The quest to make us carry on screaming for a whole Halloween month is deadly serious. We head to PrimEvil to discover what goes into a great fright night
By day, the sleepy village of Lenwade is home to dinosaur adventure park ROARR! But come October, the Jurassic vibe turns spooky. Light Halloween stuff for the little ones up to 4:30pm, but once the sun sets all hell breaks loose for PrimEvil.
The fact that this Halloween attraction lies in the ancient Norfolk parish of Great Witchingham is pure coincidence. The fact that ROARR! owner Martin Goymour is a lifelong Hammer House of Horror fan is not. He had the space on site, and some great experiences visiting scare attractions in the US, where Halloween is a very big deal. These two facts convinced him there could be an audience right here at his adventure park. It started small in 2010 and has grown year on year, with many return visitors.
These days, alongside all the regular staff, it employs some 130 scare actors for the production. Paid roles are also available to local college students keen to develop professional stage makeup skills, and there’s a hardworking head of wardrobe brought in for scare season. Martin Goymour maintains his stake in the underworld goings on, putting in appearances on his Segway in the master of ceremonies role of Skullmore, while park manager and his co-lead on PrimEvil Ben Francis is Lofty the clown – an occasional role these days as he’s too busy supervising the action.
Ben Francis is an interesting case study of the lure of PrimEvil. He came here as a visitor in the year it opened, returning the following year as a scare actor. “I did this alongside a quite intense community charity position,” he says. He found it a brilliant foil to his day job. “I couldn’t really do any anger management with the community, so I’d come to PrimEvil, dress up as a clown and shout. It really is the best therapy.” He became more involved as each year passed. “After a particularly bad board meeting, I came to PrimEvil and Martin said: ‘you’re obviously not happy so come and work for me’.”
“There are teachers, police officers, doctors, paramedics and even an elected council officer among the scare actors”
It’s impossible to know how many of the cast of 130 or so scare actors sign up for the stress release benefits, but suffice it to say there are teachers, police officers, doctors, paramedics and even an elected council officer among them – also a full mix of ages. “We have one lady who has done it for years who is in her late 70s and is an amazing storyteller. She’s always on the door of an attraction setting the scene with people and is on her feet all night, giving the same energy, but in a different way, as those running around.” It is clearly addictive. Around 60% of scare actors return every year. Ben Francis says it would be higher but for the high number of teenage scare actors. At PrimEvil, they add a talking-point paid job to their CVs while having a whole lot of fun before heading on to university.
Auditions are deadly serious, but also inclusive. “There is a place for everyone,” says Ben Francis. The first test is physical acting – watching people move. “We compare that to Goal Defence or Goal Attack in netball. It’s that kind of attacker role in a sport where someone changes direction but always knows where they are going and what’s around them – is aware of their space.”
Then they test for speaking parts, getting people to recite something random (a recipe, poem or pop lyrics) in PrimEvil style. “That will then show to us who are the confident speakers, the confident storytellers.” These are the scare actors able to answer back to guests and weave a spooky tale or two. They also audition for potential group leaders and for those people who excel at shouting, laughing and making a lot of noise – the potential scary clowns and other performers. So what about the shy types? “We can dress you as a ghostly child and put you in a corridor. You don’t make eye contact, you just shuffle along next to people,” says Ben Francis. “You don’t have to do anything – that will scare some people.”
It certainly does, and a lot of training surrounds the art of ‘safe scaring’. While you might assume that’s protecting guests from your scariness, it’s actually more about protecting yourself from fight rather than flight responses when someone is seriously startled. For the scare actors, there’s always a small risk of someone overreacting or inadvertently lashing out, especially likely in a group situation. “It’s about training our actors to be able to step back, to not get in people’s faces, to recognise when a guest has had enough and to then focus somewhere else,” says Ben Francis. What’s important is ensuring that guests’ haunting experiences are positive and fun.
Unlike many scare attractions, PrimEvil has a family friendly focus – welcoming guests from 12+ if they are accompanied by an adult. This makes it especially important that terror is pitched at the right level. That is down to training for scare actors – who work in teams of two, with experienced hands paired with rookies – and clever design of the attractions.
“The quote we have on my office wall that we work to is: ‘The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown’,” says Ben Francis. “With all of our cues, they are in the strategic places – you can hear what’s happening ahead of you in the maze, but you can’t see anything. Then you’ll have the circus cue. You do see that you are going to be chased by two clowns with chainsaws because you’ve seen everyone run out being chased. But then you’ve got that anticipation of when it’s going to happen to you.” Classic Hitchcock tactics remain as effective as ever. In fact, Ben Francis says every year they get some guests who manage just one haunt before heading for sanctuary in the well-lit food and entertainment area. We can’t all be Ghostbusters.
Ben Francis says the team find teenage girls are not the biggest screamers and not the easiest to scare. Usually, a female group will have a real mix of responses – often there’s one who makes it clear she just can’t be bothered. But teenage boys are a different proposition entirely. “As soon as one screams, they all scream because it has been allowed in their group. Teenage boys are the best!”
* PrimEvil runs at ROARR!, Lenwade, Norfolk until 2nd November. 12+ and adult tickets from £28. primevil-scare.com
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