The feeling that someone is creeping up on you deep in the bowels of a haunted L.A. landmark. Demons whispering sinister plans by your bed when you wake up at night. Legless phantoms and talking dolls tormenting you from the shadows . . .
What does it take to scare someone in 2026? L.A.’s scare professionals have some of the craziest work deliverables imaginable: scare the hell out of you after you paid a small fortune for thrills during Halloween season. These people literally get paid to make you scream.
We talked to the deranged geniuses behind the mazes at Halloween Horror Nights, Knott's Scary Farm, Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater, The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, Delusion, and the L.A. Haunted Hayride, asking them about their deepest fears, seminal October memories, and supernatural experiences. We also hit them up for their best tips on how we can make our pals pee themselves a little bit as Halloween creeps up on us.
These are just a few of the stories we heard when sitting down with L.A.’s most legendary haunt creators.
JOHN MURDY, CREATIVE DIRECTOR/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD
Hi John, how did you get into scaring people for a living?
I started doing haunted houses in my parents’ house when I was ten years old. It was 1977, and the theme of the first one was "Star Wars," since it had just come out that summer. Back in ‘77, there was little to no “Star Wars” consumer products, so we made all the costumes and masks ourselves.
I played a Sand Person, chasing my brother who played C-3PO. My mask was made with chicken wire, with burlap pasted to it, and Dixie cups covered in silver contact paper for eyes. Could barely see, and the chicken wire dug into my shoulders. So at a very early age, I "suffered for my art."
In our last home haunt in 1980, I was playing Norman Bates and jumping out at people from the shower. People actually walked through our house. There was no Spirit Halloween back then, so I just took a real butcher knife from the kitchen. My father looked at me and saw hundreds of people lined up waiting to go through his house and said, ‘You can't keep doing this! We're gonna get sued!’
What’s your favorite scary story or horror movie?
My mom allowed me to watch the original “Frankenstein” when I was four years old. This was in 1971, when every town had a horror host on TV who would replay old horror films on Saturdays. When my mom came back into the room, I was crying, but not because I was scared of "The Monster." It was because I felt so bad for him.
"The Monster" in “Frankenstein” doesn't have a choice. He's stitched together from bodies Dr. Frankenstein dug up and then jolted to life with electricity. He's then thrown into the world and expected to cope, though everyone else treats him with fear and revulsion. To me, the villagers with torches and pitchforks were the real monsters. Somehow, I understood that at a very early age, and from that point on I was obsessed with the Universal Monsters.
That's what first brought me to the theme park in 1972 and continues to be my passion till this day. “The Bride of Frankenstein” is my favorite. That represents the high-water mark in the series: the best script, the best art direction/set design, the best cinematography, score, and acting. It's a perfect film.
Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
I think so. I once woke up and saw dead people in my room moving their mouths, but no sound came out. A few seconds later, the whole house started shaking. It was the Northridge Earthquake. I believe I really saw that, because at the time I made a conscious effort to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I've seen other similar things.
How do you really scare the hell out of a person?
It's all about the angles. If a scareactor approaches you from the front, you can see him or her coming, and it lessens the impact. If we design the scare to come from a side angle, it's your peripheral vision, so you can't see it coming until it's right on top of you.
What is the scare you’re proudest of creating?
I'm really proud of a scare we have currently in “Sinners,” where the vampire Remmick descends rapidly from above, is able to lip-sync to his dialogue, attract, and then lunge at people before ascending back into the darkness.
I'm really proud of a scare we have currently in “Sinners,” where the vampire Remmick descends rapidly from above, is able to lip-sync to his dialogue, attract, and then lunge at people before ascending back into the darkness.
It's a super complicated effect using a computer-controlled winch system, so it always happens the exact same way. Lots of people do bungee scares in haunts, which is like a rubber band. This is totally choreographed and precise and requires real Hollywood stunt people to perform. It's one of the most complicated effects we've ever done for Halloween Horror Nights.
What scares you the most?
I have an irrational fear of cotton balls and wooden spoons. It's something about the texture. Totally freaks me out.
