Spookers (2017) Movie Script
1
INTERVIEWER: What are you doing?
BETH: I'm bloodying up these two-headed
babies to go into the incubator room.
It's one of the rooms that the
actors really enjoy working in.
It's a long process trying to find
different recipes for
different sorts of blood,
whether you want it to be flat, dried blood
or whether you want it to
keep looking really glossy
even when it's dry,
and one that's going to stay on...
even in the rain, especially
outside in the forest.
It's been a fair bit of
experimentation though,
into trying to find some blood recipes.
INTERVIEWER: And what's
the winning formula?
BETH: The winning formula is
Resene Furniture Gel mixed with...
(PHONE RINGS)
BETH: This is really a secret,
should I be telling you this?
(ANSWERS PHONE)
Hello, Spookers, Beth speaking.
The Haunted House, The
Freaky Forest and Disturbia.
They're all open, it just looks like
we might have a little
bit of light drizzle,
so probably if you do
The Freaky Forest first
and then if it rains you know that
you're not going to miss out.
Yeah, absolutely.
We've had... I think the oldest
person was 98, so 63 is fine.
Yeah, just make sure she doesn't
wear high heels or anything
so that she'll be comfortable.
LOMAKS: I had pizza for
breakfast, at about 1pm.
(LAUGHS) So, very unbalanced diet.
But I guess it's 'cause of work last night.
DAVID: I work in a supermarket and
I study bio-med and I work here.
The beauty of working at
Spookers is that you can...
be whoever the hell you want to be.
JAKE: You can be whatever you want.
DAVID: Express yourself, like,
look at me, I'm in a wedding dress.
I would never wear this
to count down, obviously.
But, yeah, tonight I'm
a zombie bride and, hey,
can you be a zombie bride at your work?
JAKE: Yeah... (LAUGHS)
CAM: Oh, I'm a dessert chef.
So, I make, like, panna cottas, crme
brles, pavlovas and meringues.
I do a nice chocolate pudding
with, like, hokey pokey
and a nice caramel sauce with it.
Beautiful.
INTERVIEWER: What are you
afraid of in real life?
SPEAKER: I'm afraid of commitment.
SPEAKER: Of my mum.
JUNEEN: I've been with
Spookers for nearly three years.
It's something that I've
wanted to do for years
but never quite had the confidence to...
do an audition and things like that.
'Cause I was always quite shy.
But not so shy anymore.
(GROWLS).
For the last 11 years
I've done insurance claims
and in insurance you really
have to be nice to people and
regardless of whether they
say you're wrong or not,
you still have to sort of be professional.
Whereas over here you're
paid to scare people.
I'm on a bit of a holiday from...
any kind of corporate employment,
mainly because I'm over it.
SAM: When I originally auditioned here
I thought I would never get through.
I just convinced myself...
I was like, you know,
they're not going to call me back.
And I remember when I got the
call I was at school in assembly
and I saw my phone ringing and I was
like, no, got to get out of here.
And I, like, ran out of the hall,
answered the phone and Julia's like,
"You've got the job." And I just
started crying, I was so happy.
I was obsessed with this
place before I worked here.
I think I had been here, like, 24 times.
INTERVIEWER: And what's it
like being a flight attendant?
JAKE: Flight attendant is just like any
job, you have your bad days, good days.
Everything that happened that
was bad in the week, you know,
I just suck it up and then I come
here and I let it all out in character.
SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE)
CAMERON: Coming from
school and then coming here,
it's just like...
You know, just get into character
and scare people, which is fun.
I like it.
I'm not very social outside of work,
I just usually stick to myself.
But here you're always
meeting new people, new faces.
Everyone just gets along.
HUIA: When I first started working
here I didn't know how to act.
I didn't know characters.
And I was kind of scared of clowns.
But now that I work here,
I've become one.
SPEAKER: Alright, guys,
customers are told they
are not allowed to smoke,
drink or eat inside the attraction.
Also, no photos or videos.
If they get a bit too scared, they're
told to put their hand up and say,
"Stop." If they do that, back off.
If they ask you to take them out, take
them out the quickest way possible.
Don't touch any of the wobbly bits,
back of the necks, top of the head.
Shoulders and back of the legs is fine,
stay away from the fronts of the body.
Anything else?
SPEAKER: Yeah!
ALL: Whoo-hoo!
(WHISTLING AND CLAPPING)
SPEAKERS: (CHANTING AND CLAPPING)
Whoo-hoo!
SPEAKER: Occasionally when
people come to Spookers
they'll get scared in the car park or
scared just outside the front doors
and they never even get
in to buy their tickets...
they'll hop in their cars and leave.
When that first happened we had to
have a talk to some of the staff
because we were losing too
many people out of the car park.
So the actors generally work
closer to the ticket office now.
SPEAKER: It's tough but I'd
have to say probably death.
Yeah, like, everyone else is
afraid of dying, so, yeah...
(DRUMMING, SCREAMS, VARIOUS SOUND EFFECTS)
SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE)
(DRUMMING, SCREAMS)
You all little corpses (INAUDIBLE).
JULIA: When I first found the
site I had no idea what it was.
I had heard of the Kingseat
Psychiatric Hospital
but that didn't even come into my mind.
And I was driving past, saw the sign...
BETH: And as soon as we
saw this building we said...
JULIA: Yeah, as soon as we saw this
building, this is just perfect.
We actually had to find somewhere that
was a huge building, had some land,
for the maze and, you know,
a forest, and it was perfect.
BETH: It had some atmosphere.
JULIA: Yeah. So, you don't
want to give it up too easily.
INTERVIEWER: Excuse me.
Do you think this place
gives you weird dreams?
What do you think it's like on your brain,
having these sort of double
lives and scaring people
and then being normal
at your normal job and...
SAM: I reckon it could be
unhealthy, to be honest.
Like, you could, like,
persuade yourself that you're,
like, a character that isn't real.
I don't know.
Like, I've never thought about that before.
I reckon that is pretty, like, unhealthy
but then actors do it, like, in movies.
MICHELLE: Honestly, I
have a lot of nightmares.
(PHONE RINGS) I have quite
a problem with nightmares.
And I can't even really remember...
I remember them when I
wake up in the morning,
but then I forget.
But, yeah, I certainly have
more nightmares than dreams.
(ANSWERS PHONE)
Good afternoon, Spookers.
Hi.
(CHAINSAW NOISE)
INTERVIEWER: Can you remember
your dreams last night or this morning?
- HUIA: My dreams?
- INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
HUIA: Oh, those are fun.
I have lots of those.
(SPOOKY MUSIC)
HUIA: Life's hard.
It is.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
HUIA: I don't know, stress, people.
You've got to like people.
Then you've got to dislike people.
The struggles, the struggles of life.
Yeah.
But then you have people like Bubbles,
and Puppy and Bunny...
make life all better.
SPEAKER: Oh, it's OK.
Bubbles and Puppy are here for you.
(BARKS AND GROWLS)
BETH: About 1990 I got really sick
and it turned out that I
had an auto-immune disease.
But that took a long time to diagnose
and I was quite ill for a long time.
And we had a business at the
time, which we had to sell
because we couldn't manage to run it.
But we went on to do other things.
If I hadn't had that time,
we wouldn't have had Spookers.
At that stage we were growing
around 200, 300 ha of maize
and I saw a little wee
sentence in a newsletter
that I was reading on the internet that
said, "Have you seen the maize maze?"
And as soon as I saw that sentence,
everything just became
absolutely crystal clear.
ANDY: We started with a
day maze and then one night
we got a whole lot of our friends
into the maze in the evening
and we thought we'd try it.
So it just sort of developed and, you
know, we just used the local farmers
and they're all mates and they'd jump
off their tractors and just arrive
and they'd grab their chainsaws...
- BETH: And bank managers.
- ANDY: Yeah, and the local cop.
BETH: Two bank managers
and the local policeman.
ANDY: Yeah. And we'd just
run around like idiots.
It was so much fun.
BETH: We turned the wool
shed into a haunted house
for Halloween one year
for kids and families.
We thought it'd be fun.
And then it got so busy in the
wool shed that we kept it open
while Corn Evil was open
and it ended up that
Andy used to have to truck
the sheep away to somebody else's farm
to get them shorn because our wool shed
was always a haunted house.
We started looking for somewhere
in Auckland to do a haunted house
permanently and have
it open all year round,
because with Corn Evil we could only do it,
January till the end of April,
and that's when the
maize all gets harvested.
ANDY: Yeah.
BETH: We found this building
and it all just started.
