[INSTALLMENT 13]
Swathes of blushing leaves tumble to the earth as the weather turns colder. Leering pumpkins stare at huddled passerby with toothy grins and wide carved eyes, while suspicious shadows lurk in every dark corner. In the neighborhood behind Branham, past a winding mess of suburban roads, joyful and terrified screams emanate from a curious house on Rebel Way. Returning once again for its 26th anniversary, the Rebel Yell Haunted House brings impressive terror to this coming Halloween season.
The Halloween season is upon us once again, bringing the spooks and scares that many anticipate year-round: what better way to celebrate than visiting a local haunted house? Join editors Mia Hanuska and myself for a bone-chilling visit to San Jose’s highly-rated, donation-based, and super-sick haunted house: The Rebel Yell.
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Welcome back travelers, to The Daily Explorer. In this series, we travel to interesting places within the Bay Area, hoping to inspire the readers of The Shield to explore their hometown. Keep an eye out for some of your favorite writers from The Shield. If you have any favorite places, restaurants, parks, etc, please email me at emi.gruender@gmail.com to issue a recommendation. Your name and input about the place in question will be credited, of course.
Without further ado, buckle up and enjoy the blog-style ride of The Daily Explorer!
SUNDAY, October 18
1:58 pm, Pre-Haunt Interview
Thanks to Westmont Alumni Jonah Martinez, who works as a scare actor, the staff of the Rebel Yell generously agreed to a short interview. At 2 p.m., I showed up before the intentionally-decrepit facade and knocked on the door. A couple moments later, I found myself sitting in the “Zombie Petting Zoo:” a canopied porch of sorts, talking with the four people present that were most involved in the Rebel Yell process: DJ, Tom, Adana, and Trent (with the addition of Ernie, later on).
They were very kind to me, and answered all of my questions regarding the origins of the Rebel Yell, the difficulties of both erecting and running the house, and the general process behind the curtain. In a thirty-minute interview, I learned that this year is the 26th anniversary of the Rebel Yell, and each iteration of the house constantly evolves. DJ, the manager and head of the operation, preferred the technical side of the haunt, rather than the actual performance.
“Yeah, [the performance]’s actually my least favorite part of it,” DJ admitted. “I like the special effects, creating an atmosphere, like the lighting.”
When I drew a comparison between the haunt and technical theatre, they laughed and corroborated me. Much, if not most, of the haunt’s effectiveness came from the interlocking facets of theatrical immersion: lights, makeup, sound, costume, set, props, etc.
They went on to tell me about how the Rebel Yell came to be as it is today. It started as a yard display of a graveyard, eventually ramping up year after year until Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion inspired DJ to think about how he could recreate something similar at home. With the Rebel Yell, they hope to tell a cohesive story, to create a horror experience that “feels like a genuine experience and not just a bunch of boxes of scenes, you know?” (DJ)
Adana largely manages the costume, makeup, and set decorating side of things. Trent is somewhat of a “construction foreman,” keeping things organized and more efficient. Tom helps to build, despite a couple of injuries he suffered at the hands of the house (his entire right hand was completely bandaged due to a hot glue accident). “I help build,” explained Tom. “To me, that is the magic: putting it up and watching it grow from the ground up. DJ liked to manage the lights and sound.
I learned a lot throughout the interview: most of all that the Rebel Yell needs help every year to erect the very complicated house. Mostly, people want to be scare actors, but where the team really needs help is with the set. When I asked whether or not they need experienced folks, Adana shook her head.
“We’ll teach you how to use a saw. That’s not a problem. Teaching people how to build is not a problem. Getting people who actually want to get in here and sweat, and make things, and do the physical labor is a little harder sometimes.”
If helping to raise a haunted house from the ground-up sounds like an activity within your wheelhouse for next year’s Halloween season: make sure to reach out—they’ll be sure to appreciate the extra help.
The remaining chunk of the interview was filled with entertaining anecdotes from everyone that could remember an example. “Everything is overengineered,” said DJ. “They have to be so endurable and reliable that they can go through so much abuse during the haunt.” They even told me a story about how this one prop’s head kept shooting into the rafters when the pneumatics activated— “we had people in lab coats trying to poke a decapitated head out from the spiderwebs,” they explained through spurts of laughter. They told me about the retail-worker level of privilege they had to deal with from some guests, who would overzealously run into walls and knock over props. It was a fascinating peek behind the scenes, and I left the Zombie Petting Zoo with a smile on my face and a certain anticipation for the coming evening.
7:02 pm, The Threshold
At around 7:00 pm, the doors open and the moody lights flicker on. I met my sole companion for this adventure, editor Mia Hanuska, on the graveyard-lined sidewalk. We were both dressed up, to some extent. I had let the staff know that I would be coming as a 1920s Journalist; Mia, as TVA-version Loki. The house was unrecognizable in the darkness, what with the lantern-lined waiting line and array of colored lights setting the mood. With ill-concealed anticipation, we filed into line and were soon greeted by a spooky rabbit-headed man: his empty eye-sockets and wide mouth roughly stitched over.
“Hello!” He said to us in a spooky, high-pitched voice. Despite meeting the team just a couple of hours before, I could not, for the life of me, puzzle out who wore the head. But no matter. After a short waiting period, we found ourselves at the front of the line, where Tom—dressed in a tattered scientists’ robe—welcomed us with a smile.
“Everyone, listen up, please!” He said. “When you’re inside, remember: this is a home haunt. Don’t run, don’t touch things. Be respectful.”
We agreed with a nod, to which he smiled and leaned in conspiratorially.
“Don’t worry. I trust you two.”
