Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception

Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception

Madelon Hoedt University of Glamorgan

Abstract: Christian haunted houses, like ordinary scare attractions, have been largely ignored by academics. However, the methods employed by these particular venues provide an interesting case study in terms of audience position to and reception of the event. This paper will discuss the intentions of Christian haunted houses, as well as the potential emotional impact of the displays, based on an exploration of the setup of the various venues. Drawing from academic work, interviews with those involved, and treatment of the phenomenon by secular sources, the aim of this paper is to provide new insights in what Chris- tian haunted houses intend to do, and how they do it.

Keywords: Performance, evangelism, Hell House, Scaremare, Judgement House

Introduction

For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

—Romans 6:23

“What you’re gonna see in Hell House is a reality check . . . and I really feel it’s our respon- sibility as the Church to warn our culture like a watchman, warning someone of danger. . . . If Idon’t do that, then the blood is not only on your hands for your sins, but it’s also on my head and my hands for your sins, as well.” The opening words of the 2001 documentary Hell House, spoken by Reverend Tim Ferguson, a youth pastor at Trinity Church in Cedar Hills, Texas, clearly explain the purpose of the performances in the venue. Hell House, as well as other Christian haunted houses, is intended as a warning to our civilization. It is an attempt to show us what awaits us beyond the grave, depending on the choices we make during our earthly existence. The evangelical equivalent of secular scare attractions, Hell House and similar live-action productions present visitors with numerous scenarios of sins and consequences, acted out as visitors walk through. A violent “wakeup call,” Christian haunted houses have been accused of scaring people into converting to Christianity and criticized for the controversial topics they address and the graphic nature of the displays. These criticisms cannot be dismissed outright: it is easy to see that it is difﬁcult to stay objective when one is confronted with blood-soaked scenes of abortions and men dying of AIDS because of their homosexuality. However, as has been noted by Ann Pellegrini, “Cultural critics need to move beyond simply analyzing—and lambasting—the over [sic] content or the- ology of Hell Houses (what Hell Houses say) and focus instead on the affectively rich worlds Hell House performances generate for their participants (what Hell Houses do)” (2007, 912).

The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2, Summer 2012 doi:10.3138/jrpc.24.2.247 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2 Summer 2012

Before we follow the method suggested by Pellegrini, however, it will be beneﬁcial to explore what these performances intend to do, thus providing a framework for subsequent audience research. The intention here is not to focus on the number of people who convert or recommit after a visit to a Hell House.1 Instead, this article will examine the potential emotional impact on visitors of the displays in Christian haunted houses, based on an exploration of the setup of the various venues and the effects that they use. Drawing from academic work, interviews with those involved, and treatment of the phenomenon by secular sources (the 2001 documentary Hell House and the 2006 production of Hell House by Les Frères Corbusier), the aim of this paper is to provide new insights into the experience that Christian scare attractions aim to achieve.

“The Evangelism Tool of the New Millennium”: Origins and Definitions The term “Christian haunted houses” will be used throughout this article to encompass all such performances, including the now infamous Hell House and the lesser-known Scaremare and Judgement House. Although these are three different organisations and each has its own focus, the goal of the productions is identical: to reach visitors with the message from the Bible and to provide them with displays of the possibilities and consequences of the choices made during their life (resulting in going either to heaven or hell). The method by which the message is presented is by putting on a theatrical production, consisting of a number of rooms in which scenes are played out. These scenes present choices made by the protagonists of the sce- nario and, eventually, the results of these choices. However, as already stated, the focal points and the actual content of these displays differ from production to production (I will return to this later). This use of drama as a depiction of choice and consequence reminds one of a morality play in which the subject matter is updated to match today’s culture and its perils (a connection which is also noted by Jackson [2007, 52, 54]). In contrast, Fletcher notes that “the impetus behind the Hell House form, however, stems from an attempt to replicate the secular haunted house rather than the medieval morality play” (2007, 314). Unfortunately, Fletcher does not clarify this relation or its motivations. The origins of Christian haunted houses are found in evangelism rather than in the funda- mentalism with which they are often associated: the productions function first and foremost as a new means to spread the message of “salvation through personal conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Jackson 2007, 43). Jackson positions the origins of Hell House, specifically, as being as early as the eighteenth century, linking the performances with the “fire and brim- stone” sermons of Puritan ministers such as Jonathan Edwards (2007, 43–45). Pellegrini draws a link to the more recent Assemblies of God churches, a Pentecostal movement that is related to the 1906 Azusa Street revival (2007, 914), which is echoed by Reverend Tim Ferguson in Hell House:

The Pentecostal movement was really burst out of the Azusa Street revival ...Foraperiod of time there was no real denomination; there was a black bishop . . . that was ordaining and sending out people who had been ﬁlled with the spirit to be ministers around the country . . . but they had a difﬁcult time, some of them, being under a black bishop, so in 1914 the Assem- blies of God started their own denomination. (Ratliff 2001)

Fletcher draws attention to the fact that “modern-day evangelism came about in the 1950s and 1960s as evangelists like Billy Graham, partially in reaction to the fundamentalists, began to emphasize outreach to the lost over holier-than-thou orthodoxy” (2007, 315). All authors mention the link between Hell House, speciﬁcally, and Scaremare, which was started by Jerry

248 Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception

Falwell in the 1970s and became the ﬁrst of this type of gospel. As a result of their positioning within the evangelical doctrine,

Hell House productions serve as mechanisms of this evangelical witness, not as bullhorns for fundamentalist politics. The emphasis on Christian witnessing—testifying to the truth of the evangelical worldview—dominates Hell House dramaturgy. ...HellHouse seeks above all to raise its audience’s awareness of the material world’s doom and of God’s offer of salvation. (Fletcher 2007, 315)

This is echoed in the words of those responsible for putting on these performances: in the documentary, Tim Ferguson explains, “We believe that a soul, a life without Jesus Christ, you may be alive physically . . . but eventually you’re going to face eternity,” and Hell House and similar productions are staged to reach the lost. It should be noted that, as stated by Pellegrini, “[Hell Houses] are hardly representative of evangelical Protestantism as a whole, which is theologi- cally and politically diverse,” (2007, 914) although, obviously, these productions need to be positioned in a conservative strand of evangelism. As already mentioned, Scaremare, which is still very popular today, was the ﬁrst Christian haunted house to emerge, originated by Jerry Falwell and dating back to the 1970s, and is presented as “an ensemble of creepy encounters with dying, death, and the saving grace of Jesus Christ” (Harding 2001, 3). The second such production, Judgement House, was founded in the 1980s and is “a dramatic walk-through presentation about the truth of people’s choices and their consequences both in this life and the next” (Judgement House 2006). This element of choice is the focus of Judgement House and is described on the Web site as one of the main features that distinguishes it from Hell House: “Judgement House does not deal with socially controversial issues and instead chooses to focus the entire presentation and in fact every scene, even Hell, on presenting people with the opportunity to choose a saving and personal relationship with Jesus Christ” (2006). The Hell House format is the youngest of the three, es- tablished by Pastor Keenan Roberts in 1993, and is by far the most infamous.2 Where Scare- mare combines the fun of a secular haunted house with the message of a Christian one, and Judgement House emphasizes choice, Hell House focuses on the consequences of sinful choices in scenes that are graphic and include a number of controversial topics, most notably abortion and homosexuality. Yet ultimately, Hell House, too, is about choice: the consequences presented can be averted by choosing to give one’s life to Jesus, as He forgives sin and can give eternal life. All three are, as stated by Pellegrini, “wilfully hybrid experiences, which combine secular culture and Christianity to extend a Christian message” (2007, 913). This correlation is also noted by John Fletcher: “[Hell Houses] typically invoke and alter haunted-house conventions, replacing ghosts and monsters with demons and sin—all designed to confront unsaved audience members with the reality of spiritual warfare and the necessity of being born again” (2007, 313). Based on these observations, it would be beneﬁcial not to separate the forms, but instead incorporate the theory behind scare attractions into a discussion of Christian haunted houses, as similarities between the two exist on a number of levels. Apart from the tendency of the latter to operate in correlation with the Halloween season, the basic setup of each production is virtually identical: visitors are divided into groups of (ideally) twenty people and led through the venue by a guide, past various (possibly frightening) displays. Naturally, the aim of a Christian haunted house is fundamentally different from that of a scare attraction, as the message takes precedent over the element of entertainment. However, the existence of shared conventions in both the setup and effects used provide some common ground and allow for a