SPEAKER 1: Like, you know, before
when it was a mental hospital,
I mean, there was mental patients in there,
did they, like, kick them
all out just to make this?
Or did they all die or something?
SPEAKER 2: I doubt they all died.
SPEAKER 1: Well, how did they...
SPEAKER 2: They've could have transferred
them to another mental institute.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think of them
turning it into a place like Spookers?
SPEAKER 2: I think it's
a really smart idea.
- SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
- SPEAKER 3: Really smart.
SPEAKER 2: Because there's already, like,
those, not rumours
but there's already like that sort
of rumour thing going about, like,
oh, yeah, it's haunted sort of thing.
But, like, to have the experience
of actually going in there
and being scared by, like,
everyday people, you kind of get...
SPEAKER 1: You think it is haunted.
- SPEAKER 2: Yeah.
- SPEAKER 3: Yeah.
SPEAKER 2: Like, for
all we know it could be.
But, like, for the people who are like,
it's not haunted, sort of thing,
they're still getting that, like,
still getting scared by it, sort of thing.
Yeah.
I think it's a really smart idea.
- SPEAKER 3: Yeah.
- SPEAKER 2: That was the basis.
SPEAKER 1: Whoever came up
with the idea, well done.
- SPEAKER 2: Genius.
- SPEAKER 3: Well done.
JULIA: We, you know, we did
really have to hum and ha of,
you know, should we be here
when we knew, you know, obviously
we found out very quickly it
was the old psychiatric hospital,
and we really did think
long and hard about it.
BETH: Whether it was appropriate.
JULIA: Yeah and I think
you'll find a lot of the nurses
and things that used to be here,
they actually just like that
something is being done with the site
and that, you know, there's areas
of it that are being looked after.
And people are happy to come to
work here and things like that.
Yeah.
EMMA: I'm an incubator, so the character
kind of is a nurse who has, like,
babies in incubators, which is a bit crazy.
So, that's what I'm trying to go
for... like, the crazy nurse thing.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know
much about the nurses
that used to live here?
EMMA: No.
I'd like to though.
It's an interesting subject.
Creepy.
MARY: I used to live in
that room just up there.
It had its own little
access down to a bathroom.
It was pretty cool.
I was really pleased that it was being
put to some decent use, you know.
And I thought it was sort of appropriate
that they'd picked sort of a remote
place that had sort of
some history like that.
But in other ways, we're trying
to de-stigmatise mental health
and here they are sticking
up these homicidal killers...
...in an old mental health
institution. You know.
(THUNDER)
(SCREAMING)
SPEAKER: Can you let me out?
INTERVIEWER: And what was the character
that you were playing in the jail cell?
SPEAKER: Just like a crazy person who
got locked up there for eating their,
like, friend and killing
them and stuff. Yeah.
You know, I just didn't want to be there.
I like doing it, that's for sure, but,
it kind of scares me knowing that people...
Like, the old people that used to
be here, part of the hospital,
would act like that and
it's like making fun of them.
But, you know, if they were
actually here, as ghosts, ghosts,
then they'd probably be like,
"Why is she acting crazy?" Yeah.
DEBORAH: It's interesting to have a maze,
a physical maze here.
With madness, what madness
takes from you is your essence
and you're always trying
to find your way back.
And it is like a maze.
So that's pertinent I
suppose, in some ways,
that they're going to put one here.
There was so much distress
and so much misery here,
and brutality in lots of
ways that people experienced.
To see them mocked in any way is upsetting.
And that's upsetting for me to think
that they would be mocked in any way.
And also that idea that...
...people who were here
were violent and dangerous,
which couldn't be further from the truth,
sort of fitting into that stereotype
that people who experience any sort
of mental illness or any sort of mental
distress are fundamentally dangerous.
(SCREAMS AND CRIES)
(SHOUTING IN DISTRESS)
(INCOHERENT SHOUTING)
(GRUNTING)
INTERVIEWER: What have you got there?
CAMERON: A straitjacket
that I ordered from America.
(SCREAMING)
CAMERON IN CHARACTER: Things
grow like death down here.
INTERVIEWER: So, what
character are you playing?
CAMERON: Basically it's
just a psychopath that's...
...slightly childish but smart.
Educated kind of psycho.
CAMERON IN CHARACTER: Then when I came
back here they locked me into this.
But one of my arms is free now.
(CACKLES)
CAMERON: Sometimes if I'm
sitting there the straitjacket
I start thinking about it
...just what happened and
if I'm being disrespectful.
Because some of it was pretty bad.
- INTERVIEWER: In the hospital?
- CAMERON: Yeah.
DEBORAH: Hearing voices has
never actually been a problem.
It's the impact that the voices had on me.
My parents became concerned
with my behaviour as such
because I was very confused about things.
I would disappear,
they wouldn't know where I was
and I couldn't remember what I'd done.
I was sent to a doctor
in Auckland Hospital.
He was a psychiatrist, he told my parents
that he believed
that I should be committed.
And my parents used to
come and see me regularly.
After being here for a while
they were told their visits upset me.
And in that day, when the doctor
said something, then that was it.
So they stopped coming to see me
and I never saw them for 18 years.
SPEAKER: There's people who run
big businesses and,
to be honest, I think some of them
should have a psychiatric assessment.
They've got no compassion
or anything like that.
And then there's people who are
full of compassion and, you know,
have got a more eccentric view
and they're less tolerated than those
people who bully and badger people and
they're who cause people like that to
have mental health issues, you know.
You know what I mean?
CAMERON: Dyslexia, it's
a learning disability so,
learning is a bit harder.
But also having ADHD with it as well,
is annoying because I've got to
take medication to make me...
concentrate on my work,
otherwise I'd be looking round and
doing texting or reading
stuff on the internet.
My only problem was that it wasn't
really pointed out or anything
when I was younger.
All the teachers just thought
that I was just a bad kid.
I did get bullied about having
dyslexia and all that a lot.
I get called stupid a lot.
But then working here has helped me to
get past being quiet and shy
now, so it's kind of like
it's reversing all the damage.
INTERVIEWER: What does a mayor actually do?
ANDY: So, mayors are responsible
for running local government,
providing roads and drains and
all of those sorts of boring things
and somehow managing to fit
that into a local economy
that can sustain the rate increases,
all those sorts of things.
So you chair a lot of meetings and
basically every night of the week
I'm out at a meeting somewhere.
BETH: I've never watched a
horror movie, ever, in my life.
So I have to rely on other
people to tell me what happens.
Andy and I sat down
one weekend and thought,
'We need to watch horror movies,
this is the business that we're in.'
And we went to the video shop...
that's when there were still videos...
and we got, I think it was seven for $10,
and we sat down and thought,
'We're going to watch these things.'
And we got about 10
minutes into the first one,
looked at each other and thought,
'No, this is not us.'
And we took them back.
I actually don't like being scared.
INTERVIEWER: And do you believe in ghosts?
BETH: Yeah.
At our home there's somebody that
stands at the end of the bed
in one of the rooms.
And here at Spookers I've seen somebody.
JUNEEN: The scariest thing,
and it is supernatural,
is my mother ended up getting possessed.
And it wasn't something
that lasted 24 hours,
it lasted a long time
and it was really, really scary.
When it first started and I called the
ambulance and one of the paramedics
turned around and said to me,
"There's nothing we can do to help her."
And then he asked me if we
went to church and he goes,
"Call your priest."
She was trying to bite everybody except me.
I didn't get kicked, I didn't get
bitten, didn't get scratched,
but everyone else did.
I was three months
pregnant when that happened.
The next night when I
found her with a lava-lava
tied around her neck real
tight and that was really weird
because I'd gone to the bathroom
and I could hear a funny noise
coming from the room.
So I quickly finished up
and went in there and I said,
"Mum, are you OK?"
And she was just making
this gurgling sound.
Sorry.
We had to hold her down and stuff
to restrain her from
doing any further harm.
Just seeing her deteriorate in
front of your eyes so quickly
and there not being a real
reason behind it was also scary.
I do try to incorporate some of that
stuff that I've seen into what I do.
People might think that,
you know, it's just a story.
It's not a story.
My family had to live through that and
it was terrifying to see somebody
go through that, that you really love,
and the repercussions of what happened
afterwards with her health and stuff,
it was just, it was horrible.
It was really horrible and I
wouldn't wish it on anybody.
MICHELLE: There are probably 10 or 20
a night that don't actually make it
through the attractions.
We have customers that curl
up into the foetal position.
We have customers that...
just run away screaming,
go and hide in their
cars and don't come back.
