Made Ya Scream’s weekly feature for October 8, 2011 was with Brett Hays, owner and operator of ‘Fear Fair‘.  This haunt is located at Freeman field Municipal Airport in Seymour, Indiana and was a former WWII U.S. Army barracks.

Brett’s interest in haunted houses started back in grade school.  His first haunted house was built in his parent’s barn loft for their church’s youth group and he really never grew out of it.  After college, Brett was able to return to his love of haunted houses and started ‘Fear Fair’ eleven years ago.

‘Fear Fair’ is a production of the Seymour Jaycees, one of the few Jaycees haunted house that exist today.  They are an all volunteer non-profit organization.  They make donations based on the needs of the community.  Two years ago they were able to give twenty portable defibrillators for all Seymour’s police vehicles, and last year they built a playground for a local school.

‘Fear Fair’ has partnered with Darkrider Studios to ramp up their video production for the use of promoting their Haunted Attraction.  While on location we met Chris and Kitsie from Darkrider Studios working on their latest video called, “Mother’s Blood“.

Brett first met Chris & Kitsie at a horror convention, called HorrorHound.  ‘Fear Fair’ had a booth next to Darkrider Studios and it started from there.  “I was at a point where I wanted to do something different with our advertising.  I had a goofy idea that I have been kicking around for a short film, where this couple goes to the movies, but find themselves being pulled into the movie itself.”  Brett started talking to Chris and Kitsie about his idea and they created a short video.  They have been working together for about four years now and recently collaborated together for Fear Fair’s queue line videos.

Seven years ago ‘Fear Fair’ started working on horror movie scenes.  “Everyone always said they wanted us to do movie scenes.  I said you know what, every really bad haunted house I have ever been to have done Freddy,  Halloween and Friday the 13th.  The only way we are going to do this if we can do it on a totally different level.  And so we decided to run with it.  Our scenes and costumes are movie quality.”

This attraction has always been split, with the first-third having its own theme, while the last two-thirds of the house is about classic horror movies.  Last year the first room of this attraction had a western theme and it was called Reno’s revenge.  Seymour Indiana was the site of the first train robbery by the Reno brothers.  ‘Fear Fair’ received good reviews, but they always printed, “Westerns are hard to pull off, but they did a good job with it.”  Brett was ready for a change and stated, “Why are we tying our hands with this, let’s start with something scary and make it even better instead of overcoming our theme.”  Reno’s revenge has now become, “Hangar 17“.

The back story to Hangar 17 starts after the surrender of the German forces in WWII.  Their leading German scientist, Herman Goebbles, whose work was always plagued by rumors of mutated soldiers and other bizarre experimentation, was brought over with his classified lab equipment and was housed at Freeman Army Airfield in a building know only as ‘Hangar 17′.   All of this work would go undetected, until the long closed military installation at Freeman Field was reopened to the public forty years later for Freeman Field History Day.  Things went wrong and Geobble’s gas escapes…

The last two-thirds of the attraction is called, “Cinema of Fear“.  I don’t want to give everything away, let me just say you walk through and experience “on location” of some of the best horror classic movies scenes.  Their scene designs and costumes are awesome.

One of Brett’s pet peeves is randomness in a haunted attraction.  It has to flow.  “You will notice that we extend the transitions between scenes.  From Jeepers’ Creepers to Halloween you actually go in the front door of the Myer’s house.  When you leave ‘Frankenstein’ and go into ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’, you come through the closet in Nancy’s bedroom,” stated Brett.  “Continuity is a big deal for Fear Fair.”

Brett feels the success of this haunted attraction is due to a lot of hard work.  They have a dedicated staff of 6-7 people who work year around and sixty to eighty actors are used to staff the attraction.  They put in thousands of hour of work; it’s a passion because they truly love it and it shows!

As we exited the attraction the queue lines were already crowded and more were waiting in line to purchase tickets.  Everyone was itching to get a peek inside.  I understand why they drew such large crowds; their dedication to detail, room design, costumes and props, was evident throughout the haunted attraction.  If you are in the area don’t miss the opportunity to experience, ‘Fear Fair’.

MadeYaScream.com would like to thank Brett and his cast and crew for having us out this season.  We had a fantastic time and appreciated the invitation Brett extended to us to see this awesome Haunted Attraction!

A special shout out to the crew that makes ‘Fear Fair’ rock:

Brett Hays – Director
Shawn Miskell – Assistant Director
Angie Mitchem – Marketing Manager
Erika Burton – Costume Directory
Staci Peters – Operations Manager

Casper

Here is a link to the photo gallery: Fear Fair
Click here to down load Fear Fair’s photos.