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Scrappers stadium will become field of screams
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
NILES
The newest haunted attraction in the area is rising from the grave of one of its oldest.
ExFEARience will open Friday at Eastwood Field, the home of the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, and run through Oct. 30.
The mastermind behind ExFEARience is Jim Bugos, who ran Ghoul Mansion in Sharon, Pa., for 21 years. Ghoul Mansion is no longer in operation, as of this year.
“We decided that Ghoul Mansion had run its course,” said Bugos. “I was going to retire from the haunted house industry, but then this opportunity came up to start a new one.”
ExFEARience is a large one, with three separate haunts, and is almost entirely under cover and not exposed should it rain.
The haunts are:
The Hunted: Located in a 2,400-square-foot tent, where zombie experts separate “the clean” from “the infected” – who then become “the hunted” in a mansion.
Isolation: A psychological, sensory-deprivation experience, in which visitors wear a hood and then follow a rope through the attraction. Monsters and demons literally breathe down the necks of those who walk through. It is located under the bleachers on the left-field side.
Thorne Funeral Parlor: Many secrets hide in the parlor, and Corliss Thorne is bent on finding them before “the locals” do. Located in the third-base concourse.
Bugos said ExFEARience will use dozens of actors in costume and also technology to create scares.
“There will be about 50 actors on any given night,” he said. “We’re also using a lot of animatronics and special effects.”
ExFEARience also will feature a blacklight miniature golf game in a tent in the first-base picnic area. It will be family-friendly with only low-level scares, such as sudden noises.
An interesting and interactive aspect will be the Scarecade. Here, visitors can watch guests in The Hunted attraction on a screen and activate props to scare them while watching their reactions.
Such scares also can be pulled off off-site with the DareToScare app for smartphones. The app allows users to watch guests at ExFEARience and then scare them to see their reactions.
“You activate a camera [at ExFEARience] from your own home, then watch visitors walk toward it and then hit a button and activate a prop or a special effect and scare them,” said Bugos. “It’s like being one of the actors.”
The “scares” delivered by guests at Scarecade, or from the app, carry a small price.
“Some people want to go to a haunted attraction with their friends but don’t want to go through them, so they are bored,” said Bugos. “This provides them with opportunities to partake in the fun.”
ExFEARience has a real professional on its staff. R.J. Haddy, who was the season 2 runner-up on Syfy’s series “Face Off,” in which special-effects artists compete to make the best ghouls, is the Niles attraction’s full-time makeup artist. “He created three characters specifically for our haunt,” said Bugos. “A fortune teller lady, the pig-face man and a half-human, half-zombie. You won’t see these anywhere else.”
ExFEARience’s ticket booth will be open from 7 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 7 to 10 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays.
Admission is $20 ($10 for children 10 and under) for all three haunts. A round of miniature golf is $5 per person. Visitors also can buy a Scarepass, which includes admission to all three haunts, a round of mini golf and a group photo, for $25. For information, go to theexfearience.com.