Watauga Students Suit Up to Scare During the Spooky Season

Jacob Sigmon dresses up as a mad scientist to spook visitors to Tweetsie’s Ghost Train. “To be a successful scarer, you have to be confident in yourself,” said Sigmon. “You can’t let the people who don’t react get to you.” Photo Credit: Jacob Sigmon

Zoe Critcher, Staff Writer for The Spark

October is filled with corn mazes, fall hikes, brave escapes out of haunted houses, and most importantly, Halloween. For Jacob Sigmon, the Halloween season means hiding in a dark room at a local theme park and scaring anyone who dares to come his way. Even before his stint as a scare actor, Sigmon took part in theatre opportunities at Watauga to prepare for the role. 

“Before this year, I had not really had any experience with scare acting specifically, but I’ve acted in other ways. I’ve done Theater One, Theater Two, and the musical,” said Sigmon. “I’m in the haunted house, and I’m a mad scientist.”

Dressing up for each night at this local theme park varies from person to person. In the haunted house, each actor has certain things they prepare to best scare visitors in their designated rooms. The evening normally consists of dinner, makeup, and final room touchups.

“It can be a lot of waiting around for the costume or makeup people to be ready for you, but then they call you up and do your makeup and put you in your costume. In my room, there's this animatronic guy in an electric chair. When I pull the lever he starts shaking, so we call him shake-n-bake,” said Sigmon. “The park opens around 7, and there’s a firework that goes off when it opens. On Saturdays, when the park is also open during the day they’ll have dinner for the people who worked during the day and also work Ghost Train at night.”

Being a successful scare actor takes confidence. Depending on who is passing through, some may be more easily spooked than others, and it can be important to not let those with minimal reactions impact the rest of the scares. 

“A lot of times I’ll pick out who I think is going to be scared, and I target them. The advice I got for how to scare somebody was to be sporadic, to do big, unexpected movements to jump scare them,” said Sigmon. “I like to wait for people to be out of my sight, and then run around and give them another scare when they don’t expect me to still be there.”

Sigmon's time in haunted houses this Halloween season didn’t entirely consist of working as a scare actor. He also had the opportunity to be scared himself when he went to Lake Hickory Haunts. 

“It was fun to go through [having experience] as a scare actor because I was able to know things most other visitors might not,” said Sigmon. “When the actors would scare you, it was more enjoyable because you kind of know what they're going to do. It makes you appreciate it more.”

Violet Miller, a senior at Watauga High School, also went to Lake Hickory Haunts this fall season. Miller attended on a dark and stormy night and the abandoned factory nearby only contributed to the setting. 

“We got there and waited for a text saying we could go into the actual house. It was really big, I think it was 13 houses connected to each other, so it was one after the other going through it,” said Miller. “There was this one part with a bridge that sinks when you walk on it, and that was pretty scary.”

Haunted houses can be a great build-up to Halloween night. Both Sigmon and Miller say Lake Hickory Haunts is a fairly large production. The entire experience lasts about 30 minutes, and it is filled with a variety of scares.

“The most memorable room was clown themed,” said Miller. “It was very colourful with swirly lollipop designs on the walls, there were clowns with super colourful makeup and hair, and it smelled like cotton candy.”