Thrashers House of Terror opening day just around the corner

Every day, for 12 hours a day following the Old Threshers Reunion, volunteers are hard at work turning the antique car and truck building into a scene fit for a horror movie for the opening day of Thrashers House of Terror.

Some volunteers, like Teresa Carver, even take a month off work to assist in building the rooms. As soon as the Old Threshers Reunion hits, Carver anticipates the day when all the antique cars and tractors move off site and her work can begin.

'I've always been a freak,” Carver said. Her mother was a 'Halloween baby,” and although she was never into the spirit of Halloween like Carver, Carver attributes her mother's birthday coinciding with the spooky holiday with her obsession.

'Ever since I was six-years-old, I was decorating the porch (for Halloween),” Carver added.

Over the years, Carver's most memorable characters for Thrashers House of Terror have been the checkered room 12 years ago and a psych ward patient. The checkerboard room was the first year of Old Threshers' signature haunted house. CEO Terry McWilliams approached Carver specifically asking her to stand in a checkerboard room, dimly lit with strobe lights going, in a checkerboard costume to scare people.

'Basically, your scare is you're there and people can't see you,” Carver said.

The psych ward patient was a ruse to separate people who went into the haunted house from their group. Carver and three other volunteers would frantically tell people to go from one room to another - some of them with hidden exits. Eventually, everyone was released from their holding cells and were able to continue through the haunted house with whomever they came with.

'It was just hilarious because we kept them in a confused state,” Carver said.

No matter what character Carver is playing or what room she is conjuring, she said she has to play a fine line between scaring people and torturing them to the point it makes them angry.

Carver isn't sure where her ideas for new rooms come from. Some of them, she takes away from the St. Louis horror trade show the Thrashers group goes to every year in April. Each idea Carver has for a room she presents to McWilliams. 'Terry has never seen a horror movie,” she joked. 'He's supposed to be the ‘master of horror.'”

Seth Orr joined the Thrashers volunteers in 2008, and now takes half days off work to help with constructing the haunted house. An actor for years, Orr said it's just another stage.

Thrashers House of Terror is actually where Orr met his wife, Heather Mattocks-Orr, who has been volunteering even longer than he has. It was something she and her first husband, Bob Mattocks, started doing together.

Mattocks-Orr's son was only four-months-old during his first Thrashers House of Terror. Now, at eight-years-old, Ryker Mattocks can't get enough of haunted houses. His mother, however, is 'the big chicken.”'I just love Halloween, but I don't personally like to be scared,” Mattocks-Orr said as she designed a room that involved fake pig's blood. 'When we tour other haunted houses, I'm the big chicken.”

Over the years, Mattocks-Orr has found what scares people the most when going through Thrashers is being squished between walls or separated from their group.

As the long nights drag on throughout October, Mattocks-Orr said she sometimes questions why she does it year after year. Then, she'll get the best scare of the night. When she can get a big, football-player type guy to drop to the floor in terror or the repeat haunted house goers who think they know what's behind the corner to gasp in fright. 'All of a sudden, you scare the snot out of them,” Mattocks-Orr said with a smile.

Thrashers House of Terror is the second-largest revenue making event for Midwest Old Threshers. Last year 183 volunteers participated in 5,854 hours of volunteerism from building the haunted house to getting into character.

Volunteers are still being accepted for the 2018 Halloween season. An informational meeting for volunteers with Thrashers House of Terror is Thursday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m. at the Haunted House.

Anyone interested in assisting in room design or acting positions is welcome to attend. At the meeting, rules and expectations for these positions will be discussed.

Thrashers House of Terror is open Oct. 4-6, 11-12, 18-20, 25-27 and Halloween night. Hours on Thursdays are 6:30 to 10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays are 6 p.m. to midnight and Halloween night is 6:30 to 10 p.m.

Midwest Haunted Rails will be open starting Oct. 12 on Fridays from 6 to 10 p.m. and Saturdays from 6 to 10:30 p.m. throughout the month of October.

Visit www.thrashershouseofterror.com or call 319-385-8937 for more information.