While department stores have ditched their animatronic skeletons and glowing pumpkin decor for artificial Christmas trees and inflatable Santas, Halloween “monsters” (professional scare actors at haunt events) like seventh grade English teacher Mallorie Johnson mourn the end of spooky season—even if it means more sleep and less work each night.

“I really am the Grinch,” Johnson said, “Christmas is NOT my jam.”

Most nights from Sept. 19 to Nov. 2, Johnson worked as a knife-wielding killer at Camp Gonna Getcha within the Cinema Slasher maze–one of the ten haunted mazes during Knotts’ 51st Scary Farm this year.

That meant Johnson started prepping for her workday as a teacher at 7 a.m., finished her teacher workday at 3:54 p.m., drove to Scary Farm from Norton (a drive that can take anywhere from one to two hours in daily commuter traffic), worked as a monster until 1 or 2 a.m. (depending on the day), and then drove an hour home for some much-needed rest.

“By the time I got home, showered, and then actually got to sleep, it was like 3:30 a.m.,” Johnson said, “Then I had to get up in a couple hours to come to work again. So there was not a lot of sleeping. It was hard just being awake and making sure that I was still doing a good job at both jobs because they are both things that I love.”

Yet Johnson noted that the perseverance and sacrifice was worth it to be part of an historic haunt event. Scary Farm was the first theme park to offer a Halloween haunt event back in 1973. Now it is considered the largest and longest-running haunt event at any theme park. (Even Universal Horror Nights, Scary Farm’s main competitor, offers fewer mazes and Halloween attractions.)

“In its first years, Scary Farm only used the ghost town section of the park, and there was only about 10 monsters,” Johnson said, “Now Scary Farm uses the entire park, and there’s 730 monsters across 10 mazes and five scare zones. It is really an opportunity to be creative, work with other people, and tell a story. And it is certainly the most fun I’ve ever had celebrating Halloween.”

Another unique quality that Johnson loves about Scary Farm is its sincerity and imagination. Each maze at Scary Farm tells its own original story that is developed the preceding year by Knotts’ creative staff. Unlike other theme park haunt events, like Universal Horror Nights, Scary Farm is not constrained by copyrighted media, characters, or storylines; Scary Farm’s goal is to create new stories and characters for their mazes.

“There’s something about Scary Farm that is just so full of heart and love for the event and Halloween,” Johnson said. “I feel like Universal gets stuck on their own copyrights. There are so many things that Universal can’t change in their mazes due to film and media rights, whereas Scary Farm is all original content. Our creative team spends the entire year planning for the next Scary Farm, including auditions during the summer. To me, Scary Farm is about creativity and community. I don’t feel like other haunt events have that kind of love and heart. It’s more about the money than it is about the stories.”

Johnson gave the maze she worked as an example.

“Cinema Slasher tells the story of a haunted movie theater that pops up every 50 years,” Johnson explained. “And the idea is this theater manager has snapped and become like a killer in the movies. There are three different movie sections where you, as the guest, literally walk through a torn movie screen and get to be a part of those movies. There is a sorority section that features a killer like Michael Myers in ‘Halloween.’ There is my camp section that is more like ‘Friday the 13th’ or ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer.’ And then the last section is the slaughterhouse which is like ‘Saw’ or ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre.’ The idea is that you become a character in these three movies as you go through the maze.”

Johnson added that there were many other Scary Farm mazes that took creative approaches to a traditional walk-through structure. For example, the “Mesmer” maze drew guests’ attention to moving walls and unnatural flooring.

“I was a big fan of the ‘Mesmer’ maze this year, too,” Johnson added. “It was a circus-themed maze. I’m terrified of clowns personally, and so it was already scary for me, but what made it unique is how it approached common phobias. For example, there was a room that looks like you’re walking across a tightrope that’s really high and you might fall. There’s another room where the walls are inflatable, almost like a bouncy house, and they expand so you feel really claustrophobic. I thought they did such a good job of telling the story of the circus in which there is something that everyone is afraid of.”

Johnson’s dream to be a monster, though, was not born overnight.

“Scary Farm is something I’ve wanted to do since I was a 13-year-old freshman,” Johnson said. “I always told myself ‘When I’m old enough, I am going to do that.’ Since high school I was involved in theater, and in college I earned my degree in theater. Scary Farm seemed like a natural combination of my interests in theater and English because as a monster you get to act in a story told within your maze. But I waited until this year to start because I had other responsibilities like finishing student teaching and getting a ‘real’ job. I am glad I was brave enough to take on both this year.”

Johnson also says that the Scary Farm community gives her a place to unfurl her passion.

“The first night working at Scary Farm was terrifying. It felt like the first day of school where you’re thinking, ‘I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what it’s going to be like or who’s going to be there,’” Johnson said. “But, after you get past that anxiety, you realize you are part of a tight-knit community of monsters that become your friends and, in some cases, like family. It is an escape from all the pressures that teachers face into a different, supportive community.”

Johnson did note that there are challenges with rowdy, unusual, or overly scared guests.

“We did have one guest in the camp section of ‘Cinema Slasher’ that I work in,” Johnson explained. “In the maze, I usually stand on a dock by a lake. The guest was really scared and tried to run away from us, and they tripped and fell into the water of the lake. We had to fully stop the maze, so no one else could come through. Then, we all came to make sure they were okay and help get them out. They were okay. The water’s not that deep. But it was still pretty funny.”

Johnson reflects that Scary Farm plays an important role in fostering creativity and inspiring future generations of monsters.

“Every night at Scary Farm is something different,” Johnson said. “So many people come in, and they do not always make the best choices. Sometimes those people are intoxicated or even aggressive, looking for a fight. But then there’s kids that come through that we call ‘haunt babies’ because they’re kids that are doing the spooky, scary stuff that we did growing up. Looking at those ‘haunt babies’ is like looking at the next generation of monsters, inspiring them to continue this community. And that’s always really sweet.”

This story was originally published on The Cosmonaut on November 13, 2024.