249 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2 Summer 2012 discussion of Christian haunted houses that incorporates ideas and theories that are important when looking at scare attractions.

“This House of Death Really Can Show You the Way of Life”: Theoretical Background In his article “Enjoying Negative Emotions in Fiction,” John Morreall discusses negative emotions, such as fear, sadness, and anger, which are induced by fiction and the ways in which these can be experienced as enjoyable. According to Morreall, this enjoyment is defined by two concepts, control and distance. “Control” is understood as the means by which an audience can directly influence the material presented (such as closing a book or pausing a movie). In Morreall’s own words, “Intense fear—terror—is not enjoyable because in such a state we lose control over our attention, our bodies, and our total situation. ...Whenwehave this abil- ity to start, stop, and direct the experience, we can enjoy a wide range of experiences, even “unpleasant” ones” (1985, 97). The second concept, “distance,” describes the position of the audience to the material: “Control is usually easiest to maintain when we are merely attending to something which has no practical consequences for us, as when we watch from a distance some event unrelated to us” (1985, 97). The more control and distance an audience has in relation to the fiction, the less distressing and thus the more enjoyable the experience will be. When focusing on the horror genre, the movies and novels are naturally intended to be frightening; however, in these forms, the scares are directed at the protagonists of the story and not at the audience. Although identification of the audience with the characters is possible and even necessary to create full enjoyment of the material, there is a difference between the audience and the actual narrative: the protagonists are chased by a maniacal killer, and not the cinema-goer. According to Morreall, this type of aesthetic distance makes it easier for the audience members to enjoy the horrific narrative than if they themselves were being chased by a monster or homicidal maniac. However, this is exactly what happens when one visits a scare attraction, and the lack of control and distance, where the visitors of a venue are confronted with scary displays and chased by all manners of unsightly creatures, causes an emotional response that is much more intense than any movie or book could ever be. We find a similar vocabulary in the ideas of those actively involved in the Christian haunted house productions: Pastor Roberts has described Hell House as being “a very in-your- face, high octane approach and I’ve often called it a rock ’n’ roll gospel.”3 In the documentary, Tim Ferguson states that “the object of Hell House is to do dramas with sound and smell and sight in a unique way that our culture can receive the gospel of Jesus Christ that maybe they normally might not come. They come to see Hell House when they would never walk inside the doors of a church” (Ratliff 2001). In relation to the control and distance argument, we can see a link between the relative safety of horror books and movies as opposed to the direct frights of a scare attraction, and Bible study or attending a service versus a visit to Hell House in the Christian context. In the case of reading the Bible, a person is obviously completely in control of the materials. Listening to sermons provides a different problem, as sermons are intended to elicit a strong emotional response and are often successful in doing so.4 However, Christian haunted houses are not merely using imagery of hellfire and eternal agony, as sermons would. Instead, they provide pictures that are much more true-to-life, presenting every- day scenes featuring protagonists that are the same age as most of the visitors, thus eliciting a response that can be expected to be more intense than a regular sermon and, potentially, more effective. The most important thing to keep in mind here is that, as expressed in the words of Ferguson, Hell House and similar productions are aimed at and draw in visitors who would

