Justin T. Rivera: Working at Blood Manor

So I have had the incredible unique experience of working in New York City's Premiere Haunted house attraction, Blood Manor. Definitely not a place if you're easily terrified. Of course you can always leave if you're a chicken. I want to tell you about what my experience was like working there.

Well I originally heard of this place from my aunt and uncle who went through it themselves, but that was a couple of years ago when it was at a different location. I remembered about it and found out they were hiring, holding auditions from an Instagram post. Come to think of it I don't remember who posted it, but I thought it was something I totally would be down to do and want to try. So I send them an email hoping for the best expecting nothing. Low and behold to my own astonishment, I received an email stating that I could come in for an audition. This came as a major shock because I didn't even think anything would happen, but it did.

The audition was not quite as I expected it to be. Instead of a room with an open space, it was done in one of the haunted rooms with about 15 other people who were also there to audition. I didn't really have any set plan on what to perform, let alone the fact that this was my first time doing sort of live performance. We each took a turn to do our own thing to scare a group who walks through. (The people walking through were auditioners who volunteered) A lot of people were actually pretty good. Other people, not so much. Some were very creepy and scary, while others were just awkward. I don't know how I did because since it is my own performance I felt like it was cringey. I literally just screamed for blood and asked them all if they had any. At the end, because I thought it was a potentially good add on, I asked if anyone was vegan because vegan blood is healthier. (Not that I care or am a vegan myself) I think it was fine because people must've liked it and thought it was funny because they all laughed. I guess any reaction is a good reaction. If I felt unprepared and surprised about the audition, I was going to have a panic attack when I got the email saying to come in for the cast meeting, which basically meant I got the job!

My first day of work was an accident, meaning that my first day wasn't scheduled for me but I came in thinking that it was. I ended up getting prosthetics and makeup put on me and of course a healthy dose of blood was splashed on me. With the prosthetic glued and painted on my face, I had a hard time remembering what was my real face. I was sent to a haunted room that was very loud and dark. A steampunk themed boiler room with the constant sound of gears grinding. The only steady light was the emergency exit sign as well as ambient light from another room. When a laser was tripped, strobe lights would come on with a loud electrical sparking sound as well as an air cannon blowing air down onto them from above as if it were a broken steam pipe. My weapon of choice was an oversized mallet made of solid foam and spikes on it that I would bang on the metal box shelves for that initial scare as soon as they walked into the room. I would move more erratically and frantically when the strobe lights were triggered in my attempt to make them move in the direction I want, to push them into the next room. (Not physically push them, I'm not allowed to touch them and vice versa) I think I worked that room very well. I know for a fact I scared a lot of people.

Now everyday is pretty much the same routine. Go in, get in costume, makeup, places. The dressing room is always busy with everybody moving around either waiting for a makeup chair or waiting for places to be called. The dressing room is the only place to get prepared with everything you need to do before places are called. You can grab a snack, some vitamins, a bottle of water and earplugs for the constantly loud places. I would always grab a water bottle and if I didn't already have, a pair a earplugs. Me being me, I didn't really socialize with much people but that doesn't mean I didn't talk at all. It is a very tight space after all and not talking would lead to very awkward situations, especially when trying to squeeze past other people. But I always did my best to carry out a decent conversation. Its great to socialize considering we are all actors and will be acting along side each other.

Some of the rooms get pretty hot, that's why proper hydration is always needed. The Manor is mostly dark but some parts are lit up more, just enough so that you can actually see where you are going and see what it is that's actually trying to scare you. Most of the rooms have at least two people in them. Some other rooms only need one person. In some instances you have to work with one another to help a good flow of scares going. Also knowing your character is a big key for how you act and essentially scare. And you would have to stay in those room for six hours, sometimes seven depending on the day and how many people there were. I'm very thankful for the breaks that we get because by the time the night is over I'm exhausted.

My routine of scare is actually quite simple. All I pretty much do is jumpscare people. Usually I hide behind a wall or a corner or some other thing I can hide behind, then wait for them to get close enough so I can jump out right in front of there face. Most of the time I was in the zombie apocalypse room, but it all depends on what the room is and what's in it. If there is nothing to hide behind the best thing is to keep moving around and act insane until someone comes walking in. But of course you don't need to act totally insane if no ones coming in. Thats why when the room is empty I like to calm down and breath as to not waste anymore energy. Only when I am anticipating the next horde of people to come in do I fully get into character. And pretty it's easy to anticipate the next group coming through because it gets quite repetitive. You start picking up a pattern with the flow of the house. You usually hear the people coming into the previous room. Either there's something triggered to make noise, the attendees screaming or the actors/actress' screaming themselves. You tend to naturally pick up the pattern of learning when people are coming through and the best ways to scare them.

