Fear is not usually very funny unless it's fear of something harmless—then it can be hilarious. This is why there's something exceptionally funny about haunted houses, which are full of full-grown adults nearly (or literally) pissing themselves with fear from an experience they signed up and paid for.
People who've worked as actors in haunted houses are sharing the funniest things they've seen while scaring people. Here are 23 stories that are as funny for us as they were terrifying for the visitors who experienced them:
1.) From VikingRabies:
I was a talking head on a table. A group of five people led by a girl comes into my room and when the get close to me I say "Hello" fairly nonchalantly. The girl in front screams and falls backwards with a domino effect taking everyone else in her group with her.
2.) From brendan685:
I volunteered at one for a few years in high school. The best thing that happened was that I saw a girl from gradeschool going through the room. She obviously couldn't recognize me so as she passed I whispered her name. She got a huge fright and the next day she asked on Facebook who was working in the haunted house. I never told her who it was. Sorry Jenna.
3.) From eternaladdictions:
I worked the last couple years volunteering at a haunted barn. Last year I was a nurse in charge of the insane asylum room. I wore scrubs and had my hair in weird pigtails. Lots of white makeup with dark circles under my eyes. I stood right where people walked in and I just stood still, no blinking, no head turning. I'd just follow them with my eyes. Many people thought I was one of the anamatronic. While people were focused on me trying to figure out if I was real or not, another guy would jump out of the coffin in a straight jacket and scare the crap out of people.
One night he scared a girl so bad she fell in the coffin with him and had her crotch in his face. He couldnt get her out because he was in a straight jacket so I had to go help lift her out, but I was laughing so hard it took longer than it should have.
One of the other nights a group of guys came through and assumed I was an anamatronic and he grabbed my boob. I just asked him if he was into fucking dead people. He felt so bad when he figured out I was real. It scared the shit out of him though.
4.) From Darrenyankj:
Was a faceless hood trying to scare people from behind the curtains, but didn't hear them approaching, so I didn't manage to pop out to scare them. They pulled open the curtains and asked me which way the exit was. It was both humiliating and amusing tbh
5.) From BlorfMonger:
I was working at Halloween horror nights. It was around 2am and the houses were starting to shut down, and only a few stragglers were going through the house.
Then the final guy goes through. it was some Japanese Businessman in a full suit and carrying a briefcase. His clothes and hair were rumpled like he had just gotten off some red-eye flight.
He was just ambling through and had such a look of child-like wonder and joy on his face as he took everything in.
6.) From JustLetMeComment:
I got to work in the special VIP attraction last year at my local place, it's basically a really dark trail in the woods, but the actors are allowed to touch guests. Grabbing and pulling people off into the woods and whatnot. Hiding kind of sucks, I had to lay in the mud and grab at people's ankles and then chase after them, but the funniest goddamn thing is the world is the lanterns. We give them little electronic hand-lanterns as their only light source, and two guys have remotes that can turn them on and off. Every time, without fail, the guy's girlfriend is yelling at him to stop turning the lantern off. It's even better if you have a really dark costume because then you can walk up behind them, lay a hand on their shoulder and say "Yeah jerk, don't turn the lantern off!"
7.) From Adam_Barrow:
Standard jump scare scene, a guy with a demon or whatever mask pops out, spooks the tour, then disappears back behind the wall...but I guess the guy got a little overzealous?
Demon pops out: "I'm gunna eat your ass!"
Tour member: "You're gunna eat my what?"
Demon: Recedes into shadow and myth, leaving more questions than answers
Tour member: "That's fine, this is fine."
8.) From Mishful_Thinking:
My brother worked at a haunted jail in my town. He said it was all going well until like an hour before it ended. Nobody was showing up and he had to take a leak. So he decides to piss in the corner. As he unzips and starts, he hears talking and commotion. Of course, he couldn't stop. So by the time that large group of people reached he cell and looked in expecting a scare, they saw a wolf man pissing in the corner. And he says, the only thing he did was turn his head and growl at them while pissing.
9.) From Scribeykins:
Not exactly an actor, but I was the guy who opened the door when a group went from one room to another. I wore this black cloak that had a hood that almost entirely covered my face (was thin enough I could see through it). These two kids (13-15 years old) came around the corner as I was moving my head back and forth looking at people and one of them said "dude these animatronics suck". I took a single step forward and he screamed in a really high pitch and jumped so far back he smashed into the wall. His friend stopped moving for a solid minute to laugh at him.