250 Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception normally never be exposed to any kind of sermon. Similarly, Pastor Roberts describes, “A lot of the people in the audience never go to church. . . . We’ve got 45 minutes to push the pedal to the metal to make the most indelible imprint we can, because the rest of the year we do it with a milk-and-cookies kind of approach.”5 The message is the goal and, at least for Hell House, that justiﬁes the method. Once again, quoting Pastor Roberts: “Even, if somebody goes all the way through, no matter what their intention or their heart or their point of reference, we are committed to the fact that we are reaching someone with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that, if we were not doing Hell House, we would not reach them otherwise.”6

“It’ll Scare the Jesus into You”: Fear in Christian Haunted Houses In the spectrum of possible emotional reactions, fear has a special place in relation to Christian haunted houses and should therefore be discussed in more detail. To return brieﬂy to the com- parison with regular scare attractions, these venues are frightening and are intended to be frightening to provide the audience with the thrills and chills of the experience depicted. Scare attractions are about adrenaline, about “fear for fun.” The notion of fear in Christian haunted houses is much more ambiguous: the venues have often been accused of frightening people into converting and of using scare tactics to save souls. Next to the controversial themes of the displays inside the venues, these scare tactics have been one of the traditional focal points of the (media) coverage of these productions. In his article “Jonathan Edwards Goes to Hell (House): Fear Appeals in American Evange- lism,” Brian Jackson compares the ideas and sermons of the eighteenth-century evangelist Jonathan Edwards to the methods that are employed by Hell Houses. He describes the argumentum ad baculum, the “argument of the club,” a rhetorical practice of appealing to fear, and openly condemns the use of such tactics:

My conclusion is that the overt, dramatic appeal to fear in the religious tradition is an unfortu- nate strategy that relies on terror—and not only that, but the terror of young people in an un- reﬂective moment of spatial horror—as the primary motivation for changing one’s life. There is also a sense that the obsession with frightening people in the most gruesome and horrifying ways carries with it the onus of sadism. (2007, 43)

Jackson refers to the appeal to fear strategy as “questionable” (42), describing the graphic nature of the displays and questioning whether the decisions of the audience are “more phys- iological reaction than deep and true conviction” (57). As he states earlier in the article, “Psy- chologists note that fear is a primal reaction caused by a feeling of powerlessness in the face of a perceived threat” (50), and it is deemed doubtful whether frightened people will be able to make informed decisions. Similarly, attention has been paid to the victimisation of the protagonists in the various displays. Jackson has noted, “[Hell House] invites the audience to assent to the spectacle of suffering without evoking feelings of sympathy for the sufferer” (43). Fletcher, relating his reactions after a visit to a production in Tallahassee, Florida, in 2003, describes how he “wasstruck...byhowawfullyalonealltheyounghumanprotago- nists were, how cut off they were from any meaningful support, human or divine. Parents screamed at them, friends belittled them, technology corrupted them, strangers drugged and raped them, and demons tortured them” (2007, 318). Given the fact that the Hell House production is aimed primarily at young people (most visitors are between ﬁfteen and twenty- ﬁve, according to Pastor Roberts),7 it is easy to see the potential impact that Hell House can have on its audience. This has also been noted by Jackson: “Guests of Hell House watch the painful real-life crises of teenagers perhaps not unlike themselves, abused and confused and

251 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2 Summer 2012 tormented, whose lack of judgment or will power land them in eternal suffering with no end” (2007, 57). In his book Battle for the Mind: The Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing, Wil- liam Sargant describes the processes that underlie indoctrination and brainwashing.8 Although many of the methods discussed in his work involve extreme stress and torture over prolonged periods of time, the basic ideas on the causes of and responses to stress are of interest for our current argument. According to Sargant, inducing emotional stress leads to an increased sus- ceptibility of the subject: Those who wish to disperse wrong beliefs and undesirable behaviour patterns and afterwards implant saner beliefs and attitudes are more likely to achieve success if they can ﬁrst induce some degree of nervous tension or stir up sufﬁcient feelings of anger or anxiety to secure the person’s undivided attention and possibly increase his suggestibility. (1959, 79–80)

