Fright night: Inside Long Island's hottest Halloween haunt transformations

Even the most soft-stepping walkers cannot avoid the wrath of the Pumpkin Leaper at Gateway's Haunted Playhouse in Bellport. One movement across the trigger (hidden in the ground of the outdoor maze) will cause him to shoot up out of the bushes, roaring, shaking and revealing his skeletal pumpkin head, extra long fingers and tattered clothing.

The Pumpkin Leaper is a regular at the haunted house. But for most of the year, the 10-foot animatronic sits quietly, stored away in one of 12 off-site trailers containing Gateway's scenery, props, furniture and other creatures.

When spooky season approaches, Gateway employees work together to unload those 53-foot trailers and transform the theater into one of the most hair-raising haunted houses on Long Island.

The crew gets creative with the space, using as much of it as possible: A 24-foot platform is built over the theater seating for additional scares. It takes about 25 minutes to walk through the whole attraction.

Outside the theater, there are interactive features to keep thrill-seekers entertained while they wait to enter, such as games, refreshments, puppetry and a school bus packed with zombie children — all of which require construction, too.

ANOTHER OP'NIN', ANOTHER (SCARY) SHOW

"It’s a labyrinth of activity all over the property while the haunt is happening," says Paul Allan, director of Gateway’s theater and haunted attraction. 

Counting carpenters, electricians, costumers, makeup artists, prop handlers and painters, there are about 40 people who construct Gateway’s Haunted Playhouse, says Allan. "Once we start the haunted house, some of those people become the haunted house actors, so they have double duty," he adds.

The 12 trailers of Halloweenery used for the haunted house are among 100 trailers that belong to Gateway, kept in a yard in Manorville. (The other trailers contain sets used in past theatrical productions.)

"The first step is unloading the prop and furniture trailers," Allan says. "They all get laid out underneath some of our work tents, and everything gets categorized. When it's time to go in and start dressing the rooms as soon as the walls are put up — or sometimes if it's big props, before the walls go up — some of those props and furniture get placed in the area, and the walls get built around them."

Most of the rooms were modified to adhere to this year's storyline; the last three rooms in particular were stripped down to bare walls.

The theme: A production of "Camelot" gone horribly wrong. Merlin, the fable’s whimsical magician, has snapped, casting spells, concocting strange potions, corrupting fellow castmates and trapping audience members.

"The cast is scattered throughout the maze, and crazy creatures have also been created," says Allan. "And the patrons who think they're coming to see a production of ‘Camelot’ are also winding up in this horrific tale that Merlin has spun."

The Pumpkin Leaper lives in the maze with Fluffy, who serves in this story as the King's bloodied hound, with opaque, yellow eyes. While the Pumpkin Leaper is mechanically operated and comes alive by a sensor, Fluffy requires a technician to open and close his mouth while he lets out a bellowing roar. Both characters appear at the haunted house every year, but their role in the story changes with the theme, because "they're just too good to not have," says Allan.

Inside, the haunted house is filled with purposely creaky doors and trick walls. One room emits a foul odor, while another hallway forces guests to squeeze through inflated garbage bags to get to the other side — all magic created by Gateway's technicians.

'A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING'

While the theme changes each year, some rooms remain the same, such as the vortex tunnel. The walls spin in a circular motion, splattered with neon paint. The layout of the haunted house stays the same "for the most part," says Allan. If he has an idea for a modification, such as moving walls around to better accommodate the story, he'll meet with a team of designers to come up with a plan.

"Those meetings are always very productive because everyone's got very cool ideas," Allan says.

John Sabo has worked as the technical director of Gateway's Haunted Playhouse since its opening in 2009.

"The first year, we had about 15 rooms, roughly," says Sabo. "I could be off on that number, it's been a long time, but the number I remember specifically is we had two automations. Now, we're running closer to 65 automations and 75 areas or rooms. So it's been a constant expansion and growth over the years."

In the early days, the crew would plan out the haunt by laying wall panels on stage, Sabo adds. Now, every part of the haunted house is labeled and mapped out, so that when it's packed up into storage at the end of each season, the crew knows exactly where to find it next Halloween. That has been the biggest evolution of the attraction, Sabo says.

