{"id":238004,"date":"2015-10-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/all-things-haunted\/"},"modified":"2015-10-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T07:00:00","slug":"all-things-haunted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/all-things-haunted\/","title":{"rendered":"All things haunted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scaring San Diegans for 23 years<\/strong><\/p>\n

por Alex Owens<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Halloween season and there\u2019s more than a ghost of a chance you can get spooked in San Diego if that\u2019s your desire.<\/p>\n

For the 23rd season, the Haunted Hotel is open for business on Market Street, offering guests more than their fill of zombies, ghosts or vampires. Its sister attraction, Balboa Park\u2019s Haunted Trail, has been open since 2000.<\/p>\n

Both haunts are the creation of Greg DeFatta and Robert Bruce, who got into the haunt attraction business after DeFatta decided to get out of a job career that was even scarier: being a Hollywood agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was working in Los Angeles at the William Morris Agency and I wanted out of the business,\u201d DeFatta said. \u201cI started doing spook attractions in Louisville, Kentucky, before adding more around the country, before deciding to just focus on the ones in San Diego.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8253\"<\/a>
The Haunted Trail in Balboa Park in Del Mar will keep you in stitches through Nov. 1. (Photo courtesy Haunted Hotel)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As scary as it sounds, DeFatta said running a haunted house is very satisfying.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe enjoyment comes when you hear the screaming, the laughing \u2014 every kind of emotion \u2014 and people having a good time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Besides the Haunted Hotel and Haunted Trail, DeFatta and Bruce also run the Scream Zone at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The season for all haunts runs until Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

All told, DeFatta says 300 people will be working at the three haunted attractions, including those doing the scaring and behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

It takes a special kind of person to be a professional scarer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we audition a person, we give them a character,\u201d DeFatta said. \u201cThe key is, are they able to be creative and can they drop their persona in front of a stranger?\u201d<\/p>\n

But working as a spook can have its own scary moments since no one can predict how a person might react when scared.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8009\"<\/a>
(Photo courtesy Haunted Hotel)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had people hit our employees,\u201d DeFatta said. \u201cWhen that happens, we remove those people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some professional haunted houses are located in allegedly haunted places, DeFatta doesn\u2019t believe either the Haunted Hotel or Haunted Trail have any real spooks scaring people for free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen any at the Haunted Hotel, even though the building is 140 years old,\u201d DeFatta said. \u201cWe used to run a different attraction called FrightMare down the street and I got creeped out there. I\u2019d hear strange noises all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, DeFatta said the Haunted Trail is naturally spooky because of its location outdoors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trees and surroundings help people get immersed in the whole environment,\u201d he said. \u201cHonestly, the area where the Trail is used to be a little sketchy. I think things have improved since we\u2019ve been there \u2014 even during the other 11 months of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haunted attractions play on primal fears, but DeFatta said the attractions do change with the times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do pull from what\u2019s popular,\u201d he admitted. \u201cZombies have been popular for a while, but even they have changed. Twenty years ago, zombies were slow. Now they\u2019re fast. Vampires have changed too. Thanks to a show called \u2018The Strain,\u2019 they\u2019re now more vicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeFatta expects big crowds this year because Halloween falls on a Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two weekends before Halloween are always the most crowded, but the fact that Halloween is on a Saturday means people will be talking about the holiday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Although haunted hotels can be subjective, DeFatta said there is one way to know if his customers were really scared.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know you\u2019ve done a good job when you can tell they\u2019ve peed their pants,\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n

\"leatherface\"<\/a>
The Haunted Hotel Downtown (Photo courtesy Haunted Hotel)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Admission for the Haunted Hotel is $18, $28 for a Fast Pass that allows you to go directly to the front of the line. The Haunted Trail costs $19, while a walk through the Experiment Maze is $25, $10 more for the Fast Past option.<\/p>\n

Both the Haunted Hotel, located at 424 Market St., Downtown, and the Haunted Trail, in Balboa Park\u2019s Marston Point near the corner of Juniper Street and Sixth Avenue, are now open, and operate every day but Monday and Tuesday through Nov. 1. Hours for the Haunted Hotel are Sunday \u2013 Thursday, 7 \u2013\u00a011 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 6 p.m. \u2013 1 a.m. The Haunted Trail operates Sunday \u2013 Thursday, 7 \u2013\u00a011 p.m., and Friday and Saturday 6:30 \u2013 11:30 p.m. For more information, visit hauntedhotel.com<\/a> y hauntedtrail.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Alex Owens es un escritor independiente con sede en San Diego. Se le puede contactar en alexowenssd@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scaring San Diegans for 23 years By Alex Owens It\u2019s Halloween season and there\u2019s more than a ghost of a chance you can get spooked in San Diego if that\u2019s your desire.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":238005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"All things haunted","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}