MECHANIC FALLS – It’s hard to scare people when they feel sorry for you.

I stood in the woods, in the dark, with about 30 pounds of fake legs positioned on top of my head and shoulders.

Additional Photos

Upside-down reporter Ray Routhier, wearing a Frankenstein costume, gets tips on his role from Cote Hall, 17, left, and Amanda Lilley, 19, on a stage in the background, Oct. 12 at The Gauntlet, a haunted hayride attraction at Harvest Hill Farms in Mechanic Falls. More Maine farms are adding entertainment to supplement their income. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Reporter Ray Routhier takes a breather while playing the role of Frankenstein Oct. 12 at The Gauntlet, a haunted hayride attraction at Harvest Hill Farms in Mechanic Falls. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

I was encased in a Frankenstein suit, with a black burlap screen over my eyes. My feet were crammed into size 10 monster hands. Yes, hands, because I was supposed to be an upside-down monster chained to a laboratory wall. On the outside of the suit, somewhere below my midsection, was Frankenstein’s head.

In full Frankenstein regalia, I was supposed to leap out at a hay wagon full of folks, to make them scream, make them squeal, make them recoil in terror. To give them a shock when what they thought was simply a prop turned out to be something alive and moving.

My big moment came. I waited for the wagon as it approached. I steadied myself.

Then, when the moment was right, I leapt — and tripped, falling to one knee near the wagon.

To make matters worse, it wasn’t even my first try.

I was manning the Frankenstein station at The Gauntlet, a haunted hayride attraction at Harvest Hill Farms on Route 26.

I had asked the managers of Harvest Hill Farms to let me work The Gauntlet, as a reporter, so I could give readers an inside look at what it takes to put on a haunted attraction, especially one on a Maine farm.

Three or four haunted attractions will operate through October in southern Maine this year — about the same number as in the last 10 years or more.

What is growing rapidly is the field of “agritainment,” in which farms add family entertainment to their business plans to supplement their income. Harvest Hill is among the few farms in Maine that have expanded agritainment offerings with haunted attractions.

Over the past decade, dozens of other Maine farms have jumped into agritainment by adding things like corn mazes, zip lines, amusement rides, pumpkin festivals, and live music during apple-picking season.

Harvest Hill Farms began running The Gauntlet about three years ago. It also hosts a corn maze and an attraction for families known as Pumpkin Land each fall. Harvest Hill Farms raises and sells range-fed beef, as well as poultry and bison, on a 240-acre spread. In October, it can bring in more than 1,100 people on Friday or Saturday night for The Gauntlet and the corn maze.

Tickets cost $15 for The Gauntlet, $20 for the hayride and the maze. (Half of the farm’s corn maze profits are being donated to food banks this year.)

The farm employs at least 40 people for its haunted attractions. Their job is to scare people. That’s what I was hoping to do on my Friday night shift. But after I got dressed in the Frankenstein suit and realized I could barely move or see, I was pretty scared myself.

“You’ve got to be perfectly still, so they think you’re not a real person, then you’ve got to jump out real fast,” said Cote Hall, 17, the Oxford Hills High School senior who usually plays Frankenstein at The Gauntlet. “When I do it, I get some great screams. I’m pretty good at it.”

Great, I thought: Not only do I have to avoid toppling over or being hit by a hay wagon, I’ve got to measure up to an athletic 17-year-old.

“There’s a wagon coming; move your legs a little to the right,” Hall said to me as I waited for my chance to scare.

So I stepped to the right.

“No, not those legs! Your other legs,” Hall said. And with that, he grabbed the fake pair atop my head and positioned them correctly.

It was important for the legs to be straight — for the whole suit to be straight — so the riders would be convinced that it was just a dummy or a piece of mechanical trickery. If the legs were bent, or if my elbows were seen sticking out of Frankie’s waist (at one point they were), the illusion would be shattered.

When a wagon pulled up, my partner at the Frankenstein area, 19-year-old Amanda Lilley of Poland, would stand on a dilapidated stage next to me and make a little presentation to the crowd. Something about how only a woman knows how to bring life into the world.

Then she would throw a switch to bring Frankenstein to life. Smoke and buzzing noises would ensue, during which time I should shake, just slightly, from my hips. My actual hips.

“Like this,” said Hall, doing a great Elvis impersonation. “Any more than that, and you’ll give it away.”

When the buzzing stopped, I was to run as quickly as possible toward the wagon, which would be parked on the uneven path just a few feet from me.

When a wagon finally set out into The Gauntlet, Hall counted down the places where it would stop before getting to us.

“OK, they’re coming. Better put your legs on,” he said.

As I stood motionless in my suit, hearing the screams of the wagon riders, my heart began beating wildly. The wagon pulled up. Lilley made her speech. She laughed maniacally, and pushed the button.

I shook as instructed, but felt the legs slipping off my shoulders. I waited for the buzzing to stop, but with all the excitement, I think I let it stop for about five seconds before I moved. When I did, I took a couple of tentative steps because I couldn’t see how close the wagon was.

Then came the screams. Not terrified screams, though. More like the screams of people who know they are on a Halloween ride and want very badly to scream, no matter what happens.

“Oh, look at that, someone’s in there,” I heard someone on the wagon say. “Wow, how’d they do that?”

To get out to the Frankenstein area, I had to ride a hay wagon around 6:30 p.m. with some of the other people who would be manning The Gauntlet on that Friday evening in mid-October. Some were smeared with fake blood, others had green faces. Many wore tattered clothes.

The wagon took us through the woods past the various spook stations where patrons would be taken. The woods were electrified — literally — so as we passed, loudspeakers blared screams and spooky noises, and lights flashed.

We dropped Gauntlet workers off at their posts — a wrecked car, a ramshackle cabin, a chapel — where later they would jump out of the woods, threaten to eat people and stuff like that.

The ride, which I was told could draw 1,000 thrill-seekers on a busy weekend night, normally lasts about 20 minutes.

Hall and Lilley told me how much they liked their part-time jobs. How much fun it was to be theatrical, to make people scream.

And they were good at it. Later in the night, I hid in the woods and watched Hall do Frankenstein. The screams hurt my ears.

But I never really got that feeling. Every time I did my Frankenstein bit, I got polite screams at best.

Like they were saying, “Nice try. Better luck next Halloween.” 

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

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