Doom Haunted Attraction in Idaho Falls, Idaho

0:08 Doom Haunted Attraction in Idaho Falls, Idaho is now in their sixth season supporting the Local DARE program. That's coming up on today's show from the Haunted Attraction Network. I'm Philip and this is our sixty one day Hantedon or We're counting down to Halloween by celebrating Haunted House daily via videos, podcasts, and in person experiences. This podcast is just one part of this year's Hantathon. The best way to follow everything is by subscribing to our newsletter or going to our website at Haunted Attraction Network dot com and clicking on that banner. The best way you can support us as following season is by sharing our Hantathon with someone you think we'll enjoy it. Okay, Doom Haunted Attraction in Idaho Falls, Idaho is a fundraiser for the Local DARE program. We had Doom Haunt Attraction on the show last year, and last year we got more into the founding and the creativity by but this year I wanted to follow up with Brent and see how it's going and whether the goals have really shifted or not. So this episode is more about the goals of the program and the staff there and what it's doing for the community. Okay, here's Brent to give us an update on how Doom Haunted Attraction is going this year in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

1:19 My name is Brent Wilson. I'm the general manager of Doom Haunted Attraction in Idaho Falls, Idaho. We are a thirty two thousand square foot indoor haunted attraction and we operate as a nonprofit charity. All of our proceeds go to the Bonneville County Sheriff's DARE program to help keep kids off of drugs. We have right now about eighty five teenage SCARE actors signed up to come work as volunteers at the Haunt. This is a safe place for a lot of them. I thought I had a rough childhood. Now these kids here, some of them just blow me away. How strong they are given what they grew up in. Obviously, the DARE program is very important, but also giving some of these kids a family away from their family and a safe place and providing the good adult influence and I'd like to think maybe role model for some of them. That's very important. How long have you guys been here.

2:13 This will be our sixth season and twenty twenty three, operating the Haunt. Prior to Doom, there was another haunted attraction located in this building that also operated for the DARE program, called Doctor Slaughter's House of Terror for about eighteen years before we started. Yeah, how has your perspective changed? Has it changed in that it seems like it's a little bit more now about the team than it is maybe about the DARE program or I don't know, what do you think? I would definitely say it's a combination to the two. I think. Prior to my exposure to some of these teenagers here at the Haunt, I lived in a bubble, the middle class bubble. And when I hear kids talk about their parents' parole officer, I'm like, WHOA, your parent has a parole officer. So it it's been a game changer and a bit of an eye opener, and I've had a paradigm shift. The DARE program is just as an important I lost two dear friends to drugs growing up. It's just as important. But there are kids that have worked here five six years now that they're like family to me. There's a couple kids here I would adopt if they needed adoption. Literally, I'm not joking.

3:14 So yeah, it's about our haunt family. I know that sounds cliche, but it is true. It's just as much about that now as it is the DARE program and also our love of haunting. So, yeah, you are not a full time haunter, so you definitely do this, you know, on the side to make it function like that. Tell us a little bit about your background before you came into this commercial location. Okay, Yeah, so my real job I do commercial real estate and it's a very demanding occupation. But I actually started doing home haunts as a kid in Florida and did that for many years. The last year we did a home haunt in Florida, we had over eleven hundred people come through the haunt in two hours and we got shut down by the police no permits, and then moved to Idaho. How to child. When my son started getting older, we started throwing these crazy Halloween parties where we would do little walk through haunts, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. The last year that we did the home haunt in Idaho, it was about three thousand square feet and that's about the same time Doctor Slaughter's House of Terror closed up, and there was an article in the paper about how the state was no longer going to fund the DARE program and without the Haunted House, the DARE program would go away.

4:26 There was no funding, and so I contacted the DARE officer at the Sheriff's office and said, Hey, here's my background, here's some videos of my home haunt. I'm interested in picking up the ball and running with it if you are. And yeah, that went really well. That first meeting went really well, and it's it's been a good relationship ever since. Yeah, what kind of kid were you in high school? I was a punk rocker. Actually, I did see that. A's a band set in there is that you were? That's mine? Yeah, I when I was young, I was in a punk rock man. We put out five or six CDs, were on Spotify and all that, and I was an outcast. I was the weird kid with the crazy hair. And I can really to a lot of the kids here. We have a lot of misfits here at the Haunt now, and I give them pep talks because I know if you're fifteen years old and you're a quote unquote weird kid, or you're a gay kid, it's tough. Society is hard enough when you're quote unquote normal, And so there are kids here that are quote unquote weird, and I've taken them under my wing and I've said, hey, I've been there. I used to get bullied by jocks when I was your age, and it does get better. And they're actually scared of you because those guys are they try so hard to fit in. They're terrified of not conforming, and so when they see you being your own true self, they consider that a threat. They don't even realize it, but they consider that a threat. And that's why they bully you, because why else would you care if someone's quote unquote weird and not a conformist? Who cares right unless you feel threatened by that.

5:56 I like to think I've given some of these kids a little bit of help with self esteem and help them understand it does get a lot better, especially after you finish high school and you can just navigate your own course in life. Is that what you would say to year fifteen year old? Tell hell, yeah, I wish I had a grown up weirdo that could use as a role model back then, but I did not. But yeah, no, we have some great kids here that are going through a really rough time. Especially with social media nowadays, it's really hard being a teenager, especially if you don't fit the traditional mold of what's expected of teenagers. We have a lot of trans kids that work here. We have a lot of gay kids that work here. We have a lot of kids that are just punk rock or whatever, and we make sure they understand this is a safe This is a safe space. You can be whoever you want to be here as long as you're not stepping on anyone else's toes and so in a small town in rural East Idaho, I like to think that's a big deal. I like to think that's going to be a game changer for some of these kids growing up. Yeah, this is a very, very very religious community to fifty two percent LDS Warmon community, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying there's additional pressure from the church side of things as well. A lot of these kids grow up as members of the LDS church and it becomes even harder, I think, to break away and be your own true self if you've got that kind of pressure, you know, has it ever been difficult for the Haunt with that type of pressure or its counterbalanced by the Dare program. I would say for the most part. No, we did have one guy. Well, the first season we were open, one guy gave

7:29 us one star review because our animatronic mannequins had exposed breasts. I couldn't believe it. That would probably be the only instance I've ever seen it where that's been an issue. He just said, it's completely inappropriate for children. Do not take your kids here, and that's fine. We're not if you're offended by that kind of stuff. We don't want to be your haunt. Anyway. Most of the people here, if not all of them, understand, Hey, we're just here to raise money for charity, and we do push the envelope a little bit because we're a haunted house, and I think we should. We don't want to be tame, we want to be exciting. Was there a moment where you were like, oh, Halloween, did it click for you? Do you have a moment like that? Yeah, I've always been a quote unquote monster kid. I used to There was a great thrift store that specialized new magazines where I grew up, and they had old issues of famous monsters of film Land for like quarter and so I would just gobble those things up. But I think the AHA moment for me is I grew up in Florida and I went to Halloween horror nights the first year, first three four years they started doing it, and I was just I was blown away. And at the exact same time, there was a year round haunted house in Orlando, Florida called Terror on Church Street downtown Orlando onn't Church Street, and I had never been to a haunt like that before. I'd been to the JC style haunts and Terror on Church Street was a phenomenal haunted attraction and I just went through there and I was blown away. And my

9:00 girlfriend at the time was like, man, you're so passionate about this, You're so excited about this. This is what you should do for a living. And I wrote it off as like not practical, and I put it on the back burner, and I'm still not doing it for a living. But when the opportunity came to to this haunt six years ago, I did jump on it as a hobby, not as a career. But it's always been a passion of mine. I mean literally, at the age of eight years old, we were building haunted houses in our garage as kids, my brother and I and so I've just always been a monster kid. I don't know why. I just love it. But if you look at society at large right now, look at how popular Harry Potter is and all of the fantasy and horror stranger things, and there's the new one a Yellow Jackets.

9:46 People are really into fantasy. And I think it's because our lives have become so banal and compartmentalized and predictable, and so if we can offer a little bit of fantasy and entertainment in rural eastern Idaho, I think we could change people's lives for the better. I don't want to overstate it, but if we're giving people an escape from reality and we're making them happy for an hour or more, to me, that's enough of a goal. I'm not doing this for the money. I'm hoping we're having a positive impact on a number of kids' lives in the community. I think we are, And if our customers have a great time and they get to escape reality, more power to them. So I think that's the best goal I can think of. Today's episode was produced and edited by me Philip Hernandez with post production by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas. We're counting down to Halloween with daily podcasts, videos, and events in our sixty one day Hauntathon. Follow along at the link in our show notes. Our Hantathon is made possible through generous support from Gantum Mighty and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligent spotlights. See what you're missing with a free demo. Sign up at dantum dot com slash demo. That's Gantum dot com slash demo. Our Hantathon team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua, Megan Spells, Gavin Burns and omni Adventures, and our content partners for this year include Attractions Magazine, Creepy Kingdom, Freaks of Ajgen, hont Topic Radio, Kevin Heinbach News TV,

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