HALLOWEEN
sponge. He painted on black eyebrows and small wrinkles with a tiny brush.
“People don’t think it’s a real thing,” she said, “but you can smell the fear in people a little bit.”
Law, who doesn’t like to be scared herself, smelled the fear of the woman she made have an accident one year while working in one of the “scare zones,” areas in the parks outside of the haunted houses where performers roam around giving jolts of fright to passersby.
Law casually walked up to the woman, who then freaked out and ran away. Law spotted the woman a short time later on a bench, walked up next to her and just stood there. The woman ran away again.
Later, the husband came up to Law’s supervisor and told her the actress had made his wife pee in her pants.
“I was like, ‘Yessss!’ ” she said. “I didn’t mean to. It was such an easy scare.”
In the “ScaryTales” haunted house, where Law is working this year, she is the centre of a plot that has the Wicked Witch of the West seizing control of the fairy tales and giving tortured fates to storybook characters such as Humpty Dumpty, who is found splattered on the walls. She is one of the last scares in the house.
“By then, they’re terrified and they’re just ready to get out,” she said.
The makeup designers wanted to give the witch a regal appearance. They also tried to make it seem as if her witchcraft powers were bursting from cracks in her skin, changing her from human to witch, said Skeet Karsgaard, an assistant manager for makeup.
Listening to Karsgaard as the finishing touches of her makeup were being applied, Law said it helped to hear the character’s back story.
“Just for your body posture and the way you do things,” she said. “Makes me realize I need to stand up taller. I’m-the-boss kind of thing.”
About 3,000 people audition to be “scare-actors” each year and just under half make the cut. The “scare-actors” are cast by body type; a performer playing the Demogorgon from “Stranger Things” needs to be the size of a linebacker.
Four of the haunted houses share break rooms and the performers learn everything about each other during a Halloween Horror Nights season. Everything, that is, except what they really look like under layers of makeup, wigs and prosthetics.
“We call each other by our character names. I don’t think we learn each other’s real names sometimes,” said Law, who by now had red raccoon eyes, translucent skin, arched black eyebrows and a black wig.
Her transformation, after almost an hour, was completed with a black corset, a black cape, black gloves and a black hat.
“You want a cackle? I can cackle,” she said.
Then, turning on the performance, she said, “I am a witch and the land of the fairies is no more. Yahahahahaha.”