Also the amount of appreciative looks I got from guys whose girlfriends got scared and clung to their arm was far higher than I expected. Except for the one guy who was making comments about how this place wasn't THAT scary and he would protect her, only to scream like a girl as soon as he turned the corner. His look wasn't so appreciative...
10.) From everybodysheardabout:
I helped out with family-friendly Halloween walk a few years back, mostly involved sitting in a bush and letting some of the kids walk a little passed me before making some kind of sound in the middle of the group. However for the parents I would always moan "university costs are rising - oooooOOOoooOoo!".
11.) From instamatical:
C/P from the last time I answered a similar question:
I work at a haunt in PA that is part of a multi-attraction location (there's a haunted house, hayride, and corn maze. I work the house and we are generally the crowd favorite). Last year, my job was to sit in a shed where the exterior had been modified to look like a small mausoleum in the graveyard portion of the haunt. Thanks to a relatively simple system I knew the names of at least three people in each group that would come through. Into a mic connected to wrap around speakers (the sound followed the guests) I'd sing "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies..." and then pick a name and ask "Why won't you play with me, (name)?" and people would lose their minds; part of the "lore" for the house was that a young girl had died on the grounds and she was buried in the graveyard.
Well, one night mid-season, I did this to a poor, unsuspecting soul named Tiffany. And Tiffany's reaction was to scream, at the top of her lungs, "Y'ALL MOTHERFUCKERS NEED JESUS!"
Without question my best story of the entire season.
12.) From HappyNazgul:
Kind of related. A friend of mine used to own an old building where they ran a haunted house during the halloween season, the rest of the year they'd do "Ghost Tours" and I would often babysit wannabe ghost hunters to make sure they didn't get hurt or damage expensive equipment for the haunted house.
One of these baby sitting nights, it was a group of 10 friends in their mid-30s who were wanting a night away from the kids. What we'd do is split up into smaller groups (I was watching a group of 3 people, there was another three person group and then a four person group).
During the off season, a lot of the props and decorations were stored either in the upstairs or the basement to keep them out of the way, these rooms were always clearly marked and we didn't tend to let people in them anyways. Some dude from the four person group snuck away to look into one of the rooms in the basement (not paying attention to the room with the big sign that said "PROPS", and started screaming hysterically. I was the baby sitter that was the closest to him so I come running over to make sure everything was alright.
I wish I could say that what he saw was a clown statue, a Leatherface Mask, or even anything remotely scary that caught him off guard. What freaked him out was that he opened the door, the large mirror in the room made him think someone was was moving around in there and he went into a full on panic.
He was terrified of his own reflection. Many laughs were had over this.
13.) From NeverEnoughMuppets:
We had a guy who would chase after you with a chainsaw (chain removed) after you left the house. You know, just run after you a few steps when you came out the door. Well, one time these two girls came out and I swear to God, one of the girls just had like an extreme panic response and I guess her body chose fight over flight. She literally chased the guy down while he was yelling "I'm just kidding! It's just a joke!" and she kicked him in the balls so hard he vomited. She apologized and said she just freaked out.
14.) From TheRazorSlash:
I was a scareactor for a local maze back in high school. People would go in in groups, and I was right near the beginning. I was dressed in all black and had long "fingers";with claws and a burlap sack mask over my head. Right before me, however, were a group of killer clowns. My job was to crawl out of a ditch onto the path right after the clown scene.
This one girl comes in with her group of friends and is immediately freaking out at the clowns. Refused to go through. After much coaxing, she finally decided to do the rest of the maze. Well, during her freaking out I had crawled out from my ditch and ended up in the middle of the path right infront of her. After they finally convince her to go through, she looks up and makes eye contact with me. With my long claw hand, I slowly make the "come here" motion. She immediatly screams "oh HELL NO" and storms out. Didn't see her again for the rest of the night.
15.) From Booner999:
I had been working at a volunteer red cross haunted forest thing. I was in the section where we dressed up like zombies and lurched out of the forest at people. We did this for two weeks, but, on Halloween night, I went to a party before we opened the haunted forest. Unfortunately, I had left my zombie costume at home and I was dressed up as Ratchet from Ratchet and Clank.
Well, we decided to roll with it anyway and we got a ton of laughs. Zombie Ratchet was a huge hit.
