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THE STORY OF CARNIVAL OF HORRORS...
told by Ryan Pluta of The Carnival of Horrors

Every year, when the leaves turn brown and the air gets a chill, northeast Ohio has a carnival roll in to town. People tend to get very excited when an event such as this is in their town. But unlike the Ringling Brothers, this macabre event is more in tune with Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. This is no light-hearted circus and the clowns are not here to make you laugh, this is The Carnival of Horrors.

Northeast Ohio is rich with haunted attraction history. Several haunts have been around for over 30 years. Created when Ryan Pluta was just a baby. But for over 18 years, he has been a part of this history. Appearing in costume at his first haunted house gig at age 14 and wielding a chainsaw, he became obsessed with scaring people. Over the years he worked at some haunted attractions in Cleveland, Ohio learning his techniques and completely enjoying his job. In 1990 he took it to the next level at age 17 and created his own haunted house, The Haunted Crypt. Relying on well-planned lighting scares to compensate for a low budget and simple scenes, The Haunted Crypt evolved over the years and finally, in 1998, The Carnival of Horrors was born.

When attending The Carnival of Horrors, you are guaranteed a unique and terrifying experience. This multi-attraction haunt not only has frightened northeast Ohio with five different haunted events in one location, but each of them is a completely different experience than the next. Welcome to The Funhouse, The Mine Shaft, The Freakshow in 3-D, The Hayride of the Living Dead and The Wicked Woods.

“What I really wanted to accomplish was to create attractions that were each individual in their own right” says Pluta. The Carnival of Horrors was the culmination of all of the trial and error of original Haunted Crypt attraction. Utilizing a steadfast strategy of high intensity scares and using lighting to his advantage, he was able to create an event that had a scare for everyone. “I don’t care if you were a little girl with a skinned knee or a big, bad frat boy, you came out knowing that we got the best of you!” Judging by the early reviews from all of the major northeast Ohio news programs, it seems he may be right.

“Scariest haunted house in all of Ohio”
– WEWS Channel 5 News

“Ryan Pluta is the Brian DePalma of the haunted house industry”
– WEWS Channel 5 News

“Haunted houses that will leave even the Devil cowering in fear”
– FOX 8 News

“The Carnival is one place guaranteed to scare you this Halloween”
– WOIO Channel 19 News

“Be prepared to be scared at The Carnival of Horrors”
– WKYC Channel 3 News

The Carnival of Horrors was first located at The Medina County Fairgrounds in Medina Ohio. Since the event is a temporary structured event, they needed to convert barns located on the premises into the fully functional haunted attractions. So during the month of August and September, construction and preparation is done round-the-clock to create The Carnival. The event now resides at Blossom Music Center in Akron, Ohio, where similar construction techniques are needed, but each haunt is created by converting pavilion structures into the attractions. “Temporary structures have advantages and disadvantages, the opportunity to keep it fresh every year and make additions is a great opportunity and the creation of the attractions each year is just an extraordinarily satisfying experience. But construction costs are always a consistent expense.” Pluta does not have a set plan when he constructs the haunts, they build it wall by wall while planning out what the customers sees and how the scare will work. “What looks good on paper, isn’t necessarily the best technique in reality, I like to experience the haunt as I build it.” One thing that also sets The Carnival of Horrors apart in their market was their set designs and the strategies behind them. “We do not ever visit other haunted attractions, we want our minds clear and our ideas to be unique and our own,” says Pluta, “although, we see our competition attend our attractions on opening weekend every year, we pride ourselves in our originality and I’m flattered that my competitors always need to see what we come up with year after year.”

