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Scaring people is the family business

By Catherine Cuellar, KERA 90.1 Reporter

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-537807.mp3

Red Oak, TX –

[sound: engine starting] Catherine Cuellar, KERA 90.1 Reporter: Alex Lohmann drives a 1967 Cadillac - it just happens to be a hearse.

Alex Lohmann, Texas Association of Haunted Attractions & National Hearse and Ambulance Association: This is Patty Hearse. She's my favorite. I've had her the longest Eight years now, but I've had 16 or 17 others over the years.

Cuellar: Lohmann chairs the Dallas club for owners of classic funeral cars, which led to his involvement in haunted houses.

Lohmann: We were taking all the hearses to all the other haunted houses and got to know a bunch of people. Just seeing whose haunts were working and who's wasn't and kinda was able to use those times as kind of a testing ground if I ever had my own.

Cuellar: In 2000 Lohmann opened his first haunted house in a yard in Sachse.

Lohmann: We started out little wooden mausoleums, skeletons. Man, We thought we were awesome. We built a couple other little buildings. By year three we had pneumatic props and custom audio. By year four we had 2300 sq ft of building outside.

Cuellar: Lohmann cousin's Brandon Barnett, has a degree in interior design and worked on hotels. Together, they leased a building in Red Oak from a Boy Scout Troop in Duncanville, which has operated the Reindeer Manor haunted house there since 1982. Lohmann, his wife Jennifer, and their infant son also live on the property, and spend most of the year working with Barnett on what they call the 13th Street Morgue. It shares a parking lot with Reindeer Manor, and a portion of their proceeds benefits the scouts. On the eve of the season opener four weeks ago, they were still putting on the finishing touches

[sound: saws buzzing] Brandon Barnett, 13th Street Morgue co-owner: It's down to the wire. We've been working on it since Nov. 1st of last year.

Lohmann: We've doubled our square footage.

Barnett: Under roof it's 5,000 and then with the graveyard it's well over 6.

Cuellar: Lohmann highlights some of the details that set their haunt apart.

Lohmann: This is a replica of an 1880s horse drawn hearse with a real horse skeleton that pulls it. We use all medical-grade skeletons It's kind of hard to tell with the lighting, but we use a lot of latex and cotton to put decayed flesh on these.

Cuellar: Surreal though it may seem, it's the elaborate nature of set decoration, costumes, and props that distinguishes haunted houses today.

Lohmann: You've got haunted houses that are 80,000 square feet. We can't compete, size-wise, so we make up for it in detail.

Cuellar: Lohmann and Barnett credit Lance Pope of Terrell with revolutionizing haunted attractions in north Texas. Lance Pope bought one of a handful of trailers Disney Imagineers designed as haunted houses and called it Verdun Manor. Still ranking among enthusiasts as one of the top haunted houses in the nation, Verdun Manor was inspired by Reindeer Manor.

Lohmann: Before Reindeer came along, the only haunts in this marketplace were March of Dimes - basically, black hallways, and not that that's bad. At that time that was revolution.

Barnett: strobe lights, black lights.

Lohmann: A spook house was something you rode at the carnival in a little car. A haunted house you walked through was completely different.

[sound: Friday the 13th sound from within the 13th street morgue]

Cuellar: This season, they've stayed open as late as 4am to make sure every paid customer gets through. Actors who surprise patrons waiting in long lines add to the suspense. And although nobody has ever died from fright, they have had people faint or otherwise lose control.

Lohmann: I put together a spreadsheet for every night and it has total number of patrons, what the weather was like, number of hours we were open, average patrons per hour, patrons per minute and percent of customers who wet their pants.

Cuellar: After the season ends next week, Barnett and the Lohmann's are expanding their business again - this time with a new company HauntLab, to provide props, costumes, and consulting for mid-sized haunts like theirs.
For KERA 90.1, I'm Catherine Cuellar.

More on the web:
13th Street Morgue
Verdun Manor