-
Not Synced
This video is not about a haunted house as
-
Not Synced
in a house that has a ghost in it.
-
Not Synced
This video is about the history of
-
Not Synced
haunted house attractions.
-
Not Synced
Specifically, American haunted house
-
Not Synced
attractions.
-
Not Synced
A form of live entertainment
-
Not Synced
that simulates the experience of
-
Not Synced
visiting haunted locations
-
Not Synced
or storylines typical of
-
Not Synced
horror fiction.
-
Not Synced
In this video, I'm gonna touch on three
-
Not Synced
key moments in the evolution of the
-
Not Synced
American haunted house attraction:
-
Not Synced
The Depression
-
Not Synced
The Mansion
-
Not Synced
and The Fire
-
Not Synced
(laughing)
-
Not Synced
That's amazing!
-
Not Synced
That's so scary.
-
Not Synced
I spent a lot of time looking for books,
-
Not Synced
documentaries, whatever.
-
Not Synced
But I could not find any long-form
-
Not Synced
comprehensive history of haunted houses.
-
Not Synced
There are a ton of documentaries about
-
Not Synced
individual houses--whether home haunts or
-
Not Synced
professional ones--along with tons of
-
Not Synced
promotional videos or fan-made videos
-
Not Synced
about bigger and more famous attractions,
-
Not Synced
but as far as I could find, they all focus
-
Not Synced
on a limited number of houses, with little
-
Not Synced
attention paid to overall history.
-
Not Synced
For general short-form haunted house
-
Not Synced
history sources, the two I saw cited
-
Not Synced
the most were were a short but dense
-
Not Synced
section of Lisa Morton's book
-
Not Synced
"trick or treat: a history of halloween"
-
Not Synced
and a Rebekah McKendry's article for a
-
Not Synced
(questioningly) 2013
-
Not Synced
(normal voice) special edition of Fangoria
-
Not Synced
After hunting down an archived version
-
Not Synced
online, I found out later
-
Not Synced
to my surprise, while at Netherworld
-
Not Synced
that you can buy it for like eight dollars
-
Not Synced
at the Netherworld gift shop.
-
Not Synced
So I did.
-
Not Synced
Most short haunted house histories
-
Not Synced
I've found start by talking about
-
Not Synced
Marie Tussaud and The Grand Guignol.
-
Not Synced
Sorry for French pronunciation.
-
Not Synced
I'm doing my best.
-
Not Synced
Both McKendry's Fangoria piece and
-
Not Synced
Adam Warner's "The History of
-
Not Synced
Haunted Houses: A Fight for Frights
-
Not Synced
as Tastes Change"
-
Not Synced
which interviews both McKendry
-
Not Synced
and Margee Kerr, a haunted house
-
Not Synced
consultant and sociologist who studies
-
Not Synced
trends in fear, start earlier.
-
Not Synced
McKendry starts with the
-
Not Synced
Ancient Egyptians.
-
Not Synced
"Mazes, moving walls, self-opening
-
Not Synced
doors, traps and the use of snakes
-
Not Synced
were commonplace in preserving treasures
-
Not Synced
and dead royalty."
-
Not Synced
Outside of maybe some traps
-
Not Synced
like pits or like
-
Not Synced
false endings to tombs,
-
Not Synced
I had trouble finding any evidence
-
Not Synced
supporting what she's talking about here.
-
Not Synced
But we can say the myths of these traps
-
Not Synced
certainly endured
-
Not Synced
and maybe inspired the moving walls and
-
Not Synced
mummy scares of modern haunted houses.
-
Not Synced
Kerr says, "From the beginning,
-
Not Synced
Greeks, Romans, and other
-
Not Synced
ancient civilizations created Gods to
-
Not Synced
speak to their fears of an
-
Not Synced
unforgiving world.
-
Not Synced
To bring these fears to life,
-
Not Synced
they put on plays, spawning theatrical
-
Not Synced
techniques still used in today's haunts,
-
Not Synced
like fog, fake blood, and trapdoors."
-
Not Synced
Again, though
-
Not Synced
I couldn't find any evidence of use of
-
Not Synced
smoke or fog effects before the
-
Not Synced
Globe Theatre, which had occasional use
-
Not Synced
of cannons or fireworks.
-
Not Synced
And in reference to the cannons, according
-
Not Synced
to bardstage.org, "This particular Globe
-
Not Synced
Theatre special effect, eventually
-
Not Synced
leading to the fire of 1613
-
Not Synced
which lead to the total destruction of
-
Not Synced
the Globe Theatre, within just two hours."
-
Not Synced
Anyway.
-
Not Synced
"As civilizations grew and people migrated
-
Not Synced
a fear of the elements transitioned into
-
Not Synced
a fear of other people in the form of
-
Not Synced
ghosts, demons, and witches.
-
Not Synced
Christians in the Middle Ages traveled
-
Not Synced
from town to town,
-
Not Synced
putting on plays and pageants to scare
-
Not Synced
locals away from sin.
-
Not Synced
By the 1800s, industry was booming,
-
Not Synced
and with it the fear of a rapidly
-
Not Synced
unrecognizable world, one fueled by
-
Not Synced
electricity and other
-
Not Synced
mystifying inventions.
-
Not Synced
This sparked a renewed interest in
-
Not Synced
ghosts, spirits, and the supernatural.
-
Not Synced
People paid to watch magic shows, get
-
Not Synced
their fortunes told, and enter houses
-
Not Synced
supposedly haunted by spirits."
-
Not Synced
Horror was incorporated into all sorts
-
Not Synced
of theatre and attractions.
-
Not Synced
According to a whole bunch of different
-
Not Synced
sources, Marie Tussauds