Halloween Horror Nights, through November 1
ZOMBIE JOE, FOUNDER OF “URBAN DEATH TOUR OF TERROR” AT ZOMBIE JOE’S UNDERGROUND THEATER
Hi Zombie, how did you get into scaring people for a living?
Even as a small child, I loved Halloween and look forward to it every year. As far as spooky season, I'm just completely tormented by demons myself. So it’s a chance to purge that and to turn that into entertainment, to sequester it into a useful, viable tool for all of us to enjoy.
What’s your favorite scary story or horror movie?
“Jaws” is probably my favorite movie of all time. I gotta say, Spielberg made the best horror film of all time. My most recent favorite is “Lake Mungo.” It is really just a great horror film. Kind of found footage, sort of mockumentary.
Also, “King Kong,” and there can only be one: “Evil Dead Two.” The whole “Evil Dead” trilogy is just, like, the ultimate. They really set the standard, because without comedy and without levity, I don't think there's good horror. Sam Raimi's daughter comes to our shows, too. I'm like, ‘You got to bring your dad.’
Of course, “The Exorcist” really scared the shit out of me as a kid. And even, like, the early Hammer films. Also, Warhol's “Blood for Dracula” and “Flesh for Frankenstein.” As kids seeing those, they were really scary. And artistic.
Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
I've had a few. I actually lived in my first three theaters. There were a lot of spirits and spiritual activity in those spaces, some dark activity. But the spirits have always been fairly cool, other than completely tormenting my mind through the years. They've actually worked with me in my life and in the art that I do.
And I've just seen random ghosts in passing. Ghosts don't have legs. They don't have legs.
Also, Zombie Joe's itself is haunted. We've had a couple of paranormal investigations in there, and the theater's full of non-malevolent spirits.
Also, Zombie Joe's itself is haunted. We've had a couple of paranormal investigations in there, and the theater's full of non-malevolent spirits. Or I don't know about full, but at least like two. I don't know if they belong to the whole strip building or if they were just with us.
It’s not uncommon for a lot of these performance spaces, especially the older ones. For us, it's really kind of leftover energy. We burn energy like fuel for our shows.
How do you really scare the hell out of someone?
Good question. It’s always changing. Especially these days, there's a lot of fear. Economic fear. Spiritual fear. People are having a lot of fears.
As far as scaring people, I think the more human and the more relatable we can be, and the more honest we can be, and unpretentious with our performances, the better.
We're able to display our fears in an artistic way, to really bring the fear to the stage, to bring it out like a character. The darkness is a character in our shows, and so we really bring the fear and the darkness out on stage for people to see and make their own assumptions and be able to relate to it in their own way.
A lot has changed through the pandemic. The same people that were down for anything will directly tell me they're no longer down.
People say, “Hey, I didn't know that was going to be in the show, and that really bothered me,” and “I wish you wouldn't do, say, suicide.” I'll talk it through with them and whatever I can do to make it right. But the truth is, if they're really affected, we're doing our jobs. If they're really affected, we must be doing some good performing.
But the truth is, if they're really affected, we're doing our jobs.
People tend to take us very seriously. Like when we would do scenes from concentration camps with naked people in a shower, and a stormtrooper in leather with a gas mask came behind them, to take them off to the showers or whatever. We've done scenes like that and get complaints from Jewish people. And I am Jewish.
Or once in a while, people may think that we might have an opinion toward women in the way they're on stage. But the truth is, it's the women that created those scenes. I think it boils down to being honest, and the horror and the fear and the scariness come from the honesty.
What is the scare you’re proudest of creating?
The scariest stuff comes from partnering with audiences' imaginations, in very ambiguous, dark scenes. Where you can barely see an arm or leg or like, “What is that?” Our creature work can be very scary.
I think the stuff that's scariest is the stuff that comes from a real personal place for us, and we're able to bring it out on stage, purge our demons, and show it as entertainment. Any self-infliction that we might do on stage, like a shotgun in the mouth, or stuff like that. We really try to perform those to a real, deep, emotional level; they’re coming from a real deep basis from ourselves.