We obviously have a lot of
customers that wet their pants.
Some that do more than just wet
their pants, which is unfortunate.
They don't make it through the attractions
because they are scared.
Basically we've done our
jobs really, really well.
BETH: The most frightened
customer I have seen is
a woman cowering in the
foetal position in Corn Evil
just sobbing her heart out.
She was so scared that we
couldn't actually even move her.
It took quite some time to
get her out of the attraction.
(SCREAMING)
BETH: How many coats have you got on?
You've got two coats on.
MICHELLE: Yeah, yeah. So, tonight
we're doing '13
F-Ed-up Fairy Tales'.
Cool, eh?
The actors get to decide which
characters they're going to be,
within reason.
If they are placed inside a
set that is, say, for clowns,
then they are going to be a clown.
But they do have creative
control over that character
and what it really does look like.
DAVID: I'm hillbilly
along with Claudia tonight.
We're going to do a double act.
CLAUDIA: Me and David's hillbillies.
We're hillbilly princesses.
We're going to look hot tonight so, yeah...
INTERVIEWER: Do you wear
dresses in your real life as well
or only when you're at Spookers?
DAVID: I never wear
dresses in my real life.
Like, I think I'm, like, the only guy
that wears dresses all the time.
I don't really care 'cause
it's fun and, I know,
if you're going to go
hard at it, it's because,
why not wear a dress if you're a guy?
But, yeah, no, I definitely wouldn't
wear dresses in my real life
but as our character here it's because
I think it's awesome wearing dresses.
JAKE: The biggest stepping stone
for me was finishing high school.
I actually ran away from home,
and I went out and got a job at McDonald's.
And I was, yeah, I'd just
finished high school that year.
A lot of it was more of
moving around so much.
I mean, look, I could sit all night
and talk about where I've lived
and where I've stayed.
But, yeah, that's
definitely been a journey.
(CHAINSAW BUZZING)
(FUNKY MUSIC)
JUNEEN: If I had had another son,
he would've been my other son for real
because I don't look at him
any differently from my own.
He's been calling me mum since not
long after he started working
and we've just always got on.
I love him so much.
I love him like he's my own.
JAKE: It was on Halloween two years ago,
whoever wanted to volunteer
to donate blood.
I've never donated blood, ever,
so I thought,
'Oh, I'll go along and
donate blood as well.'
And we all got ready at
Spookers, early morning...
it was just like a normal
day... and donated blood.
Everything was cool.
My phone was going off
quite a lot over the weekend.
There was a person from the blood lab.
The doctor told me to sit down in this room
and my blood results said come
back and I had HIV positive.
JUNEEN: I was at work on the
day that he found out the news.
And I got this phone call saying
that he needed to talk to me.
I got outside and he was just devastated.
It broke my heart because...
just seeing the type of person that he is
and then for him to get that bad news,
your heart just breaks.
(GROWLING)
(EERIE MUSIC)
(CRASHING LOUD NOISE)
(CRASHING LOUD NOISE)
JAKE: My fear was dying.
And how others would react to it.
My own mum and dad and
my brothers and sisters,
I was... They had to find out through
social media, I didn't tell them.
It actually took a month and
a half after I was diagnosed
that my own father came and found me.
And the state that I was
in, it wasn't a good state.
Yeah.
HUIA: We all supported him.
Yeah, it didn't change anything.
Just treated him the same way we would.
You know.
So, yeah...
It doesn't change him as a person.
He's still the exact same
person we met, you know,
when he first started working there.
So, yeah...
(CRASHING, SCREAMING AND GROWLING)
(GROWLING)
(SCREAMING)
SPEAKER: Get away from my baby!
SPEAKER: My hands! My hands!
(MUSIC AND SCREAMING)
SPEAKER: Chainsaw!
(CHAINSAW NOISE, SCREAMING)
(RADIO CRACKLE)
BETH: OK, go again.
BETH: Copy, (INAUDIBLE), thank
you. I'll get it done now.
Oh, so, what's happened
is we've had some customer
who's got a really bad fright
and crapped their pants.
ANDY: People certainly have a
fascination with fear and, you know,
sometimes people will
be absolutely terrified
and in the extreme they might
wet themselves and so on.
(SCREAMING)
And you think, 'Why are
these people doing this?'
And maybe it's testing themselves,
maybe it's peer pressure often as well.
But ultimately they're there to have fun
and we train the actors so that
they understand the boundaries
of when it's moved beyond fun.
So sometimes we have to Shh
for some customers because
you know they're right
on their personal limits.
BETH: It's so sad when
that happens and, I mean,
we try really hard to look after
them because, you know, I mean,
if they are traumatised, that actually,
it's real, it's absolutely real.
And it's so important that we keep
all the actors away from them
and make sure that they feel safe.
We had one girl who came back and she said,
"I was so sure I could do it this time,
this is the fifth time."
And I've talked to myself and I've told
myself that it was all just make-believe
and everything was going
to be OK. But it's not."
So I don't know if she's going
to come back for a sixth try.
- ANDY: Yeah.
- BETH: Yeah.
(SOPRANO SINGS ARIA)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
INTERVIEWER: And why do you think people
want to go to this maze to get scared?
That's why they come... to get scared.
DEBORAH: I have no idea. I don't know.
I've never understood horror.
I've never understood horror stories,
probably because I've spent the
bulk of my life being so anxious
and living in fear.
The idea of doing that
purposely to yourself...
which essentially is what I did...
it doesn't sit with me or
resonate with me at all.
I've got no understanding of that.
I get my thrills from
doing very ordinary things
because ordinary things
are extraordinary for me.
Going out, being able to get
in the car and drive somewhere,
that's extraordinary.
For someone who's been incarcerated
for 18 years, that's extraordinary.
Being able to get up when you want to,
admittedly I have to go to work
and do things like that...
but I get to drive there.
INTERVIEWER: And what do you do now?
DEBORAH: I work at the university
but I also work clinically,
working with people
who hear voices as well.
I got married and I had children,
I did all those supposedly
very ordinary things.
All of those things are a source
of amazement and wonderment to me.
They give me a huge thrill.
I don't need to come to mazes,
I spent over 20 years of
my life living in a maze.
VOICEOVER FROM ELECTRIC CITY BY MUSIC
INSTRUCTOR: Already many of the
mutants disguised as human beings
are walking the streets of earth's cities.
SPEAKER: Come buy a sausage.
SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE)
SPEAKER: Only two dollars.
SPEAKER: Only two dollars.
Come buy a sausage.
Sausages are beautiful.
Sausages are beautiful.
Sausages are beautiful.
Especially with bread and sauce.
Sausages are beautiful.
Sausages...
Na-Na-Na-nah
JUNEEN: I pretty much fell
into the insurance field.
Nobody really plans for that kind of
career so, yeah, fell into that one.
And it is very stressful,
especially when you have either a major
disaster like the
Christchurch earthquakes or,
you know, just something big that happens.
Or even arguing about the value of a car,
everybody thinks that what
they've purchased a car for
is exactly what they're going
to get when it gets written off,
but that's not the case.
So, you know, it got pretty stressful,
it really, really affected me.
The stress now, I can't deal with.
I go into a complete panic and shut down.
(EVIL BABY NOISES)
(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)
(BABY CRYING)
(ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
INTERVIEWER: And what do
you think your dream meant?
JUNEEN: Me as a mummy and then
as a child under the table
is pretty much how you feel
when you're just overcome
with so much emotion on
so many different levels.
Dealing with depression and
anxiety is kind of like that.
It's kind of like you're bound with all
these emotions and you can't get free.
This time last year I was in hospital.
This time last year I didn't have any
hope and I tried to kill myself.
But this time, this
year, it's so much better.
Make-up's going to run now.
(SINGING)
(SINGING)
BETH: 1999 we started.
ANDY: Yeah. A long time now, isn't it?
The first year we did the wool shed
we had a problem in our community,
we had a couple of suicides
so it was really tragic.
So we went to, you know, people
that were our friends and we said
you can have one area in the wool shed
to make your own haunted house.
It was sort of 1000 or
$2000 was the prize...
BETH: No, it was $1000
was the prize for the...
- ANDY: Best room, yeah.
- BETH: For the best room, yeah.
ANDY: And people could
vote on the best room
and they would get that money
but all the rest of the money
would go to start this charity.
Some friends were electricians,
and built the best electrocution chamber
I've ever seen built anywhere
in the world, even to this day.
They put 50,000 volts through it,
so you get this arcing and movement
and made smoke machines
and it was horrible.
