Charnele Crick, 24
Nightmare: Killers 2
What role are you playing? I’m a crackhead zombie girl. One of the killers, [Harrison] Graham, was a hoarder. He would entertain kids with a puppet, but when he wasn’t doing that, he was killing crackheads and stuffing them in [the walls of] his house, hoarding them with all of his junk. I’m one of the bodies. I fall out and twitch and come at people. It’s really fun.
What’s the best part about the job? My favorite reaction is when people fall down out of fear and surprise. Some people drop to the ground faster than I would have thought humanly possible, then they get up half-screaming, half-laughing, and run to the next room with their friends as fast as possible. That’s the best because I know they are having a great time and I’m doing my job right.
What’s the worst thing? Some people come in to not be scared: “That’s not scary, I’ve seen scarier stuff in Disney movies.” That kind of buzzkill. It kills the fun for everyone that’s in the group, and the actors. If you’re paying the money, enjoy it!
We went behind the scenes at two haunted houses—Nightmare: Killers 2 and Blood Manor—to talk to the actors as they got ready for a night of scaring the bejeezus out of you (or as they call it, work).
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