Friday, October 29, 2010

Halloween Weekend at Frightmare Manor



As I've been telling you, this month has been a frightful one.


This Halloween weekend is likely to be a time of hard work and constant screams as we ramp it all up for the crowds - which have grown and grown and will be huuuuuuuuge this weekend. The performers and the staff at Frightmare Manor work very long hours to make you shiver, shake and scream.

Last night was pretty good too - two ambulances carted would-be challengers away. Yep, ambulances. Seems a couple of folks took the money-back challenge and well, just got overwhelmed. No one was really hurt, panic just took them over and they called the ambulance - and there is good reason folks have to sign a waiver to take the challenge. Sometimes folks might just encounter something they cannot endure or overcome. It happens. But it sure is entertaining to see the faces of people buying tickets when ambulances are on the scene, heh heh.

Look, no one wants you to get hurt at our attraction - but we do want to scare you silly. What happens in the Frightmare Challenge? It changes from night to night, and only a precious few staffers know what you might have to do ... or see ... or taste ... Oh my.

It's funny how audiences respond to fear - for instance, last night, a group of young girls, aged about 15 to 18 years old, came through the Manor house, and they got about one-third of the way through when one of them hit my room and totally locked up and could not move and just stood there and screamed and screamed and screamed. One of her friends said "She's having a complete panic attack and we have to get her out of here!!"


I quickly ushered the group out a safe doorway and out of the house ... but her friends wanted back in to finish the tour, so back they came. After they passed my room, I wondered what had happened to their "friend", and looked outside and saw her all alone, abandoned by her friends, just sitting on the ground all wide-eyed and shaking. Some friends they were. After a moment or so, a Frightmare staffer took her under his wing to help calm her down, since her friends had just dumped her.

(What's in my room? It's just me. And some darkness. And you might witness a little of my madness ..... Just be warned that we take screams as applause, thankyouverymuch)

Frightmare Manor is overwhelming for some, while others giggle and laugh madly, thoroughly enjoying the seriously spooky scares and screams which fill the house. Some people act bored - I know they are not. Some run through, eyes half closed, everyone hanging onto each other with death grips. Sometimes, a big old boy will hurl his girlfriend/wife ahead of them like sacrificial lambs.

Last week - and this one too - we've had visitors from out of state, traveling for hours to see our haunted attraction in beautiful downtown Talbott, Tennessee. Sometimes, especially late in the evenings, the lines get pretty long. I like those folks at lot - they are willing to wait their turn just so we can scare them.

As for folks like me who work at Frightmare, we are scary year round I suppose, at least, I know I am. Heh heh. But only once a year do we get a chance to share the scare. Once the season is over, we'll slink back to our hidey-holes, watch a lot of horror movies, plan new ways to scare people .... and look for ways to make Halloween unforgettable.

Do you have what it takes to meet us?

(NOTE: We're open Friday, Saturday and Halloween Sunday from 7pm til 1 am. And we're also open next Friday and Saturday too!)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Head Stompin' For Freedom


It's probably the symbol of the current election cycle - Kentucky's Rand Paul campaign coordinator stomping on the head and back of a woman as she is held down on the ground.

Tim Profitt is/was Paul's campaign coordinator in one KY county and wants an apology from the woman he stomped on. Yeah, 'cause she was askin' fer it!

After a few days, Paul said he condemned the action, booted him (heh heh) from his campaign and said he would return the $1,950 Profitt donated to the campaign. But now Paul said he's keeping the cash after all (since everything is now resolved).

Another nice touch from Profitt - he was wearing a button at the time reading "Don't Tread On Me", which obviously means "I'm The Stomper".

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Crocodile Causes Plane Crash

Panic from seeing a crocodile (unknown size) scampering through a small airplane apparently cause the plane to crash and (at least) 19 people died.

Does this prove panicking people are more dangerous than a crocodile? I say yes.


Original Thought Is Original Sin

Recent hysterics from Republicans and their pretend gang of outsiders, aka 'tea party', follow an age-old plan - derision, division and distraction.

But this latest one is so sad - if you don't have the correct consumer habits, you are an evil anti-American.

"
Get into a conversation about television with members of the New Elite, and they can probably talk about a few trendy shows -- "Mad Men" now, "The Sopranos" a few years ago. But they haven't any idea who replaced Bob Barker on "The Price Is Right." They know who Oprah is, but they've never watched one of her shows from beginning to end.

Talk to them about sports, and you may get an animated discussion of yoga, pilates, skiing or mountain biking, but they are unlikely to know who Jimmie Johnson is (the really famous Jimmie Johnson, not the former Dallas Cowboys coach), and the acronym MMA means nothing to them.

They can talk about books endlessly, but they've never read a "Left Behind" novel (65 million copies sold) or a Harlequin romance (part of a genre with a core readership of 29 million Americans)."


Original thought is the same as Original Sin.

The 'tea-publican party' says - you are defined by what you purchase and never trust anyone different from you.

What a fearful, cowardly view of life.