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Mark Engel likes it when people pee their pants. He’s not a pervert though — not that I know of. He just really enjoys scaring people and there’s no better reward than soaking trousers.
As a lead for the roaming actors haunting the grounds at ScreamFest, Engel is in charge of co-ordinating the likes of Michael Meyers, crazy clowns and grim reapers. He wields a chainsaw and is decked out in a bloodstained rubber butcher’s apron.
“Last year I had three people urinate themselves,” says Engel. Two of those people were adults. “Still working on my first one this year.”
ScreamFest is a big undertaking. One large tent houses two haunted houses, games, a psychic, a booth where you can have your portrait done as a zombie and a stage for performers of all shapes and sizes. Outside the main tent are four more haunted houses, a labyrinth, a large fire pit, fire dancers and a movie screen. And there’s Engel and his crew, always lurking.
As the night begins, a lone reaper stands quietly in the shadows before the overpass above the luge track at Canada Olympic Park. Appropriately enough, skeleton sledders zip headfirst under the walkway. As group after group of Halloween keeners arrive, the reaper springs to life, eliciting screams from children and grown-ups alike. In the background, the sound of a roaring chainsaw mixed with cries of horror and pleasure billow from Lucifer’s Labyrinth.
The crowd is mixed. Families, groups of teenagers and grown ups. Some children seem too young for the heart palpitations of ScreamFest.
The houses and maze are scary; you’re never sure who’s lurking in the darkness. Two of the houses are in 3D with neon paint jumping off the walls. I walk through Terror Under the Big Top with a stranger clinging to my back, literally pushing me through the house.
“Holy fuck,” says one wide-eyed teenage girl exiting the labyrinth. That about sums it up.
Some people tend to react poorly to fear though. There’s the unplanned release of urine, of course, but there’s also the tendency to punch the person who just scared you. “Well, there’s two ways,” says Engel. “One, it’s an instinctive thing, you accidentally (simulates someone freaking out)… that’s just a thing. The other is people just being douche bags. They just come in here, they’re of the mentality that nothing will scare them and if somebody scares them (he simulates a punch).”
Over at the porta-potties, people are cautious. This is not the kind of place where you just walk into a dark space willy-nilly. People open the door slowly, peer inside and then reluctantly enter. The roaming actors have successfully put everyone on edge.
After watching a beautiful woman stick an ice pick into her nose and walk on broken glass on the stage, I walk out to check in with Engel. There are no wet pants this night, but he isn’t put out by it. After all, they chased one poor person headlong into a garbage can. Now, that’s success.
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