Haunted house scares up seasonal business

HARRODSBURG, Ind. -- With the scene set as a house with glowing eyes, zombies with chain saws and the undead collecting tickets, Harrodsburg Haunted House intimidates many of its yearly visitors. "Cousin Lunis" sweeps up and down the lines of anxious patrons, breathing heavily and spitting ominous warnings.\nEach year, the Harrodsburg Haunted House opens to the living to take them on a tour of "Mad Max's" dimly lit house and laboratory, displaying the house's "history" of a mad undertaker, his missing assistants and an ill-fated girl.\nOriginally built as a church and later used as a storage facility, the Harrodsburg Haunted House was renovated in 1986 when its owner, John Jeffries, and his friends moved their haunt to the location. Since its opening, Jeffries has worked to help local organizations, donating proceeds from the house to the local Perry Clear Creek Fire Department, the Indian Creek Fire Department and, this year, to Riley Hospital for Children and the Harrodsburg 4-H group.\n"As far back as I could remember, I liked the holiday and season. It has its own stories and folklore," Jeffries said.\nJeffries, born in Florida, said Disney's Haunted Mansion in Disney World inspired his interest in starting his first haunted house, which was in his mother's basement when he was 8 years old.\n"My mother told (my friends) a scary story, and I brought them downstairs," Jeffries said. \nJeffries described his first props as someone else might describe his first bike.\nDecades later, Jeffries' passion for haunting holds strong. Months of work are required to make the house different each year, he said.\n"Each year we renovate, but the theme stays the same," Jeffries said. "We start in March with the ideas and changes and brainstorm until May."\nThe crew then spends from June until the first weekend of October building new sets and renovating old ones.\n"What we do -- the story, the history -- probably makes us one of the first in the state to have a real backstory," Jeffries said. "We are one of the few in the country with the detail ... To me, it's really important to have a good backstory to get people really involved."\nJeffries owns www.hauntedindiana.com, a Web site he created with friend and business partner Brett Pittman, to organize information and stories on paranormal and historical events in Indiana. The site features submitted articles, a list of haunted locations in Indiana, a forum for discussion and ghost photos and videos.\nJeffries and Pittman also publish HauntedIndiana.com Magazine, an extension of the Web site with the most recent issue offering suggestions on ghost hunting, common signs for a haunting and an interview with "Hoosier horror legend" Sammy Terry.\nPittman, after visiting the Harrodsburg Haunted House for his first time, sent Jeffries a virtual-reality set of the haunt. After discussing aspects of the house online, Pittman decided to redesign the Harrodsburg Haunted House Web site.\n"I enjoyed the story for the place, but I thought it needed a better, more interactive format," Pittman said.\n"When Brett joined the haunt, he brought new levels of Web site look that really put things on the map. He ... could see the direction I wanted to go and the level of detail I wanted," Jeffries said in an e-mail. "We really pulled things together."\nPittman started helping out with sets and introducing ideas and was eventually introduced as a character in the haunted house.\n"I didn't know what it would be like at first, (but) after the first year I told him I had to come back," Pittman said.\nOne of Pittman's responsibilities is to work the line to keep out guests who might be intoxicated or otherwise disruptive. Pittman said most visitors are just looking for a good scare.\n"It was really good," said Andrew Winters, an IU sophomore and member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity who visited the house. "For a house to be able to scare the shit out of some college guys -- that's pretty good."\nThe trip to Harrodsburg was part of a joint homecoming event between Phi Kappa Sigma and Delta Gamma sorority.\nIn addition to the magazine and Web site, Harrodsburg uses less mainstream means of promotion.\nSophomore Nate Brewer recounted an instance when he was at Bloomington's Atomic Age Cinema and a man dressed in a zombie suit carrying a severed head walked in during the show and started handing out fliers for Harrodsburg. \n"Everyone knows about Harrodsburg Haunted House," Brewer said. "Growing up, it's (the haunted house) you hear about most. I know some of my friends' families have made it a tradition"