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Daring to scare: What it takes to be a Cedar Point Screamster

Samantha Rhodes, Staff Reporter

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During the day, Desiree Baird is a sign language interpreter. But at night, she transforms into something entirely different — a childish, cannibalistic girl seeking patients in a hospital ward. Her name is Mae Hemm. And she’s obsessed with socks.

Desiree Baird, dressed as her sock-obsessed character Mae Hemm, lurks within Eternity Infirmary, one of Cedar Point’s six haunted house mazes. Baird works as a screamster for the amusement park’s seasonal Halloweekends, which runs mid-September through Nov. 1. Photo courtesy of Doug Axe.

“She can often be found chewing on a sock, licking it and jumping at people trying to show them her sock ‘Socko,’ or the larger one ‘Socky,’” Baird said of her character.

Baird, a 2012 University of Toledo astronomy graduate, is a first-time ‘screamster’ for Cedar Point’s Halloweekends, the amusement park’s seasonal haunted attraction. The 25-year-old developed her own character persona — Mae Hemm — to mesh perfectly with the haunted house she works in, Eternity Infirmary.

This house-maze is one of six seasonal attractions at Cedar Point, including the Slaughter House and Eden Musee, along with six other outer scare zones and numerous haunted shows and experiences. According to Baird, nearly 300 screamsters from all over the country were hired for the season along with makeup artists, costume designers, help staff and security guards.

Zombie girl Jill Jablonski lies motionless on the ground, waiting for the perfect moment to scare a visitor passing through the Blood on the Bayou scare zone. Working as a Cedar Point Halloweekends screamster, Jablonski lives in Erie, Michigan, and commutes to Sandusky every weekend, taking advantage of Cedar Point’s free dorms for those who live more than 30 minutes away from the park. Photo courtesy of Doug Axe.

Another of these new hires is Jill Jablonski, a 2014 UT English grad with a passion for folklore and situational acting. As a “hillbilly Victorian zombie girl,” Jablonski can be found in the Blood on the Bayou zone, either practicing mannequin-like scare tactics from the ground or swinging wildly from tombstones with her long, dark hair dangled over her gruesome mask.

“Being a screamster has been on my bucket list since I was 15,” the 24-year-old said. “My uncle always used to take me for my birthday, and now that I was done with college, I was like ‘yeah, I’m doing this.’”

Though Halloweekends only runs weekends from mid-September through November 1, Jablonski and Baird both agree that clocking in around 30 hours of screamster work in only three days is exhausting. Loosely-scheduled makeup appointments begin around 3 p.m. and after standing stock-still all night, shivering while waiting for the perfect scare, it’s not uncommon to clock out around 1:30 a.m.

When it comes to training their staff, Cedar Point doesn’t skimp. Though new hires don’t need prior scare experience, all screamsters must complete a pre-season extensive training program, memorize the monster parade dance and attend all dress rehearsals. For Jablonski, that means she’s worked seven consecutive weekends with two still left to go.

Bruises, sore feet and throats, grumbling stomachs, layers upon layers of clothing and Advil-popping — all are common in this line of work. Baird said the makeup can take anywhere from 15 to 50 minutes to put on and even longer to wash off — especially if you have a mask glued to your face.

“A lot of people still have makeup stuck on them the next day,” Jablonski said. “It’s all over your neck and when you wash that off, it peels and flakes and goes down you. And with the sprayers, they’ll get it in your ears so you need Q-tips. Glues hurt to get off, red paint is the worst and black isn’t easy either because it’s oil-based.”

All screamsters can take with them into zones are water bottles and cough drops — phones are a big no-no. Using the bathroom isn’t easy either since two people have to be in each zone at all times; if not, it’s a safety hazard.

Though Cedar Point has a ‘we don’t touch you, you don’t touch us’ policy for screamsters, Jablonski said it doesn’t always work out that way.

“In training, they teach you how to quickly get away from people if you scare them so much they throw a punch at you,” Jablonski said. “But we actually had one person blow their whistle ‘cause they got elbowed in the face just a couple weeks ago.”