As a theater company, we're all inclusive. We include all artists of the world, all genders, all nationalities; all peoples of the world are welcome at Zombie Joe's, and at the foundation of us being able to expound and really deliver a whole spectrum of entertainment.
What scares you the most?
The most terrifying thing for me is myself. That's the only thing that scares me, really: my own reflection. Because I understand that the only thing in my way in life is me, and so that trumps everything.
I'm just most terrified of me and if I have any intentions. I always have to be in check as a sober person. I'm accountable for being of service to my fellow people in the world and to the world of theater and to everybody in my life. What really scares me the most is my own selfishness.
Urban Death Tour Of Terror, through November 1
AMY HOLLAMAN, DIRECTOR OF HALLOWEEN ATTRACTIONS AT THIRTEENTH FLOOR ENTERTAINMENT GROUP (THE QUEEN MARY’S DARK HARBOR AND L.A. HAUNTED HAYRIDE)
Hi Amy, how did you get into scaring people for a living?
A lot of kids would play house, play sports, play hide-and-seek when I was a kid in Connecticut. Every time our parents got together, my friend and I went to the basement and built our haunted house. We had a laboratory, and you had to reach your hand inside a belly, and there were grapes in there, all these cute little schemes.
I went to school outside of Philly, and my senior year there was a school bus trip where people could sign up to go see Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary. That was the first time my mind was blown, the first professional haunted house I ever saw. I remember going home on the bus and thinking, “How’d they do that? How’d those sparks fly through the air?” I was just fascinated with it.
When I graduated from college, I moved to Philadelphia, where I did an AmeriCorps program, and I needed some extra cash. So I went and auditioned at Terror Behind the Walls. That's the first time I professionally “haunted” and really fell in love with acting.
When I auditioned, they threw a severed head at you at the start of the audition. When you caught it, you had to give a blood-curdling scream, then say your name. Which I still carry out at some of my auditions today. Not always with a severed head.
They hired me on the spot that night. They told people, “Okay, you guys go home. Amy, stay here.” And then they were like, “We have orientation in 20 minutes.” I was like, “Oh my god!”
What’s your favorite scary story or horror movie?
I love the film “Pan's Labyrinth” from Guillermo del Toro.
I like that it's a sort of historical fiction. A lot of the haunts I've worked on take place in historic sites like the Queen Mary. And we're doing something similar, where we're taking a true story about the Queen Mary, but then we're enhancing it for horror.
I spent a night once with Guillermo del Toro at one of my haunted attractions and got to talk to him. I really like the way he does storytelling.
Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
It's hard for me to say. I have had some. I believe that, but I also am a skeptic.
I believe in energy. I sorta believe that the traces of energy of our souls can be left behind when it's super intense and make a rip in the space-time continuum. I think the emotions or moments that we experience as humans are sometimes strong enough to linger forever.
I've spent a lot of time around a lot of ghost hunters, and have been told that I'm a “cooler,” that I have so much energy that I will not perceive paranormal activity. It's like I put out so much that I can't take it in.
At Eastern State Penitentiary, I felt like I could hear that there was a ghost. There's something intense that happened in the space I was in that I really cannot explain otherwise.
I have had one experience on the Queen Mary, where I was really in the belly of the ship, where we have a wardrobe department in the off season. And I felt someone walking up behind me. I was in a conversation, and I thought someone was coming up to say something to me. It just felt like it. I turned around, and no one was there. It was a very strange feeling.
How do you really scare the hell out of someone?
A really good scare is similar to a joke. It's about timing, the way you set up the joke, and exactly when to hit the punchline. You can have, like, a huge intimidating monster, but if it’s already in the room when someone walks in, they might not get the startle. So you have to really time it out appropriately to make sure that the impact is made when you want it to be.
A really good scare is similar to a joke. It's about timing, the way you set up the joke, and exactly when to hit the punchline.
And when that happens, just like making people laugh, for the actor or me as the creator, seeing and hearing the cacophony of screams is so delicious, because you're like, “Yes, I did it.”
