Scared Seriously Silly

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"We're into primal fears," said Cash Alderton, a 29-year-old who works most of the year with heavy machinery but who, every October, teams up with the eldest Markoff brother, Nick, to re-create the Haunted Forest. "We chase the primal fears of people."

Alderton and two of the Markoff brothers were walking, midday, along the trail. It was two weeks before opening night, and they were standing at the covered bridge, where a lightning storm will thunder, and a long-clawed, strobe-lit troll will "attack" as people try to cross the creek.

"We could do a wind tunnel," Matt Markoff said. "We could get one of the big blowers" that inflates moon bounces and stash it at the top of the bridge. It would push out a mean, heavy wind, and people would have to fight it and the troll while crossing the creek.

Or do it the other way, the others said. Put the blower at the bottom of the bridge, and get a movie projector to run a film of giant blades, spinning fast. You could point it at the far end of the tunnel and use the blower to push people toward the blades, then siphon them off at the very last minute.

As for their own back-brain wiring when it comes to fear, neither Matt nor Nick watches horror films, but they're both scared of snakes. "They don't have arms and legs," Matt said. "They shouldn't be able to move. They're the Devil." Nick has a way of imagining nature's terrors. He said, "There's nothing more scary in the woods than having a tree fall down on you."

Last year he rigged up a 30-foot tree and a guy chain-sawing it down. When groups neared him, the tree plummeted toward their heads before stopping. It was universally terrifying, which made it a huge success and a disaster all at the same time. Everyone froze, or backed away, or dived headfirst off the trail.

"It was a huge backup," Matt said, shaking his head. "You have to make scares that keep people moving."

You also can't use too much blood: Blood gets old fast and gives people a chance to desensitize.

The trick is to use the special effects lurking inside the audience's brains.

"If you give them gore, that's their fear," Matt said. "We're gonna get you anticipating what you're scared of, and then we're gonna get you. The Haunted Forest is a lot of implementing people's own natural fears."

And we have a lot of them. Fears of looking foolish. Of not being in control. Of falling. Of failing.