"When you compare it to what we do for theatrical shows, this is a mammoth undertaking," he says. "And the fact that we pack it all up every year, that we don't have the luxury to leave it out."

Allan has been working at least 12 hours a day since construction began. The crew got to work just three days after Gateway’s production of "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical" closed.

But even after the attraction opens for guests, the work isn’t done.

"We learn a lot from our first weekend," he says. "It’s going to work well, people will be scared, but we’ll tweak a few things. We’ll go back in and change some of the rooms around, move actors to different places, change direction or maybe change a character here and there, just to keep everybody on their feet."

The first haunt of the season saw changes in lighting levels, music, sounds, and certain scares were relocated. Most notably, the Pumpkin Leaper might soon have a whole new head and costume, says Allan — but you'll just have to brave the maze to figure out how he will transform in the land of "Camelot."

THEIR FIRST HAUNT

Meanwhile across the Island, Travis Beck and Luca DiMatteo are preparing their own Halloween attraction. Their haunt will transform Mulcahy’s Pub and Concert Hall in Wantagh.

For the duo, of the Wantagh-based event company Trou Productions, it’s their first haunted house. Half the venue will transform into a haunt for thrill-seekers, while the other half will serve as a "family-friendly carnival," Beck says.

Beck and DiMatteo are building every element themselves, from the hallways to the frights waiting in each room. There are five rooms and three "displays," meaning setups that will live on the bars of the venue that cannot be moved. The rooms will contain animatronic characters, including a swamp witch and a butcher, all designed and programmed by Beck.

"I’ve been 3D printing all of our own components that connect to these motors," he says. "And with these motors, you’re able to connect them to a little motherboard, where you can write a code on a computer and upload it to the motherboard, essentially telling each motor what to do, at what time, and what's triggering it. A lot of these props are triggered based on distance."

Beck and DiMatteo will have a team of about eight people to help them set everything up when the attraction is ready to open. But as far as construction, the duo is building everything themselves.

But it’s important to Beck to make their haunt a one-of-a-kind experience.

"When you walk through Spirit Halloween, it’s like a free attraction to go walk around," Beck says. "We decided to make our own animatronics and props and things like that because we want people to see stuff they’re not seeing anywhere else."

As lifelong "Halloween people" (Beck loves visiting Salem, Massachusetts), this has been a dream in the making.

"We might not be as big as other haunted houses, but we’re offering something for everybody to do," Beck adds. "It’s all about making the best use of your space."

BECOMING THE PART

John-Paul Baker’s face looks like Miss Piggy had a face-lift and should sue her doctor for malpractice. His swollen, deformed snout drips blood from both nostrils.

When the 42-year-old actor from East Patchogue plays the pig man at Gateway's Haunted Playhouse, he sneaks up on people waiting to enter or in the refreshment area. "I would go up to them and start smelling them," he says. "If they were eating something, sometimes I’d go over to try to eat what they were eating."

Baker has also played an alien when the Playhouse had an astronaut theme, the creature’s head created from a helmet. "It looked like I was really, really tall. My face was the neck portion of the costume. I had tentacles," he says. And he was Mr. Tickles the clown another year, using a chop saw to cut off a victim’s leg, which sprayed warm water, hitting the visitors. "They thought it was blood," he says gleefully. "We get them with all the senses. Even with smells, too."

Creating the characters for a Long Island haunted house starts months before opening night, as venues audition actors and dream up new, horrifying personalities for them to keep the haunt fresh each Halloween season. Designated costume designers, special effects creators and makeup artists work as a team. They create prosthetics — such as the pig man’s nose — specially made to fit each actor. They make temporary 3D tattoos such as warts and lacerations to glue onto actors’ faces and arms. They take clothing and distress it to look decrepit and old, covering it with fake dirt or fake blood.

Preparing the dozens of actors’ makeup each evening starts up to two hours before doors open. As the actors are performing, so much continues to go on behind the scenes that visitors never see. At Gateway, for instance, each night takes 50 to 70 ice packs. They are slid into sleeves on the chests of some characters’ costumes so that actors don’t get overheated as they perform for three to four hours, says Janine Loesch, Gateway’s costume shop manager. One character might have four ice packs that are replaced three times during the night, she says. The temporary tattoo molds have to be refilled nightly because the transfers don’t survive being peeled off the actors’ faces, says Ricky Vitus, who is in charge of the actors’ special effects and prosthetics at Gateway.

