Guest Acting At The Haunted Schoolhouse And Laboratory

This year, I had another opportunity to do some guest acting at the famous Akron Haunted Schoolhouse and Laboratory. With it being their 50th Anniversary (as well as the 20th Anniversary of Highbury Cemetery!), I knew that I wanted to upgrade my haunt character for this year...

So I took my "plague doctor" character from the last few seasons, and decided to build from that. I definitely wanted to keep my illuminated staff accessory prop, originally built back in 2017 for an MHC costume ball. It still gets many compliments every time I carry it and its a great focal point to have outside of the character itself. The illuminated, swaying lantern and the clanging bells add nice visual and auditory touches to the overall character.

The one big upgrade for this year was the mask. The Pumpkin Pulp "Plague" mask is a great piece that cuts a great, creepy profile, but it was definitely time for a change after 2 or 3 seasons of use. So I decided to go all in on a new silicone mask, and settled on a new "Dark Mummified" variant of the Exhumed mask from Immortal Masks. Although it was a hefty investment, it has been absolutely worth every penny. The silicone moves freely with any turn of the head and emotes clearly with any facial expression. Plus, the mummified, undead corpse sculpt and paint job is absolutely perfect paired with the weathered brown hood of the cloak costume. 

Pair this with a new pair of all-red mini sclera contact lenses from PsEYEche and a horrifyingly gross, fully blackened tongue (thanks to a handy bottle of Mouth FX Pitch Black liquid), and it got great/grossed out reactions all night. I channeled my inner Gene Simmons as guests asked for photos with me, and just before taking the photo I'd stick out my gross, black tongue. The guests loved it and I'm VERY happy with this upgrade!

I ended up working two nights as a queue line actor, menacing patrons in the long lines and midway area, getting them ready for what was to come inside the houses. I took tons of photos and got many compliments. The entire character came together really well and everything worked flawlessly on both nights. I couldn't be happier with the new upgraded version, and I'm now ready for one more night of acting... this time for my own yard haunt on Halloween night!

  

New Zombie Contact Lenses

So in my last installment, I made mention of the fact that I didn't get my new zombie contact lenses in time for the Midwest Haunters Convention Masquerade Ball. They did in fact show up the day that I was already at the convention. Oh well, at least they showed up and I finally had a chance to pop them in to see how they looked.

I ended up ordering the Anakin Sith lenses from Demon Eyez. I wanted to go with more of a "Walking Dead" style zombie look, so I ordered a set that had more of an "infected" look as opposed to the traditional "whiteout" style (which I still have as a backup set).

They did take about 2 weeks to show up, but I didn't realize that they shipped from jolly old England. And even though they did take a while, I'm still really pleased with them. Very vibrant colors and cheaper than I've seen anywhere else. With a little bit of makeup, they will draw a lot of attention when they make their public debut at an upcoming zombie walk...

I even had a minute to photoshop a quick mockup of what the original zombie costume should have looked like with the new lenses. With a few color tweaks, this will be a big upgrade for the 2013 haunt season.