Before seeing the house in all of its nighttime glory, I had thought Mia was going to be the scared one. But as we stood there in the line, listening to the horrified screams of the people that came before us, I felt myself getting more and more anxious. As it turned out, I was the fearful one. When the yellow lantern on the sidewalk overhang lit up once again, it was our turn.
7:10 pm, The Haunted Walk
As they had told me during the interview, the team spared no expense to truly immerse their guests. We entered the decrepit house through a doorway, into a small waiting room. A hologram skeleton flickered to life in front of a bookshelf, telling us of the horrors we were to encounter inside this mad scientists’ laboratory: all of his grotesque inventions and the scenes they left behind. From the very first room—the arachnid room—my hands were clapped over my ears and looked away for every jumpscare. I could see the person in scary garb behind me, I could feel them moving closer: but I simply refused to turn around and look. Between flight or fight: I suppose I freeze.
Horrifying monsters emerged from well-hidden places, pneumatic jumpscares perfectly timed as we turned to face them. When we reached a study area, one painting’s image fell away to reveal a pale, bloodied scare actor that screamed at us: it only took us a half of a second to realize that it was Westmont alumni, Jonah Martinez. When we tried to say hello, we saw his face drop and he snapped the trapdoor shut. We would have to wait until our second walkthrough to completely catch him. The kitchen area was the most horrifying to me—what with the fluorescent lighting, grotesque body parts strewn all over the place, and soul-reaping jumpscare. Each corner was thoughtfully crafted, each room linked together to create an immersive storyline. To avoid spoiling too much, I won’t give away everything. In order to see the house in all of its glory, visit the Rebel Yell this Halloween season—and bring someone to clutch to your side.
7:15 pm, A Peek Behind the Curtain
We emerged thoroughly terrified: myself unfortunately more terrified than Mia. The same bunny-headed cryptid approached us again, motioning for us to follow him. “Come with me for a VIP tour,” he said in his same high-pitched voice. We followed him through the yard, through the Zombie Petting Zoo, into the garage, where there sat DJ before a surveillance grid, in his hands a small row of labeled buttons. We said hello, I introduced Mia, and he proceeded to show us an example of scaring—live.
“None of the jumpscares are automatically motion detected,” he explained, keeping his eyes glued to the monitor. He pressed a button, and we watched gleefully as a mother and her considerably young child jumped at a twitching cat prop, only to be jumpscared by an actor from the other direction. “I time all of them manually.”
We watched him work for a couple of minutes, in each of us a newfound appreciation for the sheer amount of work and effort required to create such an experience. We thanked them for the super-secret VIP tour, and before heading out, I asked who was under the bunny mask. When he took off his head, I was surprised to see Trent in a black ski-mask, his voice deep again how I remembered.
7:30 pm, Can’t Get Enough
As a result of Mia’s photography assignment, she wanted to go through again with her newfound knowledge. She knew what was coming, and therefore knew what she wanted to photograph and when. One of those subjects happened to be Jonah, who completely dropped character for a split second when he realized that Mia had snapped a picture of him mid-scream. After we laughed (goodnaturedly) at the poor high school graduate for a second, the trapdoor slammed shut and he was gone. We continued onwards. “Nice to see you again,” creepily hissed another actor when I stood before their scaring area, to which I laughed nervously. Knowing what was coming, I thought I was going to be less frightened. This time, I told myself, I would keep my ears open and actually look around, instead of refusing to face the jumpscares.
I was not any less frightened.
This time, however, I had a greater appreciation for all of the props, the decorations, the extent to which every scare was planned and “overengineered” (in DJ’s words) to function without hiccup, every time. We looked closer at the labeled concoctions on the shelves, each grotesque and grisly decoration. We appreciated the neon-green water effects, the air-guns, and the flesh-crawling bubbles effect in the “body hall.” I was even able to predict when some of the jumpscares were going to activate, in a pathetic attempt to exert some sort of control over my fear. I won’t lie–I felt like a magician, pointing at props the split-second before they started to move, like I could feel DJ’s camera-eyes on us. Before we knew it, the experience was over for a second time, and my chest felt tight enough to flatten my heart. With one last goodbye to the staff that we could see—and a left-handed handshake with Tom—we made our way back to our cars.
7:45 pm, A Distinctly Daily Explorer-style Mishap
An episode of the Daily Explorer would not be an episode of the Daily Explorer without a mishap. After an unsuccessful photoshoot with Mia’s photo wand, she had accidentally locked her keys in the trunk. As we waited for her dad to come to our rescue with a spare set of keys, we sat on the curb, debriefing the experience. Despite being one of the shortest Daily Explorer excursions thus far, we were treated with such kindness and generosity that it was sure to become one of our favorites. Thank you again, DJ, Adana, Tom, Trent, Ernie, and others we may not have met, for this unique and amazing experience.
PHOTO ALBUM:
THE VERDICT:
- Come visit the Rebel Yell this Halloween season. Though they do not charge for entrance, donations and patronage are greatly appreciated, in order to sustain the tradition for years to come.
- Bring a friend. This was one of the scariest haunted houses I’ve visited, and I do not think I could have gone through it alone.
- Don’t run. Savor the experience, no matter how scared you may be.
- Don’t touch anything, and hopefully, nothing will touch you.
- If you’re interested in helping out with this local haunt, reach out to them! Extra hands, especially for construction, are greatly appreciated and could make this arduous labor of love a little easier to set up. They’ll teach you how to paint, how to use a saw: all that’s necessary is a willingness to work. Tech theatre kids—I’m looking at you.
Join me in the next issue for yet another adventure, hopefully without the terror of locking keys in the trunk.
Signing off until next issue,