And then on dress rehearsal night
I was walking past it and I said,
"Guys, what's that smell?"
And they said, "Oh, we've
got a secret weapon."
And they lifted up the covers and under
the covers of the chair they had
a hot plate and they're cooking bacon.
And you got this sizzle and smell.
And I was like, "No,
you've gone a step too far."
And they'd say, "We could win
it if you let us cook the bacon."
But they did win and...
BETH: See, bacon makes everything better.
ANDY: Yeah.
(SIZZLING SOUND)
(SOUND OF AIR ESCAPING)
(GROWLING)
ED: I've got a mum that
will give me a hiding.
If I get a... Yeah.
'Cause I'm raised up as Samoan so...
got to go the way of the church, eh.
Bless this place.
Got to bless this place, eh.
- Yeah,
- That's cool.
What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?
LOMAKS: What about me? No,
there's girls but not girlfriend.
Like, they're girls, they're
friends, but they're not girlfriends.
ED: Oh, hookups.
LOMAKS: No, not that either. Hookups, no.
- ED: Don't lie.
- LOMAKS: Don't do that.
Yeah, I walk in the night.
- ED: For the hookups.
- LOMAKS: No.
ED: Yeah.
(MUSIC)
INTERVIEWER: How do you think your
parents would react if they saw you as,
like, zombie bride?
DAVID: They would be, like, tripping out.
They would be...
Like, 'cause they haven't
really seen me in make-up before
but I know one time they did and,
um, they couldn't believe it.
They thought I was a freak.
But the make-up that they did see
me in was quite moderate make-up,
not really compared to the,
like, zombie, you know, for example.
If they saw zombie, you know, I
think my mum would go ballistic.
(MUSIC)
(SCREAMS)
MICHELLE: Beth was one of
the pretty girls at school.
Lovely blonde hair, great set of legs,
looked super in hot pants.
I do vaguely remember Andy at school
but, you know, we weren't close friends.
I just knew of him.
JULIA: He was a nerd, wasn't he?
BETH: He was a nerd.
MICHELLE: Yeah, probably
worked in (INAUDIBLE) room.
(MUSIC)
BETH: Andy and I have
been married for 39 years.
It'll be 40 years in February.
One of the things that Andy used to
do for me when we were first married
and for a few years afterwards was,
I loved digging out thistles,
it's one of my favourite things to do
and on the farm he would go
and take the shoes off
or take his boots off
and go and run through the thistles for me
so that I'd have thistles to dig out
a day or two later when they'd
sort of festered a little bit.
DAVID: They were made for each
other, I think, Beth and Andy.
They just understand each
other on a complex level.
(KISSING)
(MUSIC AND PURRING)
Most guys, they don't actually
find me too attractive.
You know, it's just crazy
'cause I've actually got,
you know, the whole thing going on.
I've got the looks, I've got
the personality... you know,
I'm a fun all-round zombie, you know,
and people just don't take the time to,
you know, learn more about me.
You know, it's like
judging a book by its cover,
that's exactly what they do to me.
And it's just so frustrating.
It's so frustrating, seriously.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever been in love?
DAVID: No, I haven't been in 'love' love.
But, I don't know, maybe one day.
We'll see.
It's easy for people to
say they've been in love.
I think it's a term that
gets thrown round heaps.
But, no, I can honestly say, no, I haven't.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think
is the hardest thing in your life?
DAVID: It would probably be...
...not having the ability
to make everyone happy,
I think.
I think you can only make so many people
happy with the things you do in life and...
I think the hardest thing is, yeah,
just not making everyone happy.
Not everyone's going to be happy.
So, yeah...
CLAUDIA: David?
I know that he acts, he's
like all out there and stuff
but if you really get to
know him, he's pretty private.
Like, he's hidden.
Usually he'll like laughing and stuff
all the time but sometimes he's, like,
actually really angry at
someone or something but,
he's pretty good at hiding
his feelings and his secrets.
He doesn't really tell many secrets,
which is, I guess is all good.
VOICEOVER AND LYRICS FROM
ELECTRIC CITY BY MUSIC
INSTRUCTOR: Already many of the
mutants disguised as human beings
are walking the streets
of earth's cities...
(MUSIC)
DAVID: We're here together because of love.
Ultimately my husband
will look past my flaws
and see me for what I truly am,
which is beautiful.
Which is beautiful.
(SCREAMS)
SPEAKER: There you go.
Got 'em running, Mildred.
Ha ha ha.
- SPEAKER: OK, ready?
- SPEAKER: Yeah. One.
- SPEAKER: Yep.
- SPEAKER: Two.
- SPEAKER: Yep.
- SPEAKER: Three.
(CHAINSAW NOISE)
JUNEEN: Did you have fun tonight?
Beth and Julia came out and
saw me in hospital and...
I was just blown away by it.
Like, you never get your
boss coming to see you
when you're in any kind of situation
like that, not unless, you know,
you're really, really tight with them.
But even then, they
don't make house visits.
I reckon it would've been scary
if I'd got admitted 30 years ago.
That's terrifying.
If you actually look into the history
of mental health at any asylum,
whether it was Kingseat or any
of the other mental institutions
that New Zealand or even
overseas had, it's scary.
It's really scary.
SPEAKER: Good luck. I love you.
(SHOUTING AND CROWD NOISE)
(CHEERING)
HUIA: I'm 21.
There are things that
I could be doing better.
You know, in terms of
my personal health and...
...that's basically the one thing that's
stopping me, is my personal health and...
Oh, just losing weight.
Diabetes is in my family, basically.
One of the things that
I don't want to happen.
But...
you know, I don't necessarily
do anything about it.
'Cause I love to procrastinate.
People think it's weird how I'm able to
compare religion and Spookers together.
But I'm like, Spookers family
has helped me, basically.
I feel comfortable there.
I feel wanted there.
I feel like there's something
I can give there, basically.
And that's the same with my religion...
I feel comfort, I feel wanted,
I feel like there is some
things that I can do there.
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
There's two things that I love the most.
One is my religion and two is performing.
And I love performing.
(AVE MARIA PLAYS)
(SINGING CONTINUES)
HUIA: A couple of months
ago I had this dream about me
basically waking up in
the middle of the sea.
I hopped off the bed and
thought I was going to sink.
And I ended up standing on water.
To my amazement I was
basically walking on water.
(SINGING CONTINUES)
It kind of made me think of what I
could basically be doing with myself
and all these ideas came
into my head, like...
what I should be doing with my life,
where I need to be going.
One of the main thoughts
that stuck into my mind is
I need to basically leave home.
So at the beginning of this week
I made that decision to leave home
with the support of my family.
And, yeah.
I want this to work in the sense that..
I need the opportunity to learn for myself,
and basically become who I need to be.
(SINGING) Maria Gratia plena
Maria Gratia plena
Ave
Ave Dominus
Dominus Tecum
Ta Da!
JUNEEN: And looking back
on the last 12 months and...
the journey that I've travelled,
I decided to talk about
it on camera so that...
...there may be somebody that's
watching that's given up and...
it might help.
Like, they'll be able to say
that, hey, things can happen,
things can turn around and...
life isn't as bad as what
you'd think it would be.
(MUSIC)
JAKE: There's a lot that
happens behind the make-up.
Life goes on and you can do anything.
You live a normal life.
I want to put out there that it's OK.
It's OK to be who you are
and it's OK to have whatever disease
or whatever is wrong with you,
that you're still going to be beautiful.
DAVID: Here at Spookers
you're allowed to be a freak.
I think people portray the word freak
in a more negative than a positive way.
I think a freak is a good
thing... someone that stands out,
that's different, expresses themselves
and isn't ashamed to say
or do whatever they please.
Yeah, that's what a freak is.
DEBORAH: I think of mental
health issues, in a way,
now less as a health issue and
much more as a social issue.
Whether it's with someone who is 13
or 14 or someone who's, you know, 17,
right through to 70.
You know, what I see is real loneliness
and feeling that they're not worthy
of having relationships
or having friendships.
And that's sad.
That's sad that there's so much loneliness
because if there's so many lonely people
they just have to meet each other.
People, they gather, they pack.
I mean, we used to do it here.
I suppose that's when I sort of
started to get more appreciation
of that idea of being in a tribe.
There was always someone who
was wise or someone who was kind
or someone you could have a laugh with,
there was someone who
could fulfil all your needs
and it didn't have to be one person.
(DRUM MUSIC)
(SONG "COME BUY A SAUSAGE"
PLAYING OVER CREDITS)
INTERVIEWER: What are you doing?
