MAD DOCTOR OF THE WEEK
DR. STRANGELOVE
DR. STRANGELOVE
From the movie Dr. Strangelove or also known as How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Dr. Strangelove is a former Nazi that designed the doomsday device the Russians used in the film.
Dr. Strangelove spends all his time in the film in the war room, bound to a wheelchair and having an uncontrollable arm. His arm has gone so far as to strangle him and even give the Nazi salute randomly as he's talking to others.
Being he designed the doomsday device, most of the characters ask him for advice on what to do next. Once the doomsday device goes off, the doctor suggests living underground and due to the population issue, believes that for every man should be ten women.
A fun fact about the film, the first test screening was scheduled on the same day as JFK was assassinated. Because of this event, they pushed back the film's release to January rather than weeks after the tragedy.
Dr. Strangelove spends all his time in the film in the war room, bound to a wheelchair and having an uncontrollable arm. His arm has gone so far as to strangle him and even give the Nazi salute randomly as he's talking to others.
Being he designed the doomsday device, most of the characters ask him for advice on what to do next. Once the doomsday device goes off, the doctor suggests living underground and due to the population issue, believes that for every man should be ten women.
A fun fact about the film, the first test screening was scheduled on the same day as JFK was assassinated. Because of this event, they pushed back the film's release to January rather than weeks after the tragedy.
HAUNTED HOUSE MAD DOCTORS
It's finally time! The Soap Factory's Haunted Basement is now over and I'll go over the mad doctors involved.
Each night is always different, with different people volunteering and different numbers of volunteers. I often times was wearing a nurse outfit, sometimes with industrial gloves (other times we couldn't find one and couldn't use them). I was also commonly twitching my head throughout the days at the haunted house.
Another mad doctor was created by one of the people who commonly had the role of a clown. Wearing a red lab coat and a mask covered in blood, he worked with his other clown buddy and often times played the accordion.
One night, my boyfriend came along to help and we ended up being a mad doctor and nurse combo, me twitching at people and he slamming a shovel around in the boiler room.
Each night is always different, with different people volunteering and different numbers of volunteers. I often times was wearing a nurse outfit, sometimes with industrial gloves (other times we couldn't find one and couldn't use them). I was also commonly twitching my head throughout the days at the haunted house.
Another mad doctor was created by one of the people who commonly had the role of a clown. Wearing a red lab coat and a mask covered in blood, he worked with his other clown buddy and often times played the accordion.
One night, my boyfriend came along to help and we ended up being a mad doctor and nurse combo, me twitching at people and he slamming a shovel around in the boiler room.
THE HAUNTED ROOMS
Because mad doctors work at haunted houses (see above), it feels only right for me to go through each room involved and explain what happened.
When customers first walked in, there was a trained professional dressed as a priest that would fly around in a harness, sometimes looking like a disembodied head because of how dark the costume was in the dark basement. I never saw this myself, as I was always busy with my own room when they were flying.
The second room would be the doll room. Decorated as a bedroom with dolls decorated all around (thus the name), the person assigned to this room was responsible for three buttons: one made the blanket move by itself with air pistons, another made a doll move, and the final one caused the picture of Jesus Christ to spin uncontrollably on the wall. This room had a good number of "uncles" (the code word for when people give up and want to leave), as people are terrified to begin with from having to sign a waiver to get in.
The second room was the mirror room, a room that I had a role in twice. The original idea behind it had to be changed drastically due to timing issues, and later on had quite a few things removed to try to slow down customers who would go too fast for the actress to get a chance to scare them.
There are two rooms, one that the customers
walk through and the other containing the actress. They were built to be a reflection of one another, being separated by one wall with a trick mirror. The one with the customers was lit and had a noose hanging from the ceiling (used to have a dummy resembling the actress but was removed, the noose was later removed as well on the final days). The mirror would show their reflection until the actress in the other room hit the lights, making the mirror into a window to see the other room. The scare that often happen was the mirror room girl would have a noose around her neck and play dead (don't worry, the noose had velcro), then click the lights off. On the second click, she would be up at the mirror and screaming and hitting the mirror, causing customers to go to the next room.
The next room was rather simple, though caught guests off guard. The floor was built to move when stepping in a certain spot, so when customers walked through, the floor would sink down.
The room after that was the clown room, making a return with some improvements since last year. This time, the room was modeled to be like a clown sactuary, with chairs and a pipe organ for the clowns to prey to their "Gods" (which were taxidermy animals with different animal parts put together, like a squirrel fish and an armadillo chicken). I was a clown twice. Levi was a clown every night except Halloween. Since clowns work best in numbers, it was almost garanteed that there were two clowns in the room at all times.
The scare that I often did with Levi would be me playing the organ while he p
retends to be a clown dummy in the chairs. When customers walked in, Levi would wait for them to get far enough up the isle to leap up and yell. This was the signal for me to get up to yell, as the customers are looking at Levi. Then we drove them out of the room to the next one, sometimes chasing and sometimes insulting customers (signed a waiver, so they couldn't do anything).