That's what really drives the scare actors to scare people every 30 seconds, and go again and again and again.
What is the scare you’re proudest of creating?
Hmmmmmmm . . . really tough. I’ll talk about a scare we created last year at Queen Mary's Dark Harbor at our new maze that is still there this year, Voodoo: The Queen's Curse.
We set up a big scare by starting off kind of quiet. You enter the maze in a quiet potion shop. It's dark, with flickering candles and potions and voodoo dolls on the wall, and then you walk through what we called an “FFC,” a fog-filled container, and we put the purple lights in there.
And you hear the voice of Lady Mabel warning you not to look in the voodoo priestess's eyes, and right when people come out of this container, they're looking up in awe at an altar that her followers put together, and the voodoo priestess is often waiting right there around the corner. She has her staff and just “Bam bam,” hits it, and scares the crap out of you. That's one of my favorites.
I would be remiss not to mention that we have the pleasure of having Melissa Carbone, the creator and initial founder of L.A. Haunted Hayride, directing the Hayride. And this year, man, she knocked it out of the park, from the original scores to insane effects. I love her work. It just feels like a quintessential Halloween.
What scares you the most?
Mice startle me. It’s not that I think they're gonna get me. I just think they could be. If I'm staying at an Airbnb and I see a mouse, I'm like, “Oh, great, they're everywhere. Now, how am I going to go to sleep? Could be on me any second.” It’s not like I'm afraid it's going to kill me. It's more of a gross-out.
I'm responsible for scaring hundreds of thousands of people each year, and yeah, if I was standing there being tough on the Queen Mary, and a mouse ran past, I'd be like, “Oh my God, why?” It’s a very primitive fear. We've grown to be afraid of things like snakes and mice because they posed a risk to our survival at one point in time, but obviously we have conquered the mice at this point.
As far as haunted attractions go, I think safety. We put a lot of time and energy into making sure our attractions make you feel like you're at the edge of your seat and going to scream, and you could be murdered, but keeping it safe.
Other things I fear, they're probably too deep, like losing family. I love my wife. That would be a fear, you know.
Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, through November 1
The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, through November 1
JON BRAVER, CREATOR, WRITER, AND DIRECTOR OF DELUSION IN WEST ADAMS
Hi Jon, how did you get into scaring people for a living?
When I grew up in Chicago, I would do these scavenger hunts for friends. They would always involve going through the forest or to creepy places at night on these adventures. That's how it kind of started, where I would be hiding, watching them doing these scavenger hunts, and seeing the smiles on their faces and how fun it was to have a real-life adventure.
That was pretty intoxicating. To create a story, to create an experience, and have people engage with it in such a positive way. I found that just like scaring, in the most fun way, was a way to bring people together, and that stuck with me from the beginning.
It’s not my intention to scare the hell out of people. It's more about taking people on supernatural, fantastical adventures. In the most lovely way, of encapsulating the Halloween spirit, that magic season.
What’s your favorite scary story or horror movie?
My favorite creepy, scary book would be “Salem's Lot” from Stephen King. And I grew up reading a lot of Anne Rice, “Interview with The Vampire,” “The Vampire Lestat,” stuff like that. Those are my favorites.
My favorite horror movie, the one that traumatized me the most, just because I'm not a big ocean guy, was a movie called “Open Water.” That was terrifying to me. Very personal, being stuck out in the middle of the ocean and the sharks circling you.
But as a general idea, this movie, “The Orphanage,” a Spanish film, probably takes the cake for me. It's really terrifying. And “The Omen Two,” the older school. Those are sort of my favorites.
“Aliens,” to me, is one of the most perfect movies ever made. It really is kind of how I base a lot of my experiences off of, where you have action, adventure, and horror. That was a terrifying movie for me.
Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
I don't necessarily believe in the supernatural. I believe in manipulating others to believe in the supernatural.
I just haven't really had one. I've had very eerie moments that could be chalked up to a crossdraft in a house, you know? But I think the scariest thing that ever happened to me is not supernatural. It's so silly. I scare pretty easily.