16.) From crocoperson:
My friend and I worked in a room as crazed mechanics who were operating power tools on a dead woman. We used air compressed drills and acted out drilling into this dead woman. Ripping her head off and such. Now, like most places there's a no touching rule. However, the attachment bit to these drills are just cylinders so we could run them along surfaces to make metal grinding noises/ scare people. The wooden floor would vibrate violently if the drills were used on them. Well, we had a group of teenage girls come in that were so scared of these drills and that we were going to "kill them" that they ran into the corner of our room, climbed a shelf and stayed up there in pure panic. We couldn't get them down for about ten minutes and had to act out the scene a few more times because other groups were sent in.
Oh and some guy had a heart attack after he exited our area. Whoops.
17.) From sploom17:
I did volunteer once at a haunted house. I was the chainsaw murderer or something like that and i had a real electric chainsaw but with a rubber/fake chain. I jumped up at one girl who was by herself but i got no response so i thought damn didn't get her. I look away for a few seconds to see if someone else was coming and she was on the floor fainted and pooped herself.
18.) From BreezieDahlia:
I was an actor at The Haunted Hotel (located in the basement of this huge building downtown San Diego) and one season, we had half a car attached to a track that can be pushed quickly forward, complete with a real working horn and headlights. So when people walk threw the pitch darkness, a staff member would shove the car into motion, blare the horn and the headlights simultaneously, blinding the guests and making them shit themselves. I have never laughed this hard in my entire life at anything. People's reactions where absolutely horrified on a debilitating level, their faces were indescribable, Im talking 'preparing for death' faces. People would fall over backwards, men would push their dates in front of them... I couldn't breathe and my abs constantly hurt from barreling over laughing every night. Most incredible job I've ever had.
19.) From Wolfxskull:
I was a psycho chainsaw clown that chased people out of the exit of the haunt and I'd say the funniest thing is when people lose their minds and just fall all over each other. Also some people have literally zero survival instinct and when I jump out and chase them they don't run they just immediately cower into a corner. I would yell well isn't this awkward to make them laugh and usher them out. Girls throw more punches than guys do too.
20.) From MinnowPaws:
Back in the mid 90s I went to a haunted house with my family. I was around 8 and my little sister was like 4. She had those light up shoes that everyone loved back then, and still do. One of the actors saw the shoes light up and thought they were on fire. He broke character and started screaming "FIRE!" My mom didn't skip a beat and was just like "those are her shoes."
21.) From Bamont:
As someone with an experience based PhD in Haunted Housing who has visited hundreds of these over the years, I can honestly say that I've seen lots of funny/crazy shit.
However, the thing that comes to mind is when I was at Universal Studios in Orlando during Halloween Horror Nights (if you're a haunted house enthusiast like I am, the production, acting, and scares are all top notch). I was with my ex-girlfriend at The Nightmare on Elm Street exhibit. One of the rooms was filled with sheets, with a strobe light blinking quickly in the background; actors were dressed in blood-ridden sheets and meandering around, coming as close as possible to bumping into people but coming just shy of it. The group in front of us (about 5 feet away) was comprised of four teenagers: two girls and two boys. Most groups of teenagers followed a pretty similar stereotype at these houses and this one was no different: the girls were quick to scream and then laugh, the boys acted as though they were too cool to be bothered by some cheap scares.
So, as we're trekking through this matrix of sheets, fog, and strobe lights, one of the boys--who had spent the majority of the first section of the house talking about how gay it was--suddenly got surrounded by three of Freddie's victims as he was pushing his way through the sheets. The kid let out a blood curdling scream and then pushed the actor in front of him to the ground and bolted. Problem is it was dark as hell, and we were right near the exit - but with all of the fog and the way the lights were you really couldn't tell where the end was. He bolted forward, tripped over the actor he'd just pushed to the ground, and smacked his face into the wall, knocking him right on his ass. His buddy ran over and tried to get him up, which caused the teenage Ray Charles to jump in the air and start flailing his arms wildly. It seemed like one of his arms/hands connected with his buddy because he fell to the ground. The girls started crying. Security ran out to get them and lead them to the exits and this guy starts shoving them out of the way. They finally get them out of the house and we all start moving again (talk about ruining the immersion).
As we get outside, we can hear a ruckus on the other side of the partition. It sounded like security was trying to talk them down, when we hear the evening's hero scream, "I FUCKING PISSED MYSELF. FUCK YOU. MY DAD IS A LAWYER!" etc. etc.
We laughed all the way to the next exhibit.
22.) From PMMe_PaypalMoney_PLS:
A woman who I assume was the mother of a kid pushed her front, and sprinted while screaming "survival of the fittest!"
23.) From cs1986:
I made a very drunk guy pee himself by just looking at him for too long without blinking. Hilarious for me...not so hilarious for the clean up crew.
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