyes…
“I can’t… I can’t…” he says.
“Yes you can! Just go, go, go…!”
He takes off running across the bridge right into the clutches of the werewolf when…
ANOTHER werewolf leaps up from under the bridge and the kids let out shrill SCREAMS. The youngest kid slips by the two wolves and disappears into the next room.
The next one goes… he makes it across.
The other five, as if in some sort of telepathic consensus, decide we’re all going across this bridge together and they PULL ME across the bridge with them. The werewolves, loving the drama of petrified children, grab at us, growling and waving their bloody claws in our faces.
We get to the other side and make it into the room where the other two boys are waiting. They’ve been scared into silence.
“We made it!” I yell and the kids RACE out of the haunted house and into the sunlight. As I look at their horrified little faces, I realize they’re scarred for life.
What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger I think to myself wondering if that’s the right thing to say to them right now. Instead, I say… “Wow… you guys were so brave! That was a pretty scary haunted house, huh?”
They all nod, still speechless.
The truth? It was the scariest freaking haunted house I’ve ever been in. Much, much too intense for children under 13.
Their cheeks are still wet with tears. I see Scooby coming on a trolley with a bunch of other dancing cartoon characters. I decide distraction is the key to making sure none of these kids’ parents file a lawsuit against me. “Look! Scooby’s coming!” We all run down to watch Scooby and Shaggy and Spongebob.
Nothing pushes the image of being chased through the darkness by homicidal maniacs out of your cerebral cortex like seeing a wide-eyed sponge dancing on a street trolley. And that was the first and last time, I will ever take a group of young children into a haunted house. Lesson learned. Anxious to let me babysit your kids yet??? Yeah… I thought so…