I had those jumping dolls that you get at, like, Spirit Halloween, where there’s like, a creepy little girl, and you walk by with a motion sensor, and it jumps out at you. I had that thing in my storage unit.
We picked it up, and it was sitting there, staring at me. And every year I take the batteries out. It's just dead. And it started to vibrate when I opened the door as it was looking at me, vibrating, and every part of my being just shuddered and collapsed.
Because a second after that, a cat that was stuck in the storage unit jumped out from the doll’s dress, right towards my face. That was the scariest moment of my life. Oh my god, that was terrifying.
How do you really scare the hell out of someone?
Everybody scares a little differently. But in general, to me, it's allowing their imagination and what they don't see to be a part of what they do see. So not having to fill a space with everything visually, but allow, like, darkness to play into it. Sound design is a major part of it, as well.
It's the combination of darkness, sound design, and pacing, like, very special moments, distractions, stuff like that, that can really throw people off.
It's the combination of darkness, sound design, and pacing, like, very special moments, distractions, stuff like that, that can really throw people off. These shows that we do are very much like a horror film. The pacing of things is a big part of it, and allowing the actors to guide that moment and to try to curate it as best they can to allow for that scare.
Jump-scaring is a pretty simple kind of tactic that works very well. But to get something that's unnerving and sustainable and settles in as you go home and go to sleep. It's like having both their imagination create something in the dark along with a sound design or an incredible actor doing something that will linger with them. So scaring is either. But I like the lingering aspect of things. I like to have them see something that just creeps the hell out of them and stays with them forever.
What is the scare you’re proudest of creating?
There are many, many, many I can talk about, but I'll pick one. In a previous year of “Delusion,” we had this character who's become kind of a fan favorite called Manny Manners. He's a doll, and he was sitting in a doll room on a truck, a little remote-controlled toy truck, and it starts driving towards the audience by itself, and then he talks to you and asks you to pick him up, and it's a live actor, like speaking through the doll, asking you to hold him and caress him. And he leads you through a quarter of the show.
So it's just having an audience member holding this doll and speaking to it live, and having everybody watch this person doing that and having to go along with it. It’s pretty terrifying. It's really fun, really terrifying.
This year, I'd say there's a bunch of very “wow” moments for sure. We incorporate [a pitch-black] room, which is really fun. You’re just hearing the sound design around people, things running on the ceiling above you. That's pretty terrifying, and then, vampires crawling down ceilings, trying to attack you. So you're not really safe. That's a big thing with me: You're not really safe from any angle. The entire world is ours to play with. Yeah, up, down, sideways, everywhere.
What scares you the most?
My daughter's college coming up?
Besides dolls in my storage closet, I scare easily from the most simple things. If I'm just walking through the venue thinking about how I can scare others, and then I'll come around the corner and the wind will blow the door towards me, it'll raise whatever hair I have left on my head pretty high, and linger.
And then, you know, jump scares, like at one of my favorite haunted houses: Reign of Terror. That one has some really wonderful, startling moments.
Delusion: Den of the Mosquito, through Nov. 8
DANIEL MILLER, ART DIRECTOR OF KNOTT’S SCARY FARM
Hi Daniel, how did you get into scaring people for a living?
I’m from Whittier, and from very early on, my mom and I always went to see horror films together. She loved horror films and had no qualms about me going to see anything locally, so we loved that. I went to Knott's Scary Farm as early as 10 or 11 years old, and loved it ever since I was a kid.
When I went to UC Irvine as an undergraduate, I joined a group building a haunted house. I really loved doing that and being a scare actor. That fell apart by my senior year, when I actually became a monster at Knott's Scary Farm. I was, like, “Uncle Ernie” in the House of Maniacs, like a demented hillbilly.
I caught the bug. I loved it. I went off for graduate school [for set design] in New York, and I came back. And the two places I applied were Disney and Knott's Berry Farm. Knott’s was the first to call. It was kind of kismet.
At Knott's, the designer, basically, we're the director. We create it, we write it, we coach all the actors. We're the ones who come up with the story.
