Erebus Haunted Attraction teaches actors to ‘scare the pee out of’ guests

By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER The Related Press

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — Grotesque make-up, menacing props and intimidating costumes are simply a part of a Michigan haunted home’s 25-year method for scaring friends.

It begins with coaching the actors who wish to supply the guests essentially the most ugly expertise. At Scare College they study all of the tips of the commerce.

Courses start weeks earlier than the four-level scream manufacturing facility opens to guests, introducing new expertise to the getups, face paint and unnatural physique actions confirmed to paralyze 1000’s of patrons for the reason that flip of the century.

The actors’ report card of kinds is the “Wimp Out Rating Board” within the ground-floor foyer of Erebus Haunted Attraction, which tallies the variety of guests who flee earlier than reaching all 4 ranges or who be a part of the overall of the “wetters, vomits, and faints.”

And sure, they’re actually knocking it.

The once-abandoned parking construction in Pontiac persistently lands on lists of the scariest haunted homes in America. Operations managers and brothers Zac and Brad Terebus stated the teaching and coaching performers obtain is not nearly what they put on or how loud they’ll shout.

“Scare College actually comes all the way down to the psychology of worry,” stated Zac Terebus. “Concern just isn’t an accident. Concern is an artwork.”

Within the weeks earlier than Erebus opened from September 19 to Nov. 2 Halloween This season, executives auditioned and employed dozens of worry actors, then coached them to be as scary as humanly – or slightly, supernaturally – potential.

In early September, Erebus veterans taught the novices in an upstairs room the ins and outs of zombie shuffling and demon screeching, strolling on stilts and wielding a pointed (plastic) membership. The brand new staff additionally realized about make-up software, costumes, get into their roles and personas, in addition to guidelines about interacting with friends.

It is all a part of an effort to convey out their internal enemy, Brad Terebus stated.

“Let’s simply say they’re attorneys by day,” he stated. “They will come right here, break off their defend and launch this monster inside them.”

Alan Tucker, who performs a bloodthirsty clown, stated scare appearing is “therapeutic.”

“You by no means actually assume you could be one thing else for just a few hours and scare individuals. However when you possibly can truly try this, it is so entertaining. It is so satisfying,” says Tucker, who’s in his second yr as a scare actor.

Renee Piehl is in her third yr and this time performs Nyx, primarily based on the Greek goddess of the evening, who scares friends ready in line to enter the venue.

“They arrive right here to be scared. It is Halloween. It is enjoyable,” she stated. “We now have to be ugly, scary and bloody.”

Moreover, the scarier the actors are, the larger the numbers on the Wimp Out leaderboard will probably be.

The board at present lists 10,711 “wimps” and 1,246 “wetters, pukes and faints,” each cumulative totals for the reason that Terebuses’ father and uncle opened the attraction.

“What we now have everywhere in the haunted home is what we name ‘hen exits.’ They’re mainly emergency exits,” Zac Terebus stated. “But when at any level within the present you say, ‘I need out,’ we’ll take you out, we’ll escort you down, you will find yourself right here within the exit foyer and you’ll wait on your group to come back out.

“It is a competitors between our monsters to see who can actually scare the hell out of somebody.”

Initially printed: October 8, 2025 at 5:34 PM EDT