BETH: I'm bloodying up these two-headed
babies to go into the incubator room.
It's one of the rooms that the
actors really enjoy working in.
It's a long process trying to find
different recipes for
different sorts of blood,
whether you want it to be flat, dried blood
or whether you want it to
keep looking really glossy
even when it's dry,
and one that's going to stay on...
even in the rain, especially
outside in the forest.
It's been a fair bit of
experimentation though,
into trying to find some blood recipes.
INTERVIEWER: And what's
the winning formula?
BETH: The winning formula is
Resene Furniture Gel mixed with...
(PHONE RINGS)
BETH: This is really a secret,
should I be telling you this?
(ANSWERS PHONE)
Hello, Spookers, Beth speaking.
The Haunted House, The
Freaky Forest and Disturbia.
They're all open, it just looks like
we might have a little
bit of light drizzle,
so probably if you do
The Freaky Forest first
and then if it rains you know that
you're not going to miss out.
Yeah, absolutely.
We've had... I think the oldest
person was 98, so 63 is fine.
Yeah, just make sure she doesn't
wear high heels or anything
so that she'll be comfortable.
LOMAKS: I had pizza for
breakfast, at about 1pm.
(LAUGHS) So, very unbalanced diet.
But I guess it's 'cause of work last night.
DAVID: I work in a supermarket and
I study bio-med and I work here.
The beauty of working at
Spookers is that you can...
be whoever the hell you want to be.
JAKE: You can be whatever you want.
DAVID: Express yourself, like,
look at me, I'm in a wedding dress.
I would never wear this
to count down, obviously.
But, yeah, tonight I'm
a zombie bride and, hey,
can you be a zombie bride at your work?
JAKE: Yeah... (LAUGHS)
CAM: Oh, I'm a dessert chef.
So, I make, like, panna cottas, crme
brles, pavlovas and meringues.
I do a nice chocolate pudding
with, like, hokey pokey
and a nice caramel sauce with it.
Beautiful.
INTERVIEWER: What are you
afraid of in real life?
SPEAKER: I'm afraid of commitment.
SPEAKER: Of my mum.
JUNEEN: I've been with
Spookers for nearly three years.
It's something that I've
wanted to do for years
but never quite had the confidence to...
do an audition and things like that.
'Cause I was always quite shy.
But not so shy anymore.
(GROWLS).
For the last 11 years
I've done insurance claims
and in insurance you really
have to be nice to people and
regardless of whether they
say you're wrong or not,
you still have to sort of be professional.
Whereas over here you're
paid to scare people.
I'm on a bit of a holiday from...
any kind of corporate employment,
mainly because I'm over it.
SAM: When I originally auditioned here
I thought I would never get through.
I just convinced myself...
I was like, you know,
they're not going to call me back.
And I remember when I got the
call I was at school in assembly
and I saw my phone ringing and I was
like, no, got to get out of here.
And I, like, ran out of the hall,
answered the phone and Julia's like,
"You've got the job." And I just
started crying, I was so happy.
I was obsessed with this
place before I worked here.
I think I had been here, like, 24 times.
INTERVIEWER: And what's it
like being a flight attendant?
JAKE: Flight attendant is just like any
job, you have your bad days, good days.
Everything that happened that
was bad in the week, you know,
I just suck it up and then I come
here and I let it all out in character.
SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE)
CAMERON: Coming from
school and then coming here,
it's just like...
You know, just get into character
and scare people, which is fun.
I like it.
I'm not very social outside of work,
I just usually stick to myself.
But here you're always
meeting new people, new faces.
Everyone just gets along.
HUIA: When I first started working
here I didn't know how to act.
I didn't know characters.
And I was kind of scared of clowns.
But now that I work here,
I've become one.
SPEAKER: Alright, guys,
customers are told they
are not allowed to smoke,
drink or eat inside the attraction.
Also, no photos or videos.
If they get a bit too scared, they're
told to put their hand up and say,
"Stop." If they do that, back off.
If they ask you to take them out, take
them out the quickest way possible.
Don't touch any of the wobbly bits,
back of the necks, top of the head.
Shoulders and back of the legs is fine,
stay away from the fronts of the body.
Anything else?
SPEAKER: Yeah!
ALL: Whoo-hoo!
(WHISTLING AND CLAPPING)
SPEAKERS: (CHANTING AND CLAPPING)
Whoo-hoo!
SPEAKER: Occasionally when
people come to Spookers
they'll get scared in the car park or
scared just outside the front doors
and they never even get
in to buy their tickets...
they'll hop in their cars and leave.
When that first happened we had to
have a talk to some of the staff
because we were losing too
many people out of the car park.
So the actors generally work
closer to the ticket office now.
SPEAKER: It's tough but I'd
have to say probably death.
Yeah, like, everyone else is
afraid of dying, so, yeah...
(DRUMMING, SCREAMS, VARIOUS SOUND EFFECTS)
SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE)
(DRUMMING, SCREAMS)
You all little corpses (INAUDIBLE).
JULIA: When I first found the
site I had no idea what it was.
I had heard of the Kingseat
Psychiatric Hospital
but that didn't even come into my mind.
And I was driving past, saw the sign...
BETH: And as soon as we
saw this building we said...
JULIA: Yeah, as soon as we saw this
building, this is just perfect.
We actually had to find somewhere that
was a huge building, had some land,
for the maze and, you know,
a forest, and it was perfect.
BETH: It had some atmosphere.
JULIA: Yeah. So, you don't
want to give it up too easily.
INTERVIEWER: Excuse me.
Do you think this place
gives you weird dreams?
What do you think it's like on your brain,
having these sort of double
lives and scaring people
and then being normal
at your normal job and...
SAM: I reckon it could be
unhealthy, to be honest.
Like, you could, like,
persuade yourself that you're,
like, a character that isn't real.
I don't know.
Like, I've never thought about that before.
I reckon that is pretty, like, unhealthy
but then actors do it, like, in movies.
MICHELLE: Honestly, I
have a lot of nightmares.
(PHONE RINGS) I have quite
a problem with nightmares.
And I can't even really remember...
I remember them when I
wake up in the morning,
but then I forget.
But, yeah, I certainly have
more nightmares than dreams.
(ANSWERS PHONE)
Good afternoon, Spookers.
Hi.
(CHAINSAW NOISE)
INTERVIEWER: Can you remember
your dreams last night or this morning?
- HUIA: My dreams?
- INTERVIEWER: Yeah.
HUIA: Oh, those are fun.
I have lots of those.
(SPOOKY MUSIC)
HUIA: Life's hard.
It is.
INTERVIEWER: Why?
HUIA: I don't know, stress, people.
You've got to like people.
Then you've got to dislike people.
The struggles, the struggles of life.
Yeah.
But then you have people like Bubbles,
and Puppy and Bunny...
make life all better.
SPEAKER: Oh, it's OK.
Bubbles and Puppy are here for you.
(BARKS AND GROWLS)
BETH: About 1990 I got really sick
and it turned out that I
had an auto-immune disease.
But that took a long time to diagnose
and I was quite ill for a long time.
And we had a business at the
time, which we had to sell
because we couldn't manage to run it.
But we went on to do other things.
If I hadn't had that time,
we wouldn't have had Spookers.
At that stage we were growing
around 200, 300 ha of maize
and I saw a little wee
sentence in a newsletter
that I was reading on the internet that
said, "Have you seen the maize maze?"
And as soon as I saw that sentence,
everything just became
absolutely crystal clear.
ANDY: We started with a
day maze and then one night
we got a whole lot of our friends
into the maze in the evening
and we thought we'd try it.
So it just sort of developed and, you
know, we just used the local farmers
and they're all mates and they'd jump
off their tractors and just arrive
and they'd grab their chainsaws...
- BETH: And bank managers.
- ANDY: Yeah, and the local cop.
BETH: Two bank managers
and the local policeman.
ANDY: Yeah. And we'd just
run around like idiots.
It was so much fun.
BETH: We turned the wool
shed into a haunted house
for Halloween one year
for kids and families.
We thought it'd be fun.
And then it got so busy in the
wool shed that we kept it open
while Corn Evil was open
and it ended up that
Andy used to have to truck
the sheep away to somebody else's farm
to get them shorn because our wool shed
was always a haunted house.
We started looking for somewhere
in Auckland to do a haunted house
permanently and have
it open all year round,
because with Corn Evil we could only do it,
January till the end of April,
and that's when the
maize all gets harvested.
ANDY: Yeah.
BETH: We found this building
and it all just started.