Reactions are what makes this job the best. You get to see people at their most vulnerable and it's your job to use that to your advantage. When people are scared there's a whole process going through there minds. Essentially it's the basic human instinct of fight or flight. Theres the people who try to run away and the people who get defensive. By defensive I mean that they are the "fighters" and they tense up their muscles getting ready for a confrontation. Of course most of the "fighters" If not all of them were men. Mostly women were the "runners". But the most common reaction from everyone was flinching in one way or another. Either flinching inwards to protect themselves or outward to ward off any predators. Either way it was involuntary. The way that I scare means I get pretty close to them. Normally directly in there face, I easily break into their personal space. A little too close for comfort even for me because I far too easily get caught in the whiplash from the flinch. I've been smacked, whacked and slapped. It never hurt but it still doesn't feel good.

There are so many awesome special moments when scaring people. Either a hilarious reaction or a ridiculous situation. I want to share some of the highlights that has occurred to me at the manor. Well the first thing that happened was a girl ran straight into a wall. So frightened she was running blind and boom, right into the wall. Before I could even process what just happened, she's laying down on the ground, flat on her back getting lifted by one of her friends. All the actors and I had a good laugh afterwards. There was also this one couple who came through where the girl was just simply too scared. She needed her man to protect her. He went to everybody who came up to them and asked to not scare her which got me a little upset because it astonishes me how they would pay money to have people scare them and then when they go through they don't want to be scared. What did they honestly expect when they decided to go into New York City's most scariest haunted house where you get a free T-shirt if you pee your pants. Speaking of peeing pants,

there was one night where I worked the 3D maze, A hand painted fluorescent maze that requires 3D glasses, and on two occasions I made two girls pee there pants. The first were two girls and I scared them when I pop out screaming around the corner, both screamed but only one followed it up be saying, "Oh my god, I peed my pants." To my surprise, I had to struggle to keep in my laughter. It was the same scenario the second time. Two more girls, both got scared, one said they peed a little. I think the most craziest reaction was when this one actor and I scared this one girl to the point where she fell on the floor crying. I did scare a where she kicked me while falling down, but this was a new level of scared that I haven't seen yet. She was so scared that she couldn't get back up and started crawling towards the exit. So to my natural response I ended up getting on my hands and knees and started doing a psychotic zombie crawl after her. I got real deep into character that night. But the best night was unfortunately my last night. The weekend after halloween is when the manor officially shuts down. It's a special weekend where all the light are turned off and you become submerged in pitch darkness with only the help of a single glow stick to guide your way through the blackened manor. The reason why this night was so memorable was because of who came through. None other than the ferret himself, Murr, from TruTV's Impractical Jokers. We were given the heads up that he was coming through, to all the excitement of the actors in the room, let alone the whole manor. He came with who I assume to be his girlfriend and once he exited the room all of us actors in said room were hyped up after scaring him to where I was starstruck for the following twenty minutes. That was for a fact indeed the most fun night I had.

@DanielletheDog @BLOODMANOR it was terrifying!
— Murr (@jamessmurray) November 5, 2016

I am so glad that I had the opportunity to take the chance and go work at Blood Manor. Definitely a great new experience that was a lot of fun. I can gladly say that I was at least social on a somewhat decent level and that I made one friend from it. Unfortunately now that Halloween is over, the manor is closed and I am no longer a consultant, but I really enjoyed working there and I hope to continue working there. Hopefully this will be my new way of celebrating Halloween considering the fact that I'm way to old for trick-or -treating.

I had to film this when I got home from work which was at 3:00am and I ended up filming for an hour which is surprising to me because I don't normally film that for long. I didn't go to sleep until 4:30am, which meant I had stayed awake for about 21&1/2 hours. Halloween was on a Monday when I have early morning classes, so by the time I was done filming I was extremely sleep deprived. Not to mention that for the video I kept the makeup on so that meant I had to go on the subway looking like that, then once finished filming i had to quickly take a shower to clean my body of the the literal grime that is working at Blood Manor. I honestly don't remember if I did take a shower or if I just scrubbed my face mercilessly. I was way too tired to think straight.

I also thought it was appropriate to share this video of Jimmy Fallen and Kevin Heart that I mentioned in my video.