Boo! Theory

With autumn comes early darkness, paving those once gloriously golden
summer footpaths in the bleak shadows of dusk.

The green, rolling hills are gone, and in their place is the ominous crackle of dead leaves
being trampled underfoot.
A chilly breeze whispers ungodly things beneath its icy breath and there is the distinct scent of someone burning wood nearby, perhaps from
a bonfire.

The only thing visible beneath a dark blanket of night hiding the stars is a glowing moon streaked by a passing wisp of cloud. The only sound is of a swinging door attached to a porch somewhere in the distance as it gets slammed by the wind, over and over and over again.

Your mouth is dry and your pulse races. It gets so that you try to hold your breath to keep the imaginary stalker from hearing you exhale. But all this does is send waves of dizziness through your head and makes your heart beat faster and faster.

In the darkness, there is the quickening creepiness of being watched, and the feeling that at any moment, some unseen entity will leap out from behind the darkness and pounce.

‘People like something that gets a little bit of the adrenaline going,’ said Leo Martin, owner of the Double M Haunted Hayride in Malta.
‘It’s the unexpected that scares people. The unexpected within reason, of course,’ he said.

Across the other side of the county, Schuyler Farms is having a haunting of their own. A long dirt road leads to the entrance of the haunted corn maze where large, black spiders dot the landscape of waist-high corn stalks that rear their ugly above rows and rows of fields of hay.

The key to the deepest thrills and creepiest chills, is the what bubbles in the cauldron of
the imagination.
Fright Factor plays on pre-existing fears, and have something to do with the human brain chemistry of serotonin levels and the releasing of endorphins. Emotionally, for adults in particular, the Halloween scare is a healthy return to childhood ways. The kicks come
from dealing with fear - something people wouldn’t ordinarily enjoy - in a playful way.

‘With fear, people have this sense of things as being out of their control,’ said Saratoga Springs-based psychotherapist Veronica Cole.
‘When people deal with spooky things they know are not really real. This is sort of a fun fear
and something they can find enjoyment in.’
Particularly, she said, when the journey into fear is a group experience. In the company of friends, it can be an empowering adventure.

The escapism is aided by theatrics and by artists of illusion. Makeup artist Frank Ippolito lives in Hollywood, Calif. He has worked on the TV shows ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Friends,’ and on the set of the films ‘Daredevil’ and ‘Scary Movie 2.’

His is the work of bruised and lumpy foreheads and bloody scars and prosthetics to create wicked monsters and evil-looking pumpkin heads. Ippolito was brought to Lake George for the month of October to work on the Great Escape’s Fright Fest. He splits his time between the actual handiwork of making scary prosthetics and monstrous molds and applying his gruesome creations to characters you see walking around the park, as well as those slithering through Skull Manor.

‘A lot of my inspiration comes from old comic books and movies that scared the crap out of me when I was a kid,’ said Ippolito, whose childhood growing up in Ohio was most affected by seeing movies like ‘Werewolf in London.’
It inspired him to work in the movie business and to move to Hollywood, a place that is no stranger to fearful fog, scary skeletons and the creepy creak of decrepit floorboards.

Playing into common pre-existing fears, the industry comes out with films like ‘Arachnophobia’ or ‘The Exorcist.’ And there’s no measuring the effect that a movie like ‘Jaws’ has had on a generation of beachcombers, or, for that matter, what fearful images ‘Psycho’ instilled for someone trying to complete the simple act of taking a shower.

Halloween costumes exaggerate the person. Sometimes, costumes portray the shadowy self - that small, deeply suppressed part of ourselves that we secretly hate or fear. At Halloween Hall in Ballston Spa, Lois Myers has seen a lot of changes in style of costumes in her 23 years in the
business.

‘What people want in costumes today is a lot more sophisticated than in the past,’ Myers said. ‘It used to be simple, Dracula or Frankenstein.
Now with movies like ‘Scream’ or a popular horror film with a Freddie Krueger or a Jason, these new characters become a staple.

‘My theory is people want to play dress up and do this madcap thing. And there is a big difference in what men and women want when it comes to costume. The guys like to be scary, so they put on an ogre mask and scare little boys and girls. It’s like the little boy in them is comingout, wanting to give a good laugh or a scare. The girls don’t want to be ugly. They want to be a princess; they want to be a cheerleader. They want to have a costume that makes them look attractive,’ she said.

For the rest of us, there is the ominous echo of a ticking clock, the tinkling notes at the high end of a piano, and the knowledge that around every foggy corner, the cloak of darkness promises
a sudden breath-talking surprise of the unknown.

by Thomas Dimopoulos
The Saratogian, Oct. 24, 2004.