Why I Became A Scare Actor

[My first time as a "professional" scare actor. I'm in the middle]

Pranks have been a part of my life for as far back as I remember. I was blessed with family and friends who all had a great sense of humor. If you were a friend of my dad’s and you ever ended up in the hospital for any reason, there was a good chance that my dad and a few of his friends would put on the most ridiculous stereotypical nerd costumes (they all had them ready to go at a moment’s notice) and show up at the hospital just to embarrass you. Oh, you have a company Christmas party at a fancy country club? You’re not safe there either- don’t put it past the nerds to show up and make a scene, and of course have someone with a VHS camera to record the whole thing.

The “Nerd Attacks” (which is what they called them) were just the tip of the iceberg. I could talk for hours about the hilarious pranks that I’ve seen or been a part of during my life. I think these pranks are a major reason why I enjoy scaring so much. Scaring to me is basically a prank, whether or not you think it’s funny doesn’t really matter to me because I personally think it’s hilarious. It’s a good thing I wear a mask because I’m laughing after just about every scare (especially if you fall down).

The first time I recall being scared (and I don’t mean like being afraid of a thunderstorm as a kid or afraid I’m going to get shanked in an alley [I grew up in Long Beach, CA so it wasn’t that far-fetched]) was one night when I was pretty young-my guess is 10 at the oldest. For some reason we (myself, my younger brother and probably some of my cousins) were led into our backyard behind the garage under our gigantic avocado tree where it was pitch black. Once we got back there, my dad’s friends jumped over the brick fence into our yard wearing scary masks (I remember one of them was wearing a pig mask with blinking red eyes) and scared the living crap out of us. After the sheer terror quickly passed when we realized it was just our dad’s prankster friends who we knew very well, I thought it was the greatest thing ever.

It was probably shortly after that when my older cousin Matt (who I idolized at the time) started scaring people at his parents’ house on Halloween. This was before everybody had fog machines and strobe lights, so I don’t think it was very elaborate (I never got to see it because our family usually went to our church Harvest Festival [which was actually super fun-all kinds of fun stuff that would never be allowed to happen today due to injury liabilities]) but I always thought it was so cool to hear him talk about scaring people at his house for a few years.

One night in the 1990’s, my parents and a few of their friends went to Knott’s Scary Farm.  I’m sure my parents told me a lot of details about Knott’s, but the only thing I remember is them saying that at night they turned off the lights on the Kingdom of the Dinosaurs ride (which I loved when I went during the daytime) and as you were slowly riding along, scare actors would reach in and grab your leg (that would never fly nowadays).

Finally in my early teens, I was allowed to go to Knott’s Scary Farm with some friends from my church youth group. I only have one distinct memory and it was from the first maze we went in, called The Underground. A few people jumped out and scared me pretty good at the beginning of the maze and once we were too far in to turn back, I remember being in a dark hallway (most of Knott’s mazes are constructed with plywood walls so it wasn’t like I could just run and jump through some corn stalks and be out again) and thinking to myself “I am legitimately afraid and I need to get out of here”. It was pure fear in its most literal sense. I don’t think that fear lasted very long because I was back to enjoying myself shortly after. I made it all the way through, but I was sure glad to see the exit of that maze. After that I went to Knott’s Scary Farm almost every year and couldn’t wait to turn 18 so that I could be a scare actor (or “monster” as Knott’s calls them) there.

When I was 16, I borrowed my dad’s friend’s chainsaw and went to my buddy’s house where we chased trick or treaters up and down the block for a few hours-that’s when I knew I was hooked. When I turned 18, I didn’t work at Knott’s Scary Farm even though I was dying to do so. At age 19 I got a job at Knott’s as a ride operator (another dream of mine since I was young). That year they put makeup on some of the ride operators so that they looked scary too and as soon as I got out into the public area with my makeup and felt the fear on customer’s faces it was like a rush of adrenaline (even though we were instructed not to scare people-we were there to operate rides only).

Luckily for me, the ride I operated (a 252 foot drop tower called Supreme Scream) had a rotating schedule, so every hour I got rotated to a new position-and one of those positions was just standing at the gate near the railroad tracks behind the ride to make sure nobody snuck behind the gates. We were literally just supposed to stand there with a broom and one of those standing folding dustpans that amusement park custodial people use and do nothing unless there was trash to clean up. I quickly learned that people thought I was a scarer because as they walked past, many would cower or just look terrified. I did my best (really, I did) to just stand there but eventually I started abruptly lifting up that metal dustpan (it made a loud noise) and quickly taking a few steps forward causing people to scream and run. I was only scheduled to work 3 or 4 nights (I usually worked days) so I didn’t get many scares but I knew that I absolutely had to work there as a monster the next year.

Unfortunately the next year I had a “big boy job” and I wasn’t able to make the scheduling work between that job and scaring at Knott’s, so I asked some family and friends to help and scared people at my parent’s house on Halloween night. We all had a blast and talked about all of us working at Knott’s Scary Farm the next year.  The following year (in 2003) I, along with my younger brother, three cousins and two friends got hired as monsters at Knott’s Scary Farm. I was in the Carnival of Carniverous Clowns maze, which is what I was hoping for.

Since then, I have worked at six other haunted attractions between Colorado and Nebraska. Every year I have a blast, but every year gets harder on my body…but it’s worth it.

My Most Memorable Scare

My most memorable scare happened a couple years ago. I was roaming the farm on a busy night, walking up and down the lines of people waiting for attractions and scaring unsuspecting people. The area I was in could be seen by hundreds of people who were waiting for all three of the main attractions.