SPEAKER 1: Like, you know, before
when it was a mental hospital,
I mean, there was mental patients in there,
did they, like, kick them
all out just to make this?
Or did they all die or something?
SPEAKER 2: I doubt they all died.
SPEAKER 1: Well, how did they...
SPEAKER 2: They've could have transferred
them to another mental institute.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think of them
turning it into a place like Spookers?
SPEAKER 2: I think it's
a really smart idea.
- SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
- SPEAKER 3: Really smart.
SPEAKER 2: Because there's already, like,
those, not rumours
but there's already like that sort
of rumour thing going about, like,
oh, yeah, it's haunted sort of thing.
But, like, to have the experience
of actually going in there
and being scared by, like,
everyday people, you kind of get...
SPEAKER 1: You think it is haunted.
- SPEAKER 2: Yeah.
- SPEAKER 3: Yeah.
SPEAKER 2: Like, for
all we know it could be.
But, like, for the people who are like,
it's not haunted, sort of thing,
they're still getting that, like,
still getting scared by it, sort of thing.
Yeah.
I think it's a really smart idea.
- SPEAKER 3: Yeah.
- SPEAKER 2: That was the basis.
SPEAKER 1: Whoever came up
with the idea, well done.
- SPEAKER 2: Genius.
- SPEAKER 3: Well done.
JULIA: We, you know, we did
really have to hum and ha of,
you know, should we be here
when we knew, you know, obviously
we found out very quickly it
was the old psychiatric hospital,
and we really did think
long and hard about it.
BETH: Whether it was appropriate.
JULIA: Yeah and I think
you'll find a lot of the nurses
and things that used to be here,
they actually just like that
something is being done with the site
and that, you know, there's areas
of it that are being looked after.
And people are happy to come to
work here and things like that.
Yeah.
EMMA: I'm an incubator, so the character
kind of is a nurse who has, like,
babies in incubators, which is a bit crazy.
So, that's what I'm trying to go
for... like, the crazy nurse thing.
INTERVIEWER: Do you know
much about the nurses
that used to live here?
EMMA: No.
I'd like to though.
It's an interesting subject.
Creepy.
MARY: I used to live in
that room just up there.
It had its own little
access down to a bathroom.
It was pretty cool.
I was really pleased that it was being
put to some decent use, you know.
And I thought it was sort of appropriate
that they'd picked sort of a remote
place that had sort of
some history like that.
But in other ways, we're trying
to de-stigmatise mental health
and here they are sticking
up these homicidal killers...
...in an old mental health
institution. You know.
(THUNDER)
(SCREAMING)
SPEAKER: Can you let me out?
INTERVIEWER: And what was the character
that you were playing in the jail cell?
SPEAKER: Just like a crazy person who
got locked up there for eating their,
like, friend and killing
them and stuff. Yeah.
You know, I just didn't want to be there.
I like doing it, that's for sure, but,
it kind of scares me knowing that people...
Like, the old people that used to
be here, part of the hospital,
would act like that and
it's like making fun of them.
But, you know, if they were
actually here, as ghosts, ghosts,
then they'd probably be like,
"Why is she acting crazy?" Yeah.
DEBORAH: It's interesting to have a maze,
a physical maze here.
With madness, what madness
takes from you is your essence
and you're always trying
to find your way back.
And it is like a maze.
So that's pertinent I
suppose, in some ways,
that they're going to put one here.
There was so much distress
and so much misery here,
and brutality in lots of
ways that people experienced.
To see them mocked in any way is upsetting.
And that's upsetting for me to think
that they would be mocked in any way.
And also that idea that...
...people who were here
were violent and dangerous,
which couldn't be further from the truth,
sort of fitting into that stereotype
that people who experience any sort
of mental illness or any sort of mental
distress are fundamentally dangerous.
(SCREAMS AND CRIES)
(SHOUTING IN DISTRESS)
(INCOHERENT SHOUTING)
(GRUNTING)
INTERVIEWER: What have you got there?
CAMERON: A straitjacket
that I ordered from America.
(SCREAMING)
CAMERON IN CHARACTER: Things
grow like death down here.
INTERVIEWER: So, what
character are you playing?
CAMERON: Basically it's
just a psychopath that's...
...slightly childish but smart.
Educated kind of psycho.
CAMERON IN CHARACTER: Then when I came
back here they locked me into this.
But one of my arms is free now.
(CACKLES)
CAMERON: Sometimes if I'm
sitting there the straitjacket
I start thinking about it
...just what happened and
if I'm being disrespectful.
Because some of it was pretty bad.
- INTERVIEWER: In the hospital?
- CAMERON: Yeah.
DEBORAH: Hearing voices has
never actually been a problem.
It's the impact that the voices had on me.
My parents became concerned
with my behaviour as such
because I was very confused about things.
I would disappear,
they wouldn't know where I was
and I couldn't remember what I'd done.
I was sent to a doctor
in Auckland Hospital.
He was a psychiatrist, he told my parents
that he believed
that I should be committed.
And my parents used to
come and see me regularly.
After being here for a while
they were told their visits upset me.
And in that day, when the doctor
said something, then that was it.
So they stopped coming to see me
and I never saw them for 18 years.
SPEAKER: There's people who run
big businesses and,
to be honest, I think some of them
should have a psychiatric assessment.
They've got no compassion
or anything like that.
And then there's people who are
full of compassion and, you know,
have got a more eccentric view
and they're less tolerated than those
people who bully and badger people and
they're who cause people like that to
have mental health issues, you know.
You know what I mean?
CAMERON: Dyslexia, it's
a learning disability so,
learning is a bit harder.
But also having ADHD with it as well,
is annoying because I've got to
take medication to make me...
concentrate on my work,
otherwise I'd be looking round and
doing texting or reading
stuff on the internet.
My only problem was that it wasn't
really pointed out or anything
when I was younger.
All the teachers just thought
that I was just a bad kid.
I did get bullied about having
dyslexia and all that a lot.
I get called stupid a lot.
But then working here has helped me to
get past being quiet and shy
now, so it's kind of like
it's reversing all the damage.
INTERVIEWER: What does a mayor actually do?
ANDY: So, mayors are responsible
for running local government,
providing roads and drains and
all of those sorts of boring things
and somehow managing to fit
that into a local economy
that can sustain the rate increases,
all those sorts of things.
So you chair a lot of meetings and
basically every night of the week
I'm out at a meeting somewhere.
BETH: I've never watched a
horror movie, ever, in my life.
So I have to rely on other
people to tell me what happens.
Andy and I sat down
one weekend and thought,
'We need to watch horror movies,
this is the business that we're in.'
And we went to the video shop...
that's when there were still videos...
and we got, I think it was seven for $10,
and we sat down and thought,
'We're going to watch these things.'
And we got about 10
minutes into the first one,
looked at each other and thought,
'No, this is not us.'
And we took them back.
I actually don't like being scared.
INTERVIEWER: And do you believe in ghosts?
BETH: Yeah.
At our home there's somebody that
stands at the end of the bed
in one of the rooms.
And here at Spookers I've seen somebody.
JUNEEN: The scariest thing,
and it is supernatural,
is my mother ended up getting possessed.
And it wasn't something
that lasted 24 hours,
it lasted a long time
and it was really, really scary.
When it first started and I called the
ambulance and one of the paramedics
turned around and said to me,
"There's nothing we can do to help her."
And then he asked me if we
went to church and he goes,
"Call your priest."
She was trying to bite everybody except me.
I didn't get kicked, I didn't get
bitten, didn't get scratched,
but everyone else did.
I was three months
pregnant when that happened.
The next night when I
found her with a lava-lava
tied around her neck real
tight and that was really weird
because I'd gone to the bathroom
and I could hear a funny noise
coming from the room.
So I quickly finished up
and went in there and I said,
"Mum, are you OK?"
And she was just making
this gurgling sound.
Sorry.
We had to hold her down and stuff
to restrain her from
doing any further harm.
Just seeing her deteriorate in
front of your eyes so quickly
and there not being a real
reason behind it was also scary.
I do try to incorporate some of that
stuff that I've seen into what I do.
People might think that,
you know, it's just a story.
It's not a story.
My family had to live through that and
it was terrifying to see somebody
go through that, that you really love,
and the repercussions of what happened
afterwards with her health and stuff,
it was just, it was horrible.
It was really horrible and I
wouldn't wish it on anybody.
MICHELLE: There are probably 10 or 20
a night that don't actually make it
through the attractions.
We have customers that curl
up into the foetal position.
We have customers that...
just run away screaming,
go and hide in their
cars and don't come back.
