Your First Time

[slaughter]

I thought it would be cool if some fightseekers would share "first time" haunted house experience stories.

 I ll start.
Way back in 1981, my father.. " we'll call him SlaughterSr.", wanted to help out the elementary school his 5yr old pride & joy had just enrolled in. It was time for their annual Halloween Caravel & they needed someone to run their haunted house.
Let me set the scene when I say haunted house.... It was the old boiler room for the school, Not freddy's kind of boiler room either, it was SMALL 12 foot by 12 foot at most! Not room for a lot. One door to get in & back out too. I remember they hung 2 pieces of black cloth in a x pattern to make a total of 4 VERY small rooms, in the first room there was a table, that of coarse someone was under to grab feet. The second room had some scary pumpkins  & skeleton that glowed because of a black light, the third room  had a coffin on a table that went completely into the forth room that was more like a "spot" for the scary chainsaw man" who by the way had an  electric chain saw WITHOUT a real bar or blade so it would be SAFE. The cover was . 50 cents to get inside. The haunt was a success, it made the school more money than any of the candy sales or games .After the first year the old man continued to run the  "house of horror"  for best I remember 11 more years, long after I left that school too. This was the foundation for what we have at our haunt today.
You see I grew up every year with family & friends doing this haunt, & for 1 nighta year only too. I mean no disrespect to anyone but it was/still is like what I think normal people feel like a Christmas time.
Now days the school & the little room have been torn down & are long gone, but for those who were part of it, this special time & place will live in our harts forever.
I have people come to our haunt now, who bring their own kids, & talk & remember the old days from when they came as kids back there.
Anyway that's my story.. I would love to hear yours!
Slaughter.

[Slappy]

You know I can't miss this opportunity.

I don't remember exactly how old I was the first time I went through I haunt.  I know I was 5 at the very oldest, but I may have been younger.  I grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania (population 10,000, give or take).  There was a graveyard not far from where I lived, and there was an OLD house that sat in this graveyard, which I believe was the old parsonage house.  It was a two-story house with shuttered windows, and wooden siding.  By the time I was born, it was already gray and weathered.  Well, they decided to put a haunted house in this old place, and this was back in the days of grabbing, touching, anything goes.  I don't remember the entire haunt, but I remember bits and pieces.  It was me, my parents, and my brother (he's 3 years older).  As we were going through, I remember a vampire trying to shove my mother into a coffin.  For the last half of the haunt, a werewolf followed my brother, constantly touching his hair and back, and being just close enough to be uncomfortable.  About 3/4 of the way through, I finally got on my dad's shoulders, and decided it was time to go.  I started screaming for them to turn the lights back on (which they did NOT do).  We finally got out, and I was frantic.  But from then on, I never looked back.  I've gone to some sort of haunt almost every year of my life since then, and I've loved every minute of it. 

[krb187]

Ahhh the memories...

I was like 8 or 9 and went to a friends Halloween party. All the parents of the kids decided to put on a haunted house in the old barn in the backyard. When you first went in there was my friend's mom dressed as a witch and about 4 buckets on the walls. There was "brains" and other digustings things in them, but of course it was just noodles and such. After that there were random rooms with more parents in bloody t-shirts and masks jumping out and grabbing us. Then the final hallway consisted of one guy at the very end and another behind you in a stable who came out with a chainsaw and they trapt us in. Finally they opened the door to let us out and I rememeber being terrified haha. But ever sense then ive gone to some sort or haunted house.

[handfulofrubies82]

My first haunt was at my elementary school and it was down the third grade hall. I think they had different class rooms decorated.   I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. I don't  remember the haunt at all. I just remember being in line with my cousin and she tried to cut in line and we got reprimanded by her preacher who was also in line, lol. The next haunt was probably Hacker House, when it was at some other building several years ago. I was in middle school I believe. Beyond that, I never went to any haunts before HH six years ago, except Tweetsie, i forgot that one. In between years, my sister used to create our own haunted trails and invite her friends over so we could scare them.

[jhc36]

Ahh....the memories. 

My first experience was at Myrtle Beach at the Pavilion (RIP).  You guys may remember that haunted house there.. Where you sit in a cart and it takes you around the house.  Pretty terrifying stuff...somehow...fake actors are scarier than real actors...  I rode it once and was hooked.  It was terrifying.  By the end of the day I had ridden it about 10 times by myself.  I was a little older...around 12 I think. 

[nctrembley0613]

oh, I have so many "trick-or-treat" stories, they are what burned the love for Halloween into my brain...but my first Haunted House...I had to really sit back & think about this one.

