Haunting horrors — Annual fright fests open for this fall's scary season

The whole world is pretty frightening these days. So, to get scares out of increasingly cynical and desensitized people, you have to do more than simply sneak up on someone and yell "boo" at them.

But "that's not as easy as it sounds," according to Whitney Duhaime, a veteran of Utah's haunted house industry. "People see so many horrifying things in their everyday lives that they're not startled or scared by very many things."

She should know. Duhaime has been at Nightmare on 13th in Salt Lake City for more than a dozen years. And her thoughts were echoed by Cori Hoekstra, a former performer at the now-defunct Rocky Point Haunted House.

Both women have put their experiences to work. They now serve as casting directors for different haunted houses — Duhaime is still at Nightmare, while Hoekstra has moved over to Castle of Chaos.

That means it's up to these two women to choose which wannabe ghouls get to play vampires, killer clowns, chain-saw-wielding maniacs and other haunted-house terrors.

"You get a lot of people who think they want to work in a haunted house. But they have no idea how much of a responsibility it really is, how much of a commitment it is," Hoekstra said.

James Bernard, the owner/producer for Castle of Chaos, agreed. "To be a good haunted-house performer, you've got to love scaring people — or at least trying to scare them — and you've got to be fast on your feet and quick-witted.

"You never know what people will say or do to you," he continued. "Things can get pretty crazy in these things. People react to being scared in different ways."

Bernard often gets into costume and character himself at Castle of Chaos by "greeting" patrons as a hulking brute. "This is the best part of the job," he said with a laugh.

Of Duhaime's 13 seasons at Nightmare on 13th, 10 of those have been as a casting director. She says that in that time she's "pretty much seen it all."

"We've gotten performers who were more scared of the crowds than (the crowds) were of them. That may have been the funniest thing I've seen here," she said, laughing.

Duhaime and Nightmare owner/operator Troy Barber say they spend the months building up to the fall trying to find people to play more than 50 roles at the haunted house.

"We get a lot more people coming to audition now than when we started," Barber said. "That's nice, but unfortunately casting takes up even more valuable time when we're trying to come up with the scariest possible haunted-house experience."

Castle of Chaos actually comprises three different attractions: a year-round, interactive murder-mystery, a 3-D, and "a traditional, blood-and-guts spook alley," Bernard said. (Patrons can pay separate admission for one, two or all three of these.)