I came walking from the back of the line for the zombie paintball attraction doing my thing. The line for this attraction started out in the open, then toward the front of the line it went into somewhat of an alley where only the people waiting in line for that attraction could see what was going on. I got into that alley and approached a teenage girl who wasn’t paying attention, even though I had been chasing people around and causing screams for the last few minutes, slowly approaching the area she was in.

I snuck up and put my bloody masked face right next to her. As soon as she saw me, she screamed, turned around and ran backward down that alley toward the back of the line and I immediately gave chase. She got out into the open area where everybody waiting in line for all of the attractions could see her again and she was screaming at the top of her lungs, so EVERYBODY was watching. It was at this point that I saw what was about to happen, so I stopped running.

They have some queue lines set up for one of the daytime attractions where a large rope is draped between fence posts. These are not used at night, so they’re just kind of there. This would be easily avoidable by anybody who was walking normally or actually paying attention to what was in front of them. Unfortunately for this girl, she was doing neither of those things.

I watched as it all happened in slow motion. Her screaming, running full speed…directly into the draped rope, clotheslining herself and flipping head over heels over the rope and onto the ground. Once she hit the ground, her screaming stopped long enough for me to hear the hundreds of people who had been watching this unfold go “OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”.

Now, my scare character is a dick. He’s not friendly. He’ll make remarks about your mom, he’ll tell you that your hair looks like a dead bird, he’ll ask you to take his picture with your pre-teen son because he looks like Justin Bieber, and he’ll point and laugh at you when you fall. But if somebody gets hurt, I’m no longer that character-I’m concerned that you’re okay and I’ll break character immediately to check on you.

As soon as I saw her hit that rope and fall to the ground, I started running toward her (remember, I had stopped as soon as I saw that she was about to hit that rope) to her to check to see if she was okay. But when she hit the ground and looked up, she didn’t know I was coming to check on her-she thought I was still chasing her to scare her more, so she got up and ran off again.

Obviously she wasn’t seriously hurt, so at this point I stopped running again and joined the other hundreds of people who were laughing hysterically at what had just happened. I never heard anything about it afterward so I assume she was fine, but I’ve thought about that scare a lot over the last couple years and it was definitely a good one.

As a bonus, here’s some more quick scares that stuck out to me:

-I scared a guy who was carrying hot chocolate (to my defense, I didn’t see that he was carrying it until after it was too late to stop the scare) and he splashed it all over his shirt

-I scared somebody and they dropped their entire bag of kettle corn and it spilled all over the ground

-I “farted” (look up “The Pooter”-that’s what I use) on somebody and they fell on the ground

-This wasn’t a scare, but I loved this gag because it always got big laughs-I have played a clown a few different times over the years, so I took a bicycle horn and tied it inside of my pants. I’d walk up to people, reach down and honk my…well, you know.

-I scared a kid so bad that he fell onto the dirt and started making snow (dirt) angels

-I got to play with one of the flame-thrower barrels on the hayride last year. I waited for the trailers to get there, then I would walk around really stiff while holding my butt while loudly yelling "I have to poop so bad!!!!!" While everybody's attention was on me, I flipped the switch for the flame thrower which was between me and the trailer. I don't know if it was any better of a scare than the normal routine with the flame thrower, but a couple of the tractor drivers found me afterward and said it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen so at least I made a few people laugh.

-Scaring people by yelling quotes from Step Brothers is always great..."DON'T TOUCH MY DRUMSET!"

OK, that's it for this post. If you have any questions or ideas for what you'd like me to write about, post it in the comments. Be sure to follow me on Instagram at @scaryvarner

-Uncle Varner

Why Do You Care Who I Am?

You may know me as "Scary Guy", "Zombie Dude", "That Farmer", "Can Man", "Old Guy", "The Farting Guy" or even just "Dad" (which is really annoying when random teenagers call me that) but if you ask me what my name is, I tell you it's Uncle Varner. Is that my real name? No, and I'm not going to give you my real name either...and I'm certainly not going to ever show you what I look like without my mask (I feel like it ruins the mystery and the scare if you know what my boring face looks like underneath the mask).

I've been a Scare Actor (also known as Monster, Scarer or anything else people call us weirdos) since 2002. I've worked everything from home haunts in my parent's backyard to medium sized haunts in Colorado and Nebraska to the one that started it all, Knott's Scary Farm. For the last two years I have been a manager/designer/builder at Roca Scary Farm. I've been a major part of completely re-designing two attractions as well as managing them each night during the season. If you've ever been to any of the following haunted attractions, you may have seen me:

-Knott's Scary Farm in Buena Park, CA (2003-2005)
-Sick and Twisted in Denver, CO (2006)
-The House of Fear in Parker, CO (2008-2009)
-Twisted Fairy Tales in Westminster, CO (2010)
-Reaper's Hollow in Parker, CO (2012-2013)
-Roca Scary Farm in Roca, NE (2015-2018)

Once the mask comes off, I'm a pretty average guy who doesn't fit the stereotype of somebody who enjoys splattering fake blood all over myself and chasing people around and making them cry and/or pee their pants. I don't have tattoos or piercings, I honestly don't like horror movies, I'm married and have kids, I go to church, I have a full-time white collar job in a career that I've been in since 2002 and I'm even an Eagle Scout for goodness sake! But every year when October arrives, that's when I get to be a totally different person for a few nights each week and let me tell you, there's no better stress reliever in the world.

This blog will be used to tell funny scaring stories (I already have my most memorable scare story all typed up and ready to post), talk about why I became a scare actor and continue to do it even though it gets harder every year, talk about why you should be a scare actor, and whatever else I may decide to write about regarding my longtime obsession with scaring. If you have a question or a topic you'd like to hear me write about, post it in the comments.

-Uncle Varner