One of the most important things to focus on in the market Pluta works in is advertising. The market is filled with haunted attractions and new ones open up each year. When he opened his first haunt in 1990, there were only a few competitors and people were willing to drive over an hour to get to a haunt. Now you have to fight for people to visit your attraction instead of having them go to the one down the street. Not only must you deliver the experience you have promised, but you must also dominate the market with your message. Pluta does this with TV, radio, newspaper and several large corporate sponsors. The main focus with the sponsors is to utilize their locations to advertise The Carnival of Horrors. Each location, ranging from thousands of convenience stores, gas stations, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, music stores and movie rental businesses each have a counter display with discount tickets. They also display a poster for the event on the entry and exit doors. “The discount tickets are huge, the more I get in the market, the more I potentially will see come through the ticket window.” Pluta has over 1 million discount tickets distributed every year. Public relations is also a must. Free press in the newspapers, on TV and on radio is a great opportunity and it’s FREE. Every season, Pluta is booked solid for television, radio and newspaper interviews during the month of October. Over the course of 17 year haunted attraction career, Pluta has been in the spotlight for creative achievements with multiple interviews year-after-year on NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS and UPN News program affiliates as well as multiple articles in several northeast Ohio newspaper publications (The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Medina Gazette, The Akron Beacon Journal, Scene Magazine and others) and multiple interviews on northeast Ohio radio stations (100.7fm WMMS, 107.9fm WENZ, 104.1fm WQAL, 94.9fm WQMX, 92.3fm WZJM)

Pluta also brought several celebrities out each year including Doug Bradley, Kane Hodder, Gunnar Hansen and George P. Wilbur. “They’re a great group of guys and we’ve all become very good friends over the years. I wanted to bring them in to meet the people of northeast Ohio and to brand The Carnival of Horrors as the place to not only have a great haunted experience, but a place that has an image of Hollywood effects and large connections.” The Carnival of Horrors quickly became a huge success, with northeast Ohio news programs, newspapers and radio stations all raving about the event. Celebrity appearances are a great draw and if used correctly, can get a large amount of media exposure.

“It’s flattering that people enjoy the end result of all of our hard work, that’s why we love to do it.” Pluta will continue to create new ways to scare northeast Ohio and plans to expand the event as the years go by. Haunting has been with him for over half of his life and will continue on for many years to come.

When visiting The Carnival of Horrors, from the minute you arrive you’re fair game. The creatures and demented clowns are there to greet you and ensure that you understand what a horrifying experience awaits you. Let’s walk you through the unique and bizarre circus.

The Fun House
Created in the spirit of your classic haunts. This is the event that throws everything at you. Since you are at The Carnival of Horrors, you have to start out at The Fun House. This is the first haunt you visit and it sets the tone for the rest of the attractions. Developed as a high-intensity scare house, here you run into evil clowns, chainsaw-wielding maniacs and several animatronic creatures. You start out entering the polka-dot room, where they use strobe lights to hide the actors, then you walk through a city street where you encounter a chainsaw maniac, and after a few more high-scare rooms, you enter the bubble room. This is a great effect where the bubble machines are churning out thousands of bubbles, with the stroge light located directly above the machine. What you don’t realize is that a monster is hidden in the shadows under the machine staring at you. One great trick is when you enter a unique maze that can keep you lost and confused until the evil clown decides you may leave. “The maze we created has evolved over the years and when we created The Carnival, I wanted to design a maze that would enable the customers to become lost and confused, but at the same time, could be evacuated immediately.” This maze, lit in the center by a single strobe light has 12 identical doors in a square room from which to choose, all but two leading you down a long, dark hallways right back to where you started. A great effect and the customers love it. Plus, this is the attraction where you face several chainsaws. Pluta’s first room he ever worked in was a white room, splattered with red paint and a chainsaw. “I include this room in my haunt every year, a sort of homage to what started it all.” Plus, this haunt doesn’t have all of the barriers that you encounter with the actors being trapped behind a fence. The monsters are right there in the room with you. All this while the overhead sound system plays slow and creepy calliope music.