It was 1991, I was in the 6th grade, my elementary school turned our stand alone auditorium into a haunted house.  Admission was $2.00 & the line was about 200 people deep it seemed.  I went through with friends only, parents-no way, and that made the whole event even more magnetized to us little 6th graders.  I remember:  lots of strobe lights, someone laid out on a table with "intestines" pouring out of them, someone with a "pig face" trying to eat me, someone dressed as a witch with hair that looked like long black & green snakes (almost liquid), people behind black cloth curtains shaking/beating them and reaching through to grab our clothes and arms, and finally the dreaded "Jason Mask" wielding a chainsaw chasing us down the long auditorium isle as we descended from the stage all the way out the back door.  The atmosphere was dark, crowded, we went upstairs, downstairs, twisted, turned, it was disorienting & totally awesome.  When we busted out we were out of breath, shaking, crying, sides about to crack open, red faced, scared to death.  I wish I could paint you a picture from my pre-teen memory, we really were terrified, with no adults around to guide us through the horror, we believed it to be real while inside the building.

Their production was never that good again, looking back on it now from an adult perspective, I bet someone complained that it was "too gruesome" for kids our age...but who knows, maybe it was staffing issues.

[packbacker]

So this will be a bit long and meandering but it bring back good memories.  Yes it goes beyond my "first time" but it all comes back to that first time I about pissed myself.

The first haunt I remember attending was I think a combo Jaycees / Boy Scout production.  I was 10-ish.  Hearing screams while standing in line I came close to chickening out.  Several scares stood out to me- they had an actor drop down on a pulley system from the trees in an ape suit and had a fantastic strobe lit tunnel full of actors in freaky clown outfits.  I think I nearly soiled myself.

Several years later in search of something to match this (the haunt was shut down after someone broke their leg on the pulley stunt) I visited a local haunt put on in a pool clubhouse.  While not scary to me at all, I inquired as how to work there.  The next night I got to do the haunting!  I was hooked.  I had gotten over my wussiness and now got to dish out the scares.  The next three years I got hooked on scaring patrons, designing sets, and the whole Halloween season.

When funding crapped out and the haunt disappeared I took the fun to our front yard.  We had moved to a more upscale neighborhood----- these folks weren't used to the Halloween I was used to.  Basic stuff turned our house into a destination trick or treat spot.  Simple tombstones, sound effects tapes, and me terrifying trick or treaters. 

A ten year hiatus from scaring people left me out of touch.  I hadn't so much as visited a haunted house until 2006-ish?  A friend said we should go check out Spookywoods.  Lord, stepping out of that car I knew Halloween, spook trails, and scaring people was still in my blood.  Every year since then the house has gotten more decorations, I visit more haunts and drive further and further to try out new ones/seek out the best.  And it all goes back to that primal feeling of fear standing in a parking lot in Clemmons, NC twenty some years ago.....

[slaughter]

I realize this is a old thread, but with the season getting closer I thought it would be cool to bump it back to the front & hear some more people tell about their first haunting  experience.
Slaughter.

[Badger]

I first got into this in 1977 when I was in 5th grade and 'volunteered' to take tickets at the "Tunnel of Terror" at my school's Halloween carnival which basically consisted of several refrigerator boxes taped together that you had to crawl though.   The younger grades had drawn monsters, ghosts, witches, etc on the inside walls. Realizing that this was as lame a haunt as could be,  I decided to make a small, unauthorized modification.  I enlisted a friend to go grab a bowl of ketchup from the cafeteria and we smeared it all over our arms.  We then cut a hole in the tunnel and when the next group of people came though, were reached though the hole and made them scream.  Within minutes, we had a line out the door until a teacher busted us.  Afterwards, I realized that Halloween was and is my favorite holiday of the year.

[slaughter]

Cool story Badger, you had let me in on this one before, but...  1977! ...Really,.
You might want to remember that the next time you strap on that " slider" gear .
L.O.L. !
Slaughter.

[Julie]

Uh oh...I was 16 in 1977. But, on the up side, I did get to see Led Zeppelin that year at the Greensboro Coliseum. For $9, I think. 

I was around 6 when I went to my first haunted house, put on by the medical auxiliary group here in Greensboro. It was one of those haunts with few props, but lots of actors in costume. And they could touch you back then! My mom took me and 3 of my cousins. I ended up getting pushed to the head of our group. I distinctly remember the wolfman blocking my way in a very tiny room, with my cousins shoving me forward, while I kept trying to move them back. There was no way I was going through first....but they made me! And a love of Halloween and all things ghoulish was born.