We obviously have a lot of
customers that wet their pants.
Some that do more than just wet
their pants, which is unfortunate.
They don't make it through the attractions
because they are scared.
Basically we've done our
jobs really, really well.
BETH: The most frightened
customer I have seen is
a woman cowering in the
foetal position in Corn Evil
just sobbing her heart out.
She was so scared that we
couldn't actually even move her.
It took quite some time to
get her out of the attraction.
(SCREAMING)
BETH: How many coats have you got on?
You've got two coats on.
MICHELLE: Yeah, yeah. So, tonight
we're doing '13
F-Ed-up Fairy Tales'.
Cool, eh?
The actors get to decide which
characters they're going to be,
within reason.
If they are placed inside a
set that is, say, for clowns,
then they are going to be a clown.
But they do have creative
control over that character
and what it really does look like.
DAVID: I'm hillbilly
along with Claudia tonight.
We're going to do a double act.
CLAUDIA: Me and David's hillbillies.
We're hillbilly princesses.
We're going to look hot tonight so, yeah...
INTERVIEWER: Do you wear
dresses in your real life as well
or only when you're at Spookers?
DAVID: I never wear
dresses in my real life.
Like, I think I'm, like, the only guy
that wears dresses all the time.
I don't really care 'cause
it's fun and, I know,
if you're going to go
hard at it, it's because,
why not wear a dress if you're a guy?
But, yeah, no, I definitely wouldn't
wear dresses in my real life
but as our character here it's because
I think it's awesome wearing dresses.
JAKE: The biggest stepping stone
for me was finishing high school.
I actually ran away from home,
and I went out and got a job at McDonald's.
And I was, yeah, I'd just
finished high school that year.
A lot of it was more of
moving around so much.
I mean, look, I could sit all night
and talk about where I've lived
and where I've stayed.
But, yeah, that's
definitely been a journey.
(CHAINSAW BUZZING)
(FUNKY MUSIC)
JUNEEN: If I had had another son,
he would've been my other son for real
because I don't look at him
any differently from my own.
He's been calling me mum since not
long after he started working
and we've just always got on.
I love him so much.
I love him like he's my own.
JAKE: It was on Halloween two years ago,
whoever wanted to volunteer
to donate blood.
I've never donated blood, ever,
so I thought,
'Oh, I'll go along and
donate blood as well.'
And we all got ready at
Spookers, early morning...
it was just like a normal
day... and donated blood.
Everything was cool.
My phone was going off
quite a lot over the weekend.
There was a person from the blood lab.
The doctor told me to sit down in this room
and my blood results said come
back and I had HIV positive.
JUNEEN: I was at work on the
day that he found out the news.
And I got this phone call saying
that he needed to talk to me.
I got outside and he was just devastated.
It broke my heart because...
just seeing the type of person that he is
and then for him to get that bad news,
your heart just breaks.
(GROWLING)
(EERIE MUSIC)
(CRASHING LOUD NOISE)
(CRASHING LOUD NOISE)
JAKE: My fear was dying.
And how others would react to it.
My own mum and dad and
my brothers and sisters,
I was... They had to find out through
social media, I didn't tell them.
It actually took a month and
a half after I was diagnosed
that my own father came and found me.
And the state that I was
in, it wasn't a good state.
Yeah.
HUIA: We all supported him.
Yeah, it didn't change anything.
Just treated him the same way we would.
You know.
So, yeah...
It doesn't change him as a person.
He's still the exact same
person we met, you know,
when he first started working there.
So, yeah...
(CRASHING, SCREAMING AND GROWLING)
(GROWLING)
(SCREAMING)
SPEAKER: Get away from my baby!
SPEAKER: My hands! My hands!
(MUSIC AND SCREAMING)
SPEAKER: Chainsaw!
(CHAINSAW NOISE, SCREAMING)
(RADIO CRACKLE)
BETH: OK, go again.
BETH: Copy, (INAUDIBLE), thank
you. I'll get it done now.
Oh, so, what's happened
is we've had some customer
who's got a really bad fright
and crapped their pants.
ANDY: People certainly have a
fascination with fear and, you know,
sometimes people will
be absolutely terrified
and in the extreme they might
wet themselves and so on.
(SCREAMING)
And you think, 'Why are
these people doing this?'
And maybe it's testing themselves,
maybe it's peer pressure often as well.
But ultimately they're there to have fun
and we train the actors so that
they understand the boundaries
of when it's moved beyond fun.
So sometimes we have to Shh
for some customers because
you know they're right
on their personal limits.
BETH: It's so sad when
that happens and, I mean,
we try really hard to look after
them because, you know, I mean,
if they are traumatised, that actually,
it's real, it's absolutely real.
And it's so important that we keep
all the actors away from them
and make sure that they feel safe.
We had one girl who came back and she said,
"I was so sure I could do it this time,
this is the fifth time."
And I've talked to myself and I've told
myself that it was all just make-believe
and everything was going
to be OK. But it's not."
So I don't know if she's going
to come back for a sixth try.
- ANDY: Yeah.
- BETH: Yeah.
(SOPRANO SINGS ARIA)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
(MUSIC CONTINUES)
INTERVIEWER: And why do you think people
want to go to this maze to get scared?
That's why they come... to get scared.
DEBORAH: I have no idea. I don't know.
I've never understood horror.
I've never understood horror stories,
probably because I've spent the
bulk of my life being so anxious
and living in fear.
The idea of doing that
purposely to yourself...
which essentially is what I did...
it doesn't sit with me or
resonate with me at all.
I've got no understanding of that.
I get my thrills from
doing very ordinary things
because ordinary things
are extraordinary for me.
Going out, being able to get
in the car and drive somewhere,
that's extraordinary.
For someone who's been incarcerated
for 18 years, that's extraordinary.
Being able to get up when you want to,
admittedly I have to go to work
and do things like that...
but I get to drive there.
INTERVIEWER: And what do you do now?
DEBORAH: I work at the university
but I also work clinically,
working with people
who hear voices as well.
I got married and I had children,
I did all those supposedly
very ordinary things.
All of those things are a source
of amazement and wonderment to me.
They give me a huge thrill.
I don't need to come to mazes,
I spent over 20 years of
my life living in a maze.
VOICEOVER FROM ELECTRIC CITY BY MUSIC
INSTRUCTOR: Already many of the
mutants disguised as human beings
are walking the streets of earth's cities.
SPEAKER: Come buy a sausage.
SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE)
SPEAKER: Only two dollars.
SPEAKER: Only two dollars.
Come buy a sausage.
Sausages are beautiful.
Sausages are beautiful.
Sausages are beautiful.
Especially with bread and sauce.
Sausages are beautiful.
Sausages...
Na-Na-Na-nah
JUNEEN: I pretty much fell
into the insurance field.
Nobody really plans for that kind of
career so, yeah, fell into that one.
And it is very stressful,
especially when you have either a major
disaster like the
Christchurch earthquakes or,
you know, just something big that happens.
Or even arguing about the value of a car,
everybody thinks that what
they've purchased a car for
is exactly what they're going
to get when it gets written off,
but that's not the case.
So, you know, it got pretty stressful,
it really, really affected me.
The stress now, I can't deal with.
I go into a complete panic and shut down.
(EVIL BABY NOISES)
(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)
(BABY CRYING)
(ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
INTERVIEWER: And what do
you think your dream meant?
JUNEEN: Me as a mummy and then
as a child under the table
is pretty much how you feel
when you're just overcome
with so much emotion on
so many different levels.
Dealing with depression and
anxiety is kind of like that.
It's kind of like you're bound with all
these emotions and you can't get free.
This time last year I was in hospital.
This time last year I didn't have any
hope and I tried to kill myself.
But this time, this
year, it's so much better.
Make-up's going to run now.
(SINGING)
(SINGING)
BETH: 1999 we started.
ANDY: Yeah. A long time now, isn't it?
The first year we did the wool shed
we had a problem in our community,
we had a couple of suicides
so it was really tragic.
So we went to, you know, people
that were our friends and we said
you can have one area in the wool shed
to make your own haunted house.
It was sort of 1000 or
$2000 was the prize...
BETH: No, it was $1000
was the prize for the...
- ANDY: Best room, yeah.
- BETH: For the best room, yeah.
ANDY: And people could
vote on the best room
and they would get that money
but all the rest of the money
would go to start this charity.
Some friends were electricians,
and built the best electrocution chamber
I've ever seen built anywhere
in the world, even to this day.
They put 50,000 volts through it,
so you get this arcing and movement
and made smoke machines
and it was horrible.