Sargant refers to the methods of John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards and their means to convert people.9 Wesley “would create high emotional tension in his potential converts” (84), where hellfire was presented as a reality and “the immediate acceptance of an escape from such a ghastly fate was then strongly urged on the ground that anybody who left the meeting ‘unchanged’ . . . would pass straight into the fiery furnace” (84). This sounds very similar to the words of the pastor featured in Hell House as he offers visitors the choice to convert to Christianity: “If you were to die tonight, would you know where you are going, or do you think that you know? Because if you think that you know, then you’re taking a chance with your soul for eternity” (Ratliff 2001). By creating an emotional response, the subject becomes stressed and is thus made more susceptible to new ideas. According to Sargant, “The best way to avoid possession, conversion and all similar conditions is to avoid getting emotionally involved in the proceedings” (1959, 95). However, given the lack of control and distance in Christian haunted houses, caused by the setup of these productions, it is almost impossible to not get emotionally involved. Yet the views of the ministers involved in Hell House productions on this argumentum ad baculum are quite different. During the orientation meeting, Tim Ferguson asks the group of Hell House leaders, “Is our church, is it driven by fear? No. Is fear a part of it? Absolutely. A part of salvation is being afraid of going to Hell” (Ratliff 2001). Pastor Roberts holds a similar opinion: “I would like to ask: why do people always equate fear as being negative? Fear can be positive if it is used to help people make good decisions. Fear as a motivator is a healthy aspect of making good decisions.”10 During our interview, Pastor Roberts used the example of one’s house being on fire, and the owner and their family being asleep inside. Would you rather remain asleep and burn alive, or have a passerby running into the bedroom, scaring you awake, thus rescuing you and your loved ones from the fire? Anyone would choose the latter option, whether one is a Christian or not. Keeping in mind that for Pastor Roberts and for any church involved in these productions, the fires of hell are as much of a reality as a house being on fire, it is clear that their work is viewed as an act of charity, with or without the scares. Frightening and distressing the audience of Hell House is not an end in itself, but a consequence of the message. Again quoting Pastor Roberts: “The heart of our message is love, where we say that sin is gonna jack your life up, and Jesus can clean your life up.”11 These differences in opinion highlight the ambiguity of fear and other emotions in relation to Christian haunted houses, especially from a moral perspective: is it “right” or “wrong” to use fear in this way? Are the displays frightening, or is it, as Pastor Roberts has stated, a message of love? As can be seen when reading the previous paragraphs, the existing work and arguments of the use of fear have mainly concerned themselves with the practice of Hell House. A similar

252 Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception exploration of the emotional effects and fear elicited by Scaremare and Judgement House is largely absent in the existing scholarly work. The following case studies will further explore the work of these organisations and the emotional reactions of the audience.

“Real choices. Real People. Real Consequences”: Case Studies It has been argued that by breaking down the feelings of control and distance in the audience members, they are likely to get more emotionally involved and are more susceptible to the message that is presented to them. The following case studies will provide more details of the contents of the various productions, focusing on the position of the audience members to the material and the ways in which they can become emotionally involved with the drama. The oldest of the three organisations focused on, Scaremare, presents itself as offering a production containing “fun-house rooms and scenes of death in order to confront people with the question “What happens after I die?” (Scaremare 2008). A more lurid description can be found in The Book of Jerry Falwell by Susan Friend Harding:

You enter the house through a dark, damp tunnel and move haltingly through a dozen rooms, each one a little disaster scene: the grisly aftermath of a plane crash; a mausoleum of open cas- kets; dead bodies hanging on hooks in a meat locker; a homeless overdosed heroin addict; a woman holding a huge snake that has bitten a man who is writhing in pain; a cage full of crazed, ragtag people grappling to get out; a collapsed Hyatt-Regency hotel littered with dying and dead bodies; a truck-motorcycle wreck bursting with yet more mangled bodies. (2001, 3)