The Mine Shaft
Here you enter a themed haunted house where you start out walking through an old ghost town and then are led into an abandoned mine shaft. Pluta made this unique by using no extravagant props or colors. “We designed the house to be drab using black walls and creating old wooden sets for the ghost town and the mine shaft. In order to stay on strategy, we only used white strobe lights. Given that this was originally created on a dirt floor, the light was soaked up and this kept the house eerily dark and very creepy.” This is an extremely high-scare haunt and each room is designed to make even the bravest customer jump out of their shoes, giving you an experience and visual mood that was different from The Fun House. You start out walking by an abandoned Mine Shack, then through the center of the ghost town, through a saloon, past the stables and into the entrance of the mine shaft. The only exit is to be chased out by a miner with a chainsaw. “I like chasing people out of the houses with a chainsaw, it’s not only frightening for the person being chased, but it’s fun for the crowd to see.”

The Hayride of the Living Dead
This was a new venture for Pluta. “I had never created a haunted hayride before and having been on several that were done quite poorly, I felt we needed to create something out of the ordinary.” Staying with his high intensity scare strategy, he created a Hay Ride that did not have any scenes. “What I decided is to capitalize on the patron’s creative imagination to help me scare them. We drove the wagon through a dark outside area at the Fairgrounds and through pitch-dark barns, using lighting to create the mood and actors to complete the scare. The finale was entering a 300-foot barn while closing the doors behind them. Then using lighting, fog and actors, we kept the barn dark to keep the claustrophobic mood and turned on the lighting one-by-one at the right moment, which gave us the element of surprise and lit the wagon, while leaving the surrounding area dark for the actors to create their scares while the patrons didn’t quite know what was there, so their imagination got the better of them. Plus, you still had to have actors that could enter and exit the wagon to interact with the patrons and keep them entertained by scaring the easy targets.”

The Freakshow in 3-D
When 3-D haunts are done right, they’re terrific and The Freakshow is awesome. Taking into consideration that people would get bored if each room was just designed with 3-D images on the walls, Pluta wanted to make each room a completely different experience than the last. “We designed it taking into consideration that every room had to be different and unique from the previous room in order to not have the novelty of the 3-D effect wear off halfway through the house. I wanted to start off with a bang, blow the customer away, and the splatter room does just that.” Next you walk through a picture gallery and keep finding out that each room has a unique flavor, culminating with a 3-D Black Hole. “We wanted to start wowing them and finish with something they wouldn’t forget.” Using only high-quality neon paint from Nocturn and plastic Chroma-Depth glasses, the 3-D effect is extremely effective. Plus, the scares are worked in perfectly and all of the actors are costumed and made up in 3-D paint. But some of the best scares come when the actors were dressed in nothing but black, the 3-D effect make these creatures disappear and just look like shadows.

The Wicked Woods
Again, having been through several haunted woods events as a kid, Pluta decided that he needed something new and fresh for his event. In the classic haunted woods, patrons walked by scenes while following a roped off path. “To me, this felt too safe” says Pluta. “I didn’t want to choreograph to the customer when the scare was coming and I also wanted them to feel like they were lost in the woods and that they may be walking in the wrong area.” So the experience you receive is extremely fulfilling. You are handed a dim flashlight and told to find your way out. There is a designated path, not roped in so people could get off of the path and not even realize it. “We did have fencing in place if they got too lost.” Once again, there were no scenes in the woods, making it more realistic. This gets your anticipation for a scare at an all-time high, never knowing when a creature was going to jump out at you. Trust me, this concept was a winner.

FACT FACTS
The Carnival of Horrors
Location: Blossom Music Center – Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Phone Number: 330-252-9070
Dates: October 1st - 30th
Hours: 7:30 – Midnight Fri. & Sat. and 7:30 – 10:00 on Sunday
Price: $16.00 for all events
Discount Coupons: $2.00
Website: www.carnivalofhorrors2K.com

STAY TUNED FOR MORE HAUNT DOCUMENTARIES:
We'll be following more haunts from their opening night until the leaves of fall blow away. Such stories as" Crowd reactions, Actor Interviews, and a follow up as fall fades away.