by Meredith Mulhern, photos by Arinna Hoffine

Upon walking into the infamous Kansas City haunted house, The Beast, owned by Full Moon Productions, one would expect to feel a few certain emotions. Fear, anxiety and anxiousness are probably common feelings while walking into one of the best haunted houses in the country. However, during the day, this is not the case.

Although, still intimidating with its dark warehouse facade and eerie entryway, the second floor of The Beast gives way to a spacious, wood paneled office filled with pictures of family, a landscape painting, innocent Halloween decorations and a woman with dark hair, black glittery lipstick and black glittery eye shadow. Meet Amber Arnett-Bequeaith, owner of Full Moon Productions.

Full Moon Productions was started after Bequeaith’s mother and grandmother fell into debt with their scare business in the Ozarks. The family came up with the idea to extend their season into Halloween, thus creating Full Moon Productions.

Full Moon owns four haunted houses in the Kansas City Area: The Beast, The Edge of Hell, The Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe and the Macabre Cinema. The haunted houses draw hundreds of thousands of people each year.

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According to Bequeaith, The Beast, built in 1991, is one of the most popular haunted houses on a national level because of its open format, but many citizens of Kansas City like The Edge of Hell the best.

“The Beast is all about getting lost and trying to find your way out, while The Edge of Hell is very tight and claustrophobic,” Bequeaith said. “It’s very old-school.”

Each haunted house takes an equal amount of work, according to Bequeaith.

“[The haunted houses] are like children; they each have their own issues that need to be worked out,” Bequeaith said.

Each haunted house has a different theme. The Beast pioneered the open-format style for haunted houses, making the customer feel lost. The Edge of Hell takes the customer through hell and back, while The Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe, built in 2007, is based on famous author Edgar Allan Poe’s literary works. The Macabre Cinema, built in 2007, takes place in a haunted 1930’s movie theater and takes customers through multiple famous horror and thriller movies. Each house has a host of employees waiting to scare the unexpecting customer walking through.

Full Moon has about 350 to 400 employees per season for all four haunted houses. Each year, Full Moon holds auditions for actors looking for a scaring job in late July, according to Bequeaith.

Full Moon looks for actors who have “a good growl or scream that comes from the diaphragm,” Bequeaith says, as well as actors who have reliable rides, clean backgrounds and actors who will not have an allergic reaction to latex, which is heavily present in the makeup used. Bequeaith and the four house managers then pick the actors which go to each house.

“It’s interesting because you’re looking for a certain look for a theme or a particular house,” Bequeaith said. “So if I asked you to act like a werewolf, it wouldn’t just be the way you howl. It’s how does a werewolf smell? How does a werewolf walk? It’s all about the character of the body. Usually we’ll know right away which house [the actor] will be in because of their performance.”

Once the actors are hired, they participate in Company Expectations, which is a type of dress rehearsal.

“[Company Expectations] is a lot of showing the actors how to get through a massive building like this,” Bequeaith said. “[We show them] where their spot is, how to get there and how to utilise the alarm system – in case they have a customer who has a health problem that needs [to be addressed.] It’s also looking at what size they are for their costume.”

Junior Leeny O’Boyle, who will be visiting The Edge of Hell for her Teresian after party, has no worries about her safety at the haunted house.

“It’s a secure area, there are policemen, and there are people inside and out,” O’Boyle said.

“We have two house managers that are able to get through the house very quickly,” Bequeaith said.  “We have security cameras all the way through, so it’s educating them on safety.”

Although auditions and safety education make up a large part of the preparation that goes into the haunted houses, Full Moon prepares for the Halloween season all year long, according to Bequeaith. After the Halloween season, Full Moon “winterizes” the warehouse, which involves shutting down the buildings, taking care of the pipes so they don’t freeze and shutting down the computers. Once everything is closed, the company goes into planning season, organizing everything that goes into the haunted houses for the next year.

Since the haunted houses are permanent installation buildings, meaning that the staff does not rip out features of the houses and rebuild each year, the content of the haunted houses have increased greatly since the opening of the Edge of Hell in 1975.

“When you walk into a scene, you break a laser beam [when you walk by],” Bequeaith said. “[The haunted houses] are computer programmed for sound and reactions, bringing the animatronics into action.”

All of these aspects make the process easier, according to Bequeaith, but there is one obstacle.

“All of these things matter, except that everyone scares differently,” Bequeaith said. “It’s all about timing. It’s about how to put that person in a situation that makes them feel a little bit vulnerable and how to provoke that innate fear.”

Examples of bringing out these “innate fears” are the many animals that Full Moon has in their possession, such as Medusa, the largest snake in captivity in North America, the Rat Man, a man who puts live rats in his mouth, and a live alligator.

The Rat Man, a popular and iconic aspect of The Edge of Hell, “came to us,” according to Bequeaith.

“He had a family member who was bitten by a rat,” Bequeaith said. “Then he was bitten, and now he’s been Rat Man for a very, very long time. People come from all over just to see him, so he’s very much an iconic character for Kansas City.

As for adding new features to the haunted houses, it’s a difficult process, according to Bequeaith.

“It takes about three or four years to layer all the aspects of a scene in,” Bequeaith said.

However, this year, Full Moon completely rerouted the infamous Werewolf Forest in The Beast, but the overall themes will always remain the same.

“In some haunted houses, you’ll run into clowns, then skeletons, then a graveyard, and it jumps,” Bequeaith said. “We don’t believe in that. We believe that in order to play the true trick on your mind, [the house] has to flow, it has to be continuous.”

As for which haunted house is the scariest, that is up to the customer.

“It all depends on your inner fears and phobias, so if you’re afraid of being lost, then The Beast will probably be the scariest for you.” Bequeaith said. “If you’re afraid of things jumping in your face and large snakes, The Edge of Hell is going to be the scariest for you, but the Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe is our true haunted house.”

The Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe has been monitored by the Discovery Channel, and according to Bequeaith, many Full Moon employees refuse to work at the haunted house anymore because of their experiences, including a manager that swears the ghost pushed her down the stairs, causing her to break her wrist.

Whether you’re looking for terrifying Halloween fun or you want to experience a real ghost first-hand, Full Moon Production haunted houses are a Halloween staple and have many excited for the upcoming holiday.

According to O’Boyle, she looks forward to “having fun with my friends and not knowing what will be around the next corner.”

With these haunted houses, one can definitely expect to not expect the next thing coming.