I didn't realize how much they do here. At Knott's, the designer, basically, we're the director. We create it, we write it, we coach all the actors. We're the ones who come up with the story. We pitch the story, and we guide it all the way through the process. But we're basically set designers from the beginning. That's where we learn our trade.
What’s your favorite scary story or horror movie?
“Halloween.” I've seen that movie so many times. It still gives me chills. The music, the force of evil going after people, that is sort of unknowing. It's a great concept, and it kind of guides my work here, too. And, you know, it's Halloween. It's the spirit of the seasons.
I got to finally meet John Carpenter last year at Scare L.A. He popped into the green room when I was waiting to roll out the stuff for Knott’s Scary Farm, and I was there with a hero, like, “Wow.” He was very nice.
Have you ever had a supernatural experience?
Yes and no. I'm a pretty scientific type of guy, but there are things I can't explain, or things that were in my perception that had to be so surreal that they became real, mostly revolving around sleep paralysis. One of my mazes, “Delirium,” which I designed and presented, was based off of these experiences, and one of the first times we gained notoriety as designers.
It told the story about how I was living in Long Beach. I was on the couch, asleep, but I was awake, and I felt this presence behind me, and it kind of whispered in my ear and gave me a hug. It was like this kind of shadowy figure, and that was creepy.
Around two months later, I was in my apartment, and sort of the same thing happened. I was awake. I was watching TV, but I was not. I couldn't move, and I was hearing voices in the back of my head. This is going to make me sound crazy.
I was hearing little whispers in the back of my head, and literally, it's like, [Miller whispers quietly] “I think he's listening. I think he's awake. He knows we are here.”
“Go k— yourself!!” And then, I kid you not, really loud, like ear-piercingly loud, it screamed, “GO K— YOURSELF!!” I woke up, and I was just so terrified.
I still think I was asleep. But, like, the same television show was on, the exact same lighting was all over. Everything was the same in this kind of dream state. So yes, I do believe in that.
My favorite movies are “The Exorcist” or things that are kind of religion-based. They really get me because it's about how people’s beliefs in the things that scare them that also give them power.
How do you really scare the hell out of another person?
There's two ways. One is the startle scare, which is fairly easy to do, and basically, it's a distraction, and then something pops up. It's the black cat appearing at the window. It's someone coming out of the darkness, it's something that's not there. And that's the startle scare. All of a sudden, your reality has shifted and changed, and you didn't know where that came from. That's kind of what we specialize here at Knott’s Scary Farm.
The second part is what I like to say is “the way home scare.” You went through a maze, and you're like, “Did that just happen to me?” The story-driven scare. Something that is so creepy to think about that you can't shake it. I am affecting you when you go to sleep, and you just can't get [it] out of your head. You're like, “Is that true? Was that really happening?” I like a lot of my haunts to be surrounded by something that's slightly real, something that is believable to people and that will give a certain sense of reality to the scare.
That's why I believe story is really important. There's a lot of haunts where they go room to room, and there's a werewolf, and there's a vampire, and there's a space alien. But I really like to give a continuous theme throughout and explore different realities in horror.
What is the scare you’re proudest of creating?
I think one of my favorite mazes is The Asylum because it deals with losing one’s mind. And that's a major scare or major anxiety for people—that one day you wake up and the sun isn't rising, or you're not in control of your faculties. Because it's all going to happen to us one day.
It's a fear that we have. So Asylum really addressed that. And it's one of the easiest things for the talent to do: to act crazy, and they kind of instantly know what that means, to get rid of the consciousness of, like, being normal. That kind of gives you a good scare because this is obviously not a normal thing that you're confronting.
What scares you the most?
Maggots. For some reason, I hate maggots. They terrify me. When I was a kid, I would take out trash, and we had a lot of pets. And every once in a while, there would be maggots—a lot of maggots everywhere—and just the feeling of them kind of burrowing under your skin, like so many things, so many little things, able to hurt you and squirm around you, is just unnerving.
Knott’s Scary Farm, through October 31.