Regardless, Baird said it’s all worth it for the sake of Halloween — her favorite holiday.

“It’s the one time of the year when people suddenly stop caring if you’re able to match up to the standards of beauty,” she said. “The whole point is to become something spooky, bloody or crazy. You get to be something very different from yourself, which is very freeing.”

Plus, the gig has other appealing incentives, according to Jablonski. Making $8.50 an hour isn’t so bad when Cedar Point also gives out free food, hoodies, screamster shirts, admission to a local festival and the chance to ride the rides free of charge in your off time, she said. Anyone who lives more than 30 minutes from the park also qualifies for free housing in Cedar Point’s dormitories.

But above all else, both Baird and Jablonski agree that getting a good scare is the biggest perk of the job. According to Baird, the “mental scares” are a ton of fun.

“I really like getting in their personal bubble and putting my face just beside their ear and whispering ‘hi there,’” she said. “Finding out their names is fantastic, too. Many people wear hoodies with their names on it and forget it’s there.”

Scaring certain types of people is also more satisfying. For Baird, the thrill comes from terrifying dads and boyfriends.

“They’re usually the ones who are trying to act tough, and when I get them scared, the kids and girlfriends start laughing at them,” she said. “But my favorite part is when I scare someone so much they fall to the ground. These are fairly rare, but even rarer are those who get so scared they wet themselves. It’s just flat-out hilarious to watch their reactions. These are the moments that tell me I’m doing my job, and I’m doing it well.”

Jablonski has experienced everything from terrifying an old man with a cane to scaring the living daylights out of twelve-year-old girls poking her to see if she’s real. She even won the “Rookie of the Week” award and has had visitors compliment her acting talent and take selfies with her.

It’s a fact: people are willing to pay money to feel scared. Nearly one-third of all millennials, or people aged 18-34, will visit a haunted house this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Spending Survey.

But why?

Jablonski vouches that it’s a safe way to experience terror, so in an oxymoronic way, people are enticed by the opportunity to feel fear safely. But in Baird’s opinion, people are fixated on the fun, out-of-control element.

“There’s a rush of adrenaline you get when you’re scared, and that fight-or-flight reaction kicks in, too,” she said. “I’ve noticed that many times after I get a good scream out of people, they start laughing.”

A screamster sits patiently while waiting for his makeup to be completed. This process can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on whether a mask is glued to the face. Cedar Point hired nearly 300 screamsters for this year’s Halloweekends, according to Baird. Photo courtesy of Doug Axe.

However, Baird said there’s one thing she can’t stress enough for visitors to remember: the actors are people with feelings, too.

“For some reason, when we put on makeup and costumes, we lose our humanity in the eyes of the visitors. They think it’s cool to get all cocky and point us out when in reality, it makes us really mad and makes our job that much harder.”

If you think the scare industry might be for you, both screamsters urge you to try it, even if you don’t consider yourself a good actor or have an outgoing personality.

“It feels good to know you’re doing a job that directly affects someone and you’re creating a feeling inside them,” Jablonski said. “I mean how many jobs can you think of where you actually create an emotion in someone? And even better yet, you can actually see and hear it.”

According to Baird, physical fitness is an important part of the application process, and though you can choose what kind of character you want, sometimes you are assigned one based on your physical appearance or size.

“I’d say if you can enjoy making a fool of yourself and think it’d be a blast to scare people, go for it,” Baird said. “But don’t think it’s a cake walk. There are some crazy things that can happen, and you need to be on your toes to keep you and the visitors safe. I was once told that if you can’t scare them, at least try to make them laugh. Go big or go home — that’s how this works.”

For more information about Cedar Point’s Halloweekends or the screamster application process, visit www.cedarpoint.com/haunt. To locate other haunted attractions in America, check out www.HauntedHouseOnline.com or www.HauntWorld.com.

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Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.
Daring to scare: What it takes to be a Cedar Point Screamster