Earlier in this article, the idea of Christian haunted houses as a wilfully hybrid form was discussed, a concept that seems especially true in the case of Scaremare. Hutkin, in an article for The Roanoke Times, provides additional examples of the duality of Scaremare: “Freddy Kruger is here with razor-blade ﬁngers. As is the ghoul from ‘Scream.’ Outside, anticipating the night’s ﬁrst group and sporting bloody gashes across his face, Jesus waits on the cross” (2007). The photograph that accompanies the article shows a student dressed as Michael Myers from the Halloween series of movies. The presence of horror icons, sharing the stage with Jesus Christ, emphasizes the two sides of the production, the religious aspect and the entertainment element. Hutkin (2007) describes how:

On the inside, the house is full of dark, zero-visibility mazes, strobe-lit rooms and dressed-up ghouls jumping from dark doorways. Outside, it’s a makeshift ministry. After exiting the house and passing Jesus—long-haired, wearing a crown of thorns and slumped on the cross—visitors follow a leaf-strewn path to lighted tents where Liberty students lead prayer.

This almost ambiguous message—fear for fun or for conversion—seems to confuse some of the visitors: the article notes how “some [visitors] curse at [the actor portraying Jesus Christ] as he grips the cross, saying Jesus at a haunted house is ‘just wrong.’” The duality, however, is not unintentional. In an interview, Jonathan Vandergriff, the coordinator of Scaremare, states that Scaremare contains “two basic themes. One is the fun nature or the scare nature of the house. There are elements that are there, simply to scare the attendees. The other theme is death.”12 These two sides of Scaremare result in what Vander- griff calls a “delicate balancing act”:

We recently had some collective criticism about our message of faith being drowned out by the scare factor of Scaremare. In other words, youth leaders wanted more thematic scenes, than scare scenes. Because of this thoughtful criticism, we have made Scaremare more thematic . . . Attendees typically want more scare than themes. (e-mail correspondence)

253 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2 Summer 2012

Of the three, the experience of Scaremare appears to be closest to that of a “regular” scare attraction. Issues with control and distance operate primarily on the level of patrons being scared by the actors inside the house by giving visitors the impression that they are being chased, thus making them protagonists in their own horror narrative. Despite the ambiguity, the religious message is still the key: “It’s really an evangelistic event,” said robe-clad Jesus— twenty-two-year-old Liberty senior Douglas Slachter. “The majority of it is reaching out to those who don’t know Christ” (Hutkin 2007). Judgement House has a similar religious message, emphasizing the element of choice and leaving horror icons behind.13 A clear outline of the experience can be found online:

Those attending a Judgement House presentation are welcomed to the location by greeters and are asked to ﬁll out a short registration form. After they register, they are placed in groups ran- ging in size from 12 to 20 people per group. Every 10 to 15 minutes a group begins their jour- ney through the presentation. To help the groups make their way through the series of rooms and to assist them in understanding the story that is unfolding, a guide is assigned to their group. The guide stops outside each room and gives a brief overview of the previous scene and set-up of the scene they are about to enter.14

The nine rooms of the walkthrough tell unique stories and show the consequences. These nar- ratives are followed by a representation of “what happens when we leave this earth through death,” including scenes portraying the ﬁnal judgement, hell, and eventually heaven. Effort is put into the experience of this particular segment of the tour, and the description provided of hell gives the reader an idea of this scene: “The group is then led by the guide into a room which represents what, Judgement House believes the Bible tells us, eternal separation from God in Hell is like. This room is commonly the smallest room, with few lights, loud background noise/music and usually made warmer than normal in order to enhance the uncom- fortable nature of the experience.” One section of the Judgement House Web