Clowns chased the customers to the door room, which was a circular room with the walls being doors. What happens in this room is that customers are locked inside with no means out. People on the outside will either tease the customers by telling them things like, "It's the door on your left," or "Come on, jiggle some doorknobs." When they felt satisfied, the people on the outside would cause the room to spin around and flicker the lights. Sometimes someone would jump into the room after it was done spinning for another scare until customers were released to the next area.
The bridge was the next area, where customers cross a bridge to go near the TV creep area. I did the bridge area once. The role for the bridge person is to drive the people into the next area, often time smashing a shovel around and running at them to get them t
o keep going. They also have control over the fog machine in this area.
At the end of the bridge is a TV hooked up with a nightvision camera, displaying the customers on the TV. There's another camera in another room, where the performer would be located. The TV is designed so that it overlaps the two camera feeds, so when customers watch the TV, the performer in the other room looks as if they're in the same room. I did this room once. This room is often times the one that's dropped if there aren't enough volunteers during the night, being it's not particularly scary (though quite innovative).
In the next room were the skeletons. Generally having two performers involved, one would wear a hula outfit and the other in all black. The hula outfit one was used to make people more confortable as the lights flickered, dancing to the music. Eventually the lights would go on and the one in the black outfit would move, causing customers to freak out. The room is painted with special paint that shows up under a certain light, so the paint in the room would glow (like the crime scene outline on the ground with blood).
That's about half the room. Next week will be a tour of the final half!
When customers first walked in, there was a trained professional dressed as a priest that would fly around in a harness, sometimes looking like a disembodied head because of how dark the costume was in the dark basement. I never saw this myself, as I was always busy with my own room when they were flying.
The second room would be the doll room. Decorated as a bedroom with dolls decorated all around (thus the name), the person assigned to this room was responsible for three buttons: one made the blanket move by itself with air pistons, another made a doll move, and the final one caused the picture of Jesus Christ to spin uncontrollably on the wall. This room had a good number of "uncles" (the code word for when people give up and want to leave), as people are terrified to begin with from having to sign a waiver to get in.The second room was the mirror room, a room that I had a role in twice. The original idea behind it had to be changed drastically due to timing issues, and later on had quite a few things removed to try to slow down customers who would go too fast for the actress to get a chance to scare them.
There are two rooms, one that the customers
walk through and the other containing the actress. They were built to be a reflection of one another, being separated by one wall with a trick mirror. The one with the customers was lit and had a noose hanging from the ceiling (used to have a dummy resembling the actress but was removed, the noose was later removed as well on the final days). The mirror would show their reflection until the actress in the other room hit the lights, making the mirror into a window to see the other room. The scare that often happen was the mirror room girl would have a noose around her neck and play dead (don't worry, the noose had velcro), then click the lights off. On the second click, she would be up at the mirror and screaming and hitting the mirror, causing customers to go to the next room.The next room was rather simple, though caught guests off guard. The floor was built to move when stepping in a certain spot, so when customers walked through, the floor would sink down.
The room after that was the clown room, making a return with some improvements since last year. This time, the room was modeled to be like a clown sactuary, with chairs and a pipe organ for the clowns to prey to their "Gods" (which were taxidermy animals with different animal parts put together, like a squirrel fish and an armadillo chicken). I was a clown twice. Levi was a clown every night except Halloween. Since clowns work best in numbers, it was almost garanteed that there were two clowns in the room at all times.The scare that I often did with Levi would be me playing the organ while he p
retends to be a clown dummy in the chairs. When customers walked in, Levi would wait for them to get far enough up the isle to leap up and yell. This was the signal for me to get up to yell, as the customers are looking at Levi. Then we drove them out of the room to the next one, sometimes chasing and sometimes insulting customers (signed a waiver, so they couldn't do anything).
Clowns chased the customers to the door room, which was a circular room with the walls being doors. What happens in this room is that customers are locked inside with no means out. People on the outside will either tease the customers by telling them things like, "It's the door on your left," or "Come on, jiggle some doorknobs." When they felt satisfied, the people on the outside would cause the room to spin around and flicker the lights. Sometimes someone would jump into the room after it was done spinning for another scare until customers were released to the next area.The bridge was the next area, where customers cross a bridge to go near the TV creep area. I did the bridge area once. The role for the bridge person is to drive the people into the next area, often time smashing a shovel around and running at them to get them t
o keep going. They also have control over the fog machine in this area.At the end of the bridge is a TV hooked up with a nightvision camera, displaying the customers on the TV. There's another camera in another room, where the performer would be located. The TV is designed so that it overlaps the two camera feeds, so when customers watch the TV, the performer in the other room looks as if they're in the same room. I did this room once. This room is often times the one that's dropped if there aren't enough volunteers during the night, being it's not particularly scary (though quite innovative).
In the next room were the skeletons. Generally having two performers involved, one would wear a hula outfit and the other in all black. The hula outfit one was used to make people more confortable as the lights flickered, dancing to the music. Eventually the lights would go on and the one in the black outfit would move, causing customers to freak out. The room is painted with special paint that shows up under a certain light, so the paint in the room would glow (like the crime scene outline on the ground with blood).
That's about half the room. Next week will be a tour of the final half!
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