And then on dress rehearsal night
I was walking past it and I said,
"Guys, what's that smell?"
And they said, "Oh, we've
got a secret weapon."
And they lifted up the covers and under
the covers of the chair they had
a hot plate and they're cooking bacon.
And you got this sizzle and smell.
And I was like, "No,
you've gone a step too far."
And they'd say, "We could win
it if you let us cook the bacon."
But they did win and...
BETH: See, bacon makes everything better.
ANDY: Yeah.
(SIZZLING SOUND)
(SOUND OF AIR ESCAPING)
(GROWLING)
ED: I've got a mum that
will give me a hiding.
If I get a... Yeah.
'Cause I'm raised up as Samoan so...
got to go the way of the church, eh.
Bless this place.
Got to bless this place, eh.
- Yeah,
- That's cool.
What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?
LOMAKS: What about me? No,
there's girls but not girlfriend.
Like, they're girls, they're
friends, but they're not girlfriends.
ED: Oh, hookups.
LOMAKS: No, not that either. Hookups, no.
- ED: Don't lie.
- LOMAKS: Don't do that.
Yeah, I walk in the night.
- ED: For the hookups.
- LOMAKS: No.
ED: Yeah.
(MUSIC)
INTERVIEWER: How do you think your
parents would react if they saw you as,
like, zombie bride?
DAVID: They would be, like, tripping out.
They would be...
Like, 'cause they haven't
really seen me in make-up before
but I know one time they did and,
um, they couldn't believe it.
They thought I was a freak.
But the make-up that they did see
me in was quite moderate make-up,
not really compared to the,
like, zombie, you know, for example.
If they saw zombie, you know, I
think my mum would go ballistic.
(MUSIC)
(SCREAMS)
MICHELLE: Beth was one of
the pretty girls at school.
Lovely blonde hair, great set of legs,
looked super in hot pants.
I do vaguely remember Andy at school
but, you know, we weren't close friends.
I just knew of him.
JULIA: He was a nerd, wasn't he?
BETH: He was a nerd.
MICHELLE: Yeah, probably
worked in (INAUDIBLE) room.
(MUSIC)
BETH: Andy and I have
been married for 39 years.
It'll be 40 years in February.
One of the things that Andy used to
do for me when we were first married
and for a few years afterwards was,
I loved digging out thistles,
it's one of my favourite things to do
and on the farm he would go
and take the shoes off
or take his boots off
and go and run through the thistles for me
so that I'd have thistles to dig out
a day or two later when they'd
sort of festered a little bit.
DAVID: They were made for each
other, I think, Beth and Andy.
They just understand each
other on a complex level.
(KISSING)
(MUSIC AND PURRING)
Most guys, they don't actually
find me too attractive.
You know, it's just crazy
'cause I've actually got,
you know, the whole thing going on.
I've got the looks, I've got
the personality... you know,
I'm a fun all-round zombie, you know,
and people just don't take the time to,
you know, learn more about me.
You know, it's like
judging a book by its cover,
that's exactly what they do to me.
And it's just so frustrating.
It's so frustrating, seriously.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever been in love?
DAVID: No, I haven't been in 'love' love.
But, I don't know, maybe one day.
We'll see.
It's easy for people to
say they've been in love.
I think it's a term that
gets thrown round heaps.
But, no, I can honestly say, no, I haven't.
INTERVIEWER: What do you think
is the hardest thing in your life?
DAVID: It would probably be...
...not having the ability
to make everyone happy,
I think.
I think you can only make so many people
happy with the things you do in life and...
I think the hardest thing is, yeah,
just not making everyone happy.
Not everyone's going to be happy.
So, yeah...
CLAUDIA: David?
I know that he acts, he's
like all out there and stuff
but if you really get to
know him, he's pretty private.
Like, he's hidden.
Usually he'll like laughing and stuff
all the time but sometimes he's, like,
actually really angry at
someone or something but,
he's pretty good at hiding
his feelings and his secrets.
He doesn't really tell many secrets,
which is, I guess is all good.
VOICEOVER AND LYRICS FROM
ELECTRIC CITY BY MUSIC
INSTRUCTOR: Already many of the
mutants disguised as human beings
are walking the streets
of earth's cities...
(MUSIC)
DAVID: We're here together because of love.
Ultimately my husband
will look past my flaws
and see me for what I truly am,
which is beautiful.
Which is beautiful.
(SCREAMS)
SPEAKER: There you go.
Got 'em running, Mildred.
Ha ha ha.
- SPEAKER: OK, ready?
- SPEAKER: Yeah. One.
- SPEAKER: Yep.
- SPEAKER: Two.
- SPEAKER: Yep.
- SPEAKER: Three.
(CHAINSAW NOISE)
JUNEEN: Did you have fun tonight?
Beth and Julia came out and
saw me in hospital and...
I was just blown away by it.
Like, you never get your
boss coming to see you
when you're in any kind of situation
like that, not unless, you know,
you're really, really tight with them.
But even then, they
don't make house visits.
I reckon it would've been scary
if I'd got admitted 30 years ago.
That's terrifying.
If you actually look into the history
of mental health at any asylum,
whether it was Kingseat or any
of the other mental institutions
that New Zealand or even
overseas had, it's scary.
It's really scary.
SPEAKER: Good luck. I love you.
(SHOUTING AND CROWD NOISE)
(CHEERING)
HUIA: I'm 21.
There are things that
I could be doing better.
You know, in terms of
my personal health and...
...that's basically the one thing that's
stopping me, is my personal health and...
Oh, just losing weight.
Diabetes is in my family, basically.
One of the things that
I don't want to happen.
But...
you know, I don't necessarily
do anything about it.
'Cause I love to procrastinate.
People think it's weird how I'm able to
compare religion and Spookers together.
But I'm like, Spookers family
has helped me, basically.
I feel comfortable there.
I feel wanted there.
I feel like there's something
I can give there, basically.
And that's the same with my religion...
I feel comfort, I feel wanted,
I feel like there is some
things that I can do there.
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
There's two things that I love the most.
One is my religion and two is performing.
And I love performing.
(AVE MARIA PLAYS)
(SINGING CONTINUES)
HUIA: A couple of months
ago I had this dream about me
basically waking up in
the middle of the sea.
I hopped off the bed and
thought I was going to sink.
And I ended up standing on water.
To my amazement I was
basically walking on water.
(SINGING CONTINUES)
It kind of made me think of what I
could basically be doing with myself
and all these ideas came
into my head, like...
what I should be doing with my life,
where I need to be going.
One of the main thoughts
that stuck into my mind is
I need to basically leave home.
So at the beginning of this week
I made that decision to leave home
with the support of my family.
And, yeah.
I want this to work in the sense that..
I need the opportunity to learn for myself,
and basically become who I need to be.
(SINGING) Maria Gratia plena
Maria Gratia plena
Ave
Ave Dominus
Dominus Tecum
Ta Da!
JUNEEN: And looking back
on the last 12 months and...
the journey that I've travelled,
I decided to talk about
it on camera so that...
...there may be somebody that's
watching that's given up and...
it might help.
Like, they'll be able to say
that, hey, things can happen,
things can turn around and...
life isn't as bad as what
you'd think it would be.
(MUSIC)
JAKE: There's a lot that
happens behind the make-up.
Life goes on and you can do anything.
You live a normal life.
I want to put out there that it's OK.
It's OK to be who you are
and it's OK to have whatever disease
or whatever is wrong with you,
that you're still going to be beautiful.
DAVID: Here at Spookers
you're allowed to be a freak.
I think people portray the word freak
in a more negative than a positive way.
I think a freak is a good
thing... someone that stands out,
that's different, expresses themselves
and isn't ashamed to say
or do whatever they please.
Yeah, that's what a freak is.
DEBORAH: I think of mental
health issues, in a way,
now less as a health issue and
much more as a social issue.
Whether it's with someone who is 13
or 14 or someone who's, you know, 17,
right through to 70.
You know, what I see is real loneliness
and feeling that they're not worthy
of having relationships
or having friendships.
And that's sad.
That's sad that there's so much loneliness
because if there's so many lonely people
they just have to meet each other.
People, they gather, they pack.
I mean, we used to do it here.
I suppose that's when I sort of
started to get more appreciation
of that idea of being in a tribe.
There was always someone who
was wise or someone who was kind
or someone you could have a laugh with,
there was someone who
could fulfil all your needs
and it didn't have to be one person.
(DRUM MUSIC)
(SONG "COME BUY A SAUSAGE"
PLAYING OVER CREDITS)