SHOSHONI — For the past 20 years, the basement of the Shoshoni Senior Center had been transformed into a spine-chilling labyrinth of thrills and frights.
Laughter often mingled with screams and muffled shouts as those who dared trespass into the nightmare below. Even the bravest have been known to shriek and charge through a wall rather than around it.
The annual haunted house is proof that there is nothing quite as exhilarating as being terrified by the things that go bump in the night — and living to tell about it.
“We recommend that anybody 12 and younger comes through with an adult,” said Boss Witch, aka Michelle Rambo. “You are paying to be scared.”
A winding path will take the daring through a maze of clowns, children crawling out of televisions and spiders bouncing off from the ceiling. Strobe lights and fog will conceal the ghouls until it is much too late.
Those who doubt how scary the folks in Shoshoni can be should consider this: people have been known to pee their pants, run screaming out of the haunted house, or both.
Building A Tradition
The Shoshoni Haunted House is built in an old eight-lane bowling alley that closed in 1986 so there is plenty of room for scaring people. This year, there are 20 rooms of fright that are being fine-tuned for the upcoming two-day event.
“The summertime is when we do the bulk of the work,” Rambo said. “But it really does get worked on all year. Not only the actual building but also in the planning phases and redrawing the map for the next year.”
It is impossible to say how many staff and volunteer hours have been put in over the years as the haunted house continues to evolve and change. New ideas are constantly being explored and this year, a new feature will be Wanda’s Cornfield. It took Book Witch, aka Wanda Weisz, more than 100 hours to build the white corn stalks and they are still working out the details of how it will be arranged for maximum effect.
The cornfield was inspired by Weisz childhood of tromping through the large stalks and accidently scaring her family and friends. What exactly will come out of this field has yet to be determined but it is guaranteed to be terrifying.
Most of the work is done by the three employees at the Shoshoni Recreation Department (SRD) and they confess that even building the set can be a terrifying experience.
“We have a fun time trying to scare each other while we're down here working,” Rambo said. “It’s usually just the three of us and we’ve all been spooked at one time or another.”
Sometimes it is an accidental scare such as someone simply appearing out of nowhere and other times, they test out a new scare on their unsuspecting victim. Rambo has been known to jump out of props while Weisz has simply waited for her victim to notice her.
While the decorations are constantly changing, the maze itself will remain unchanged for several years before being rearranged.
“For about two or three years, the walls stay pretty consistently the same,” Rambo said. “We will move some of them to change a little bit of direction down here, but it’s not until about the fourth year, we drop everything and start all over.”
Safety is another factor that the staff must consider as they build the haunted house. Not only do they have to pass fire code, but they make sure that the walls can breakaway easily when a visitor takes flight.
“People are destructive when they are scared,” Rambo said, chuckling at the memories of screaming visitors. “Our actors are good and will hold up the walls so the next group won’t miss out on a section. They will then radio us to come in and make repairs.”
Beware the Book Witch! Wanda Weisz will be part of the haunted house this year and is ready to put on the scare. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
An outhouse prop from a homecoming parade is now the home of a ghoul at the Shoshoni Haunted House. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Wanda Weisz demonstrates a favorite prop at the Shoshoni Haunted House. She has scared people with this skeleton even in broad daylight. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Props include this old bathroom sink that has been transformed into a scene of horror at the Shoshoni Haunted House of Terror. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Once an innocent child’s toy, this clown head is bound to make people scream as the lights are dimmed and the blacklights light up the clown room at the Shoshoni Haunted House. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Toilet paper rolls are transformed into eyes that will stare at you in the dark. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
100 hours went into building Wanda’s Cornfield at the Shoshoni Haunted House and the new experience is still a work in progress as the clock counts down to two terrifying days. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Michelle Rambo demonstrates how the actors must hold up walls after a terrified visitor will go through the wall instead of around it in the Shoshoni Haunted House. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
Wanda Weisz had disappeared and her Boss Witch, Michelle Rambo, was explaining this room of props when, immediately after this picture, Weisz appeared – jumping out of the fridge and successfully scaring Rambo. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily) 
The cemetery at the Shoshoni Haunted House has plenty of places for ghouls to hide during the haunting hours on October 25 and 26. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily)
The Actors
There are at least 25 ghouls of all ages stationed in the haunted house each night. The youngest this year will be 7, and the children can be among the scariest ghouls of the night.
This haunted house is not about blood and gore since the staff have discovered that the biggest scares come from the unexpected. It’s about the soft touch from behind when the visitor is distracted by another scary feature.
“We have one actor that has this huge bat costume and he'll pop up in the most random places,” Rambo said. “He’s a solid guy, and he'll just be there. You'll run into him, and then he'll disappear. That’s when we were getting folks that just froze and refused to go any further because they don’t know where he went.
“One of our best ones was in a hallway that's white, nothing bloody, no gore. He wasn't even dressed up very scary. For 45 minutes, about every five minutes, we were having to go hang the walls back up. They would walk by him without noticing and he would simply say, hey dude, and that was all he was doing. And they would just run through his walls.”
Rescue Missions
Since the haunted house is terrifying, rescue missions must be performed throughout the night and usually it is an adult, not a child, who needs to be led out. There are approximately 10 walkie talkies stationed throughout the maze of horrifying rooms.
“Most of our wandering actors know where they're going pretty well,” Rambo said. “We have to help folks get back out and have hidden doors that help usher them back upstairs.”
The best reactions, according to Rambo, are the ones that are all bravado at the beginning of the maze and within just a few rooms, are behind their family and friends. These scaredy cats just don’t realize, until it is too late, that being in the back can be the scariest since the ghouls roaming the hallways attack from behind.
If you dare to venture into Shoshoni on Oct. 25 or 26, you have been warned.
The Shoshoni Haunted House, hosted by the town’s Recreational Department, is held the weekend before Halloween each year from 6-9 p.m. It costs $5, or $3 with a donation of canned food.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