‘MAKE PEOPLE’S NIGHTMARES’

The hiring process starts with auditions. Schmitt’s Farm Haunt in Melville holds in-person tryouts for the 65 actors needed. "We’ll say ‘Give us your best victim impression.’ We’ll tell them to act like a clown," says Kelley Gurr, actor manager and costume designer.

For Gateway, actors send video auditions for one of the 80 acting slots. "You’re really looking for people who are willing to go for it, is a good way to put it," says haunt director Paul Allan. They need to be open to improv, to making jerky movements, to holding a stare, he says.

Some of the performers are actors, others are people who have never acted before but want to be part of the fun, Gurr says. "To make people’s nightmares," she says.

Performers provide their own costumes at Schmitt’s, Gurr says; she tells them not to spend more than $20 for a shirt because she’s going to ruin it. "I’ll take a normal looking T-shirt and make it look like you’ve been dead for 20 years in that shirt," she says. "We’ll purchase blood, vomit, dirt. I’m using scissors to shred your costume up and using my hands to put on blood and dirt." Gurr goes to a trade show in St. Louis every year to purchase professional products, she says.

Each costume takes at least two days to complete. The more intricate costumes — for instance, scary clowns and dolls, can take up to a week, she says. "I don’t want everybody to look the same, and it’s very easy for that to happen," she says. This season, Schmitt’s is adding a campsite to the haunt, so she has to create new looks for the traumatized campers whose campsite has been overrun by spiders.

At Gateway, the story each year is based on an event that could have occurred at the playhouse, Allan says. This year, the haunt theme "Camelot" off the rails allows the theater to pursue a medieval atmosphere.

Loesch says she did a lot of advance research on Renaissance era attire. "Our Mordred has a ‘Rocky Horror’ riffraff feel, a black outfit with a hump on one side of his back," she says. "Morgana is a swamp hag enchantress in a beautiful dress with a distressed cape." She says she had a $2,500 budget to dress all the characters using costumes ordered online or ones she created from material left from the previous year’s haunt.

UPPING THE ANTE

Vitus focused his prosthetics attention this year on creating an unsettling King Arthur. Other characters include Lancelot and Merlin. He starts with sketching the look; then he does a life cast of each of the main actors’ faces.

"It’s basically, if you can imagine, ‘Slimetime’ from Nickelodeon," he says. He places the substance over the actor’s face to create an impression, leaving only the nostrils uncovered. Then he uses that mold to make a stone version of the actor’s head that he can use while forming pieces from foam latex of silicone, so they fit the actor’s face perfectly. He fiddles with dentures and contact lenses. He’ll also apply facial hair partially made from yak hair. "It’s a haunted house, but it’s also run by a theater, so we try to up the ante a little bit," he says.

The team also makes what it calls transfers every night, which are like temporary 3D tattoos of things such as warts and lacerations that will be applied by the makeup team. "We have these flat molds," Vitus says, likening them to the vintage Creepy Crawler toy that let kids make 3D bugs and other objects. The prosthetics and transfers are attached using adhesives, he says.

Separate makeup teams then address each character during designated preshow time slots. Artists use makeup to make prosthetics blend seamlessly to characters’ skin. They also create spooky looks. At Schmitt’s, Gurr writes a card describing each character’s role that they bring to makeup after putting on the costume.

"We have three professional makeup artists that are on our team. They use airbrush style makeup and professional grade products," says Scott Stoner, general manager of the Scmitt's haunt.

While all this is happening, performer Devon Raymond, who is playing Merlin this year for Gateway, says he is getting in character mentally.

"I can’t go a year without working at a haunted house because I love it so much," says Raymond, 32, of Mastic Beach. He’s a night custodian in a school district, but he says he takes his vacation time and personal days so he can work the haunt during October.

"I always try to do vocal warm-ups — Do re mi fa so la ti do. I massage my throat, because I know I’m going to do a lot of screaming. I drink energy drinks, so I’m all pumped up and ready to go," he says. He’ll also do stretches so he’s prepared to go after people who try to get away from him, he says: "I love when they try to run."