The art of scaring children: My night as a killer clown inside Great America’s Halloween Haunt

My scaring family. My scaring family. Photo: Patricia Chang / SFGate Photo: Patricia Chang / SFGate Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close The art of scaring children: My night as a killer clown inside Great America’s Halloween Haunt 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

The secret to scaring kids in a haunted house is to find the chicken.

Look for the weak link in a group -- the one hiding behind their friends, back hunched into a question mark. Stare into their squinting eyes, curl your clown face into a demented smile, laugh, scream, ask them to be your friend, smash a miniature pumpkin on the ground, sprint directly at them, laugh again.

Once you scare the chicken, the rest will follow, because fear is contagious.

That's another lesson I learned from Na-na, aka Nanette LaVogue, a 53-year-old Bay Area resident who has spent her Octobers sending shivers down thousands of adolescent spines since 1995. Her maniacal rotten tooth chuckle currently holds court at Great America's Halloween Haunt, where she will mentor me in the art of terrifying kids.

Although I like horror films, I am not a prime candidate for this job. I've only visited a haunted house once as a pre-teen and a second time as an adult. I frighten easily and find gory makeup repulsive (plus hate the feeling of it on my own skin). And although I don't consider myself shy, I can count the number of times I've raised my voice at a stranger on one finger.

It shocked me that Great America would let a milquetoast amateur loose on opening night, but with literally hundreds of other scare actors, I was only a drop in the ocean of terror. The ambitious production requires a team of 25 working year-round just to build the seven claustrophobic mazes (Madame Marie's Massacre Manor, Zombie High, etc.) plus open-air scare zones including Killer Clown Town, where I'd be posted for the night.

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Before scaring anyone, I needed to look the part. Nearly a dozen stylists work behind the scenes glueing skullcaps and caking fake blood on foreheads. I didn't get the memo that I was supposed to shave, so my makeup artist went with a "sad, hobo clown" look. After a twenty minute clown eye for the straight guy session, I nearly screamed when I saw myself in the mirror.

Next, Na-na tells me to choose a name. I go blank. Maybe something ironic like Smiley? A reference to a classic performer like Bozo? Or just call myself Murder the Clown? None of those felt right, so I ask Na-na for help. Since I'd be her acolyte, she suggests I pick something that rhymes with her name.

Tonight I would be known as... Ba-na-na.

Johnny adds a yellow crescent moonfruit under my right eye. Coincidentally, my costume included a matching yellow jacket. Red pants, white gloves, rainbow thrift shirt, and blue neck ruffles complete the ensemble. On the walk out to the haunt, I grab a miniature pumpkin as a prop. Not quite on-brand, but it'll do.

The nightmare carnival midway was built for scares, littered with hiding places and a giant demented jack-in-the-box that erupted every few minutes. Smoke machines and flashing lights disoriented guests as they wandered through a gauntlet of killer clowns. Wire-thin Freddie Krueger look-alikes slide across the ground on waxed knee pads, carving through kids. A bloody and disheveled seven-foot giant legit scares me when I first see him. A teenage girl in a tattered dress and cloudy contacts stalks in silence.

The only real rules are no touching, no cursing and no interacting with children wearing blue LED don't-scare-me necklaces. The entire world of fear is my oyster. And so it begins.

I hide behind walls and jump-scare, howling in a high gravely pitch. I crouch into a kid-sized pose and offer my friendship. I introduce myself as Ba-na-na and ask their favorite fruit in what I consider a very creepy voice. I demand to know what they're afraid of and why. My style was less I'm-gonna-kill-you and more stop-and-chat.

Basically I was the Larry David of Pennywises. And I was having a great time.

I am proud to say I will appear in plenty of children's nightmares (and even those of a few adults). A pair of former scare actors who were just hanging out complimented my style, but even so, my success rate was on the wrong side of 50%.

A Justin Bieber-looking garbage teen teases me for working at an amusement park. A jaded eight-grade type tells me he fears his generation will soon realize that they aren't immortal, and I actually get a little sad. People make selfie requests, including a pair of parents who hold up their infant next to my twisted smile. I shriek at an elementary school girl and she tells me I'm cute.

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After a few fails in a row, I remember Na-na's advice: find the chicken.

I spot a line of six elementary schoolers, arms locked together. In the middle, a little boy stands nearly folded in half by fear. He might as well have had an inhaler tattooed on his forehead. I drop to my knees, meet his eyes, then leap to life and run straight at him.

"You're the scared one!" I bark at this child. "Of all your friends, you're the one that's easiest to scare! So I will scare YOU!" I cackle and smash my pumpkin on the ground and the air smells like Halloween. The boy almost melts onto the concrete, fear ripples through his friends. They break arms and run.

I'd yelled the scariest thing I could think of at this kid, which is to say, what I would've least liked to hear myself. That's when I realized that it was so easy for me to spot that chicken because it takes one to know one.

I was that chicken.

Suddenly I remember that when I went to a haunted house as a teen, I felt so scared I left the maze through a side door and waited outside for my friends in shame. I very likely had an inhaler in my pocket.

A wave of guilt hits me regarding the year of therapy I added to this child's life, but it doesn't slow me down. Fear is contagious and I caught it. When would I ever get another chance to scream at strangers or talk terror into the cruel hearts of middle school boys? I relished my last few scares. Instead of hiding and popping out, I stood in the center of the midway, dancing in drunken circles and mumbling creepy things to children about bananas.

After leaving me to scare solo for full hour, Na-na reemerges. She was watching from the sidelines with great pleasure. I'd performed in the 99th percentile of new scare actors and she felt proud of her Ba-na-na (but did suggest I practice my clown walk).

I returned to the makeup department and the stylist removed the glue from my skullcap, scrubbed my face, and took my yellow jacket, but my eyebrows remained stiff with blue paint. Runny red and white make-up shadowed my eyes. My whole neck was still coated in oily black dye.

I drove the speed limit the whole way home, afraid of having to explain to a cop how I spent my Friday night. Despite the stylist's best efforts, my skin was still clown-stained enough to be able to scare a child. The transformation had left a mark.

Dan Gentile is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Dan.Gentile@sfgate.com | Twitter: @Dannosphere