I have friends who only know the name. I have friends who have no idea what it is. I have friends who feel that this is too much of an "identity" and that I should be my own person, but that is how all "outsiders" look in on an "organization."
[SIDE NOTE: Right about when I began working at CB, an internet list of "signs your family member is involved in a cult" was circulating in an annoying "post or print this and send it to all of your friends who would rather hear what you are doing instead of reading something you copped from somewhere else" sort of way. Ricky, friend and owner of CB, shared the list with us, laughing at many of the things we had in common with the profilers' definition of "cult" and "cult activity."]
Castle Blood (
http://www.castleblood.com and yes I'll work on the hotlink thing later) is a theatrical, seasonal haunted attraction in the Southwest corner of Washington County. If you are familiar with Historic Route 40 it is three houses up from THE traffic light (and there is only one...I counted) between Washington/Laboratory and Brownsville on the Western side of Beallsville.
I've written several articles on CB already and there are plenty of places on the internet to find more elaborate descriptions. My story starts with Year 4 in the CB "official timeline," their second and final year in Bentleyville. I discovered the place after seeing signs at the original/current location during my travels to and from our Scout Summer Camp located on a different part of Route 40. I called the attraction to ask Ricky (then a complete stranger) to speak to my Rotary group about his fledgling business in Washington County. My new girlfriend (yet to be fiancee and eventual wife) and I went to visit the attraction in the season and I was back a total of FOUR times that year. This was also during the beginning of my tenure as a magic demonstrator for The Cuckoo's Nest (
http://www.thecuckoosnest.com) magic shop in Pittsburgh and a couple of other adventures. I was so taken by the place that I asked about working there in the coming season (and rest of year as I knew that they also were doing summer tours and planning on other out-of-season operation).
I was politely told that there were no openings at present, and learned through listening that there was a strong possibility that the attraction wouldn't even open in 1998. Imagine my surprise when I send and email in August of '98 and get a quick response asking me if I'm "interested in spooking" with them for the season.
To explain things a bit more: Castle Blood is the following: theatrical, story-driven, heavy on costumes/makeup/set, gore and chainsaw free, AND MAGICAL. In 1997, there were no less than FIVE (of approximately 13) scenes that used traditional magic effects as a part of the staging and scripting. It is as far from the traditional haunt as I had seen at that point in my life (still very few exceptions to this rule anyway) and I was enthralled with everything that I saw. Each tour was a bit different due to the actors and group dynamic. You also play a game and must find/trade certain objects to "win," which unfortunately I did not do until our fourth trip on November 1 of that year! But a haunt that does and appreciates magic? If I wasn't doing something of my own by then, I would love to work an attraction like that!
Ricky thought that since there were no performing magicians who were actively doing magic as a part of the attraction (those who did perform magic had other things to do) and none of the magic designers/consultants were actually in the current cast (see future posts for more info on some of these people) it might be nice to "have a magician to work the lines and perform hand magic."
My first year consisted of me learning how much I didn't know about theatrical makeup, making my at that point fiancee/soon-to-be wife comfortable in bad makeup and prosthetics (my fault) and costuming that looked lame in comparison to everyone else there (she covered up with an expensive Irish cape and felt a little better), and trying the first of my magic effects out in line. I couldn't handle attempting my own face while putting together what I could of my wife's face, so I threw on my favorite mask (my Grendel mask which is logged into CB Lore as "Chris' stoopid Mexican wrestler mask"), put on a robe w/ the hood over the mask and went to work the line. By the end of the first weekend, a veteran actor was unavailable, so Ricky told me how much he needed me in the Pumpkin Patch to be a living scarecrow to replace Hook, who just couldn't make the rest of the season. (This was Ricky's ever-so-subtle way of letting me know that my mask wasn't cutting it and that he had a better mask for me to wear if I was that uncomfortable w/ makeup. He's good at this form of "people management.") I spent the rest of the season just inside the walls of CB as a scare actor in the third scene (our Pumpkin Patch/Graveyard area).
1999 was our wedding year and the year that Kari (former girlfriend/fiancee and now wife!) got her wedding present of her first CB costume. Although much less time consuming and costly, I now had a costume of my own as well. Out front, I did a few more things w/ the magic and began to develop the strange following that still looks for me each year down at the attraction. However, Ricky quickly discovered my other talent: SALES AND MANAGEMENT.
In between working groups, I would sell glow necklaces up and down the line, assist with organization of people, and maintain general order. Suddenly, I was handling money, acting as a roving information desk, and in a position of perceived (as far as the public saw) responsibility! Discussions over this season led to more work w/ sales and "management" functions with the magic beginning to take a back seat to the other responsibilities. I also had almost nothing to do with anything pre-season, but that would change in the next year.
As the years went by, I became more involved in off-season operations. In 2001, we took the major hit that much of the Entertainment Industry took at that particular time. (Honestly, planes crashing into the WTC and everywhere else only made things worse. The economic decline was already coming and I had seen some of the signs of it at the Halloween Costume and Party Show in March of 2001 and in conversations w/ financial planners and stockbrokers.) It took us three years to recover from that hit.
In 2003, we lost two key cast members (as far as off-season operations go) just prior to a major tear-out and rebuild of an area. We try to rotate things on a three-year basis, and had already begun a major overhaul as our main construction person took a job in NC and our main artist began to pursue other interests. This left a big gap in terms of resources, and the money wasn't flowing as freely as it had previously. (OK, the money has NEVER flowed as freely as any of us have wanted it to, but now we were on the verge of working only w/ cash resources at hand and worrying about other financial issues.) Suddenly, I had a lot more responsibility.
In 2004, I had taken on so much responsibility off-season, I was actually given the title of "Administration/Operations Manager." I also was charged w/ the task of designing new and different magic effects for use on the inside of the attraction. 2003 had really drained me and I was ready to be done somewhere during opening weekend. To shake things up for me, I also asked for a bit of variation in my own routine, and was now also performing one night/weekend on the inside for the 2004 season. We also created daylight tours for younger children and families and increased our involvement in community events and "happenings" to promote the attraction year-round. Ricky and Karen (yet to be mentioned until now but the other half of the ownership of CB) had taken a major job building a show in Rochester, NY and I was doing as much business as I could in their absence during the summer. Ricky and I also traveled to the first HAuNTcon (
http://www.hauntcon.com and the capitals are a sneaky way of sub-naming it "Haunted Attraction National Tradeshow and Convention" but I digress) where a last-minute headache refurb waited for Ricky and my role as his front man shifted a bit more. Lastly, we attended our first Ironstock (
http://www.ironstock.com) Gathering in Southern Indiana.
In between the 2004 and 2005 seasons, we expanded our management structure, increased our sponsorship scope, and altered our general operation. I began to chronicle the magic experiences I had worked on for the seven seasons prior. Ricky and I hit the road again and I presented two types of magic/hauning sessions at Ironstock and the Midwest Haunters' Convention (
http://midwesthauntersconvention.com). I designed and/or scripted magic effects for four areas of the attraction( magic worked its way into a fifth scene in a very cool way as well), performed the magic 2/3 nights each weekend in one scene, and worked on the expansion of our matinees and sponsorship programs. And most importantly: our daughter Katelyn was born on March 25!
I'll explain the end of the 2005 season-now in another entry. I've typed too much now as it is.
If you've followed me through the timeline to this point, thank you very much!
Chris Handa
a.k.a. Scrye
From my PRESENTATION COMPANION:
