Disney's link to hauntings
Halloween started with ghosts.
It’s natural, after all, to be a little obsessed with what happens after death. To be apprehensive about the unknown, to wonder what can go wrong, to be spooked in the night.
Yet the early days of Halloween and its origins in Celtic Samhain (more on that in Thursday’s column) weren’t really about hauntings per se. So how did haunted houses become such a thing?
You can thank Walt Disney.
Haunting stories obviously go way back. Macabre exhibitions became popular in 1800s with London “chambers of horror” sporting wax figures of infamous people and decapitations. Legends and superstitions of unhappy spirits bothering the dead are probably as old as mankind.
But that’s not quite the same as a haunted house.
In 1915 (during WWI, when fear was in high gear) a fairground in Liphook, England, opened a “ghost house.” About the size of a train car, it was quite tame by today’s standards — mostly rocking floors, hidden voices, and blasts of air. What was new and exciting was that it all happened in the dark.
Early American haunted houses have a Great Depression connection, according to Smithsonian Magazine. To dissuade the property damage, vandalism, and harassment that came with overzealous Halloween tricksters of those angst-ridden times, towns began to develop ways to distract them. Some neighbors got together to coordinate “house-to-house” parties, turning their basements into spooky “trails of terror.”
But what really rocketed the haunted house in America was when Walt Disney opened The Haunted Mansion in 1969 at Disneyland. Modeled partly after the real Winchester House (of “Winchester” movie fame), Disney took hauntings to a new level.
No more mere sheets hanging from a tree. These translucent ghosts moved, danced, and sang eerie chants. Entire, life-size scenes were created, using new technologies and terrifying audiences. Shortly after The Haunted Mansion opened, 82,000 people went through in a day.
Disney set the new haunted house standard, raising the bar and cementing American fascination with the haunted house experience. It also proved their potentially high market value. According to an oft-cited NBC News story, the haunted house industry — including fundraisers such as the ever-popular but now-closed Post Falls Lions Haunted House — is worth more than $300 million annually. However, while still popular, some operations have closed, citing insurance and regulation challenges.
Safety and terror are a tricky pair. I guess that’s the point.
“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it on my desk.” — Robert Bloch
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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network who hates haunted houses almost as much as roller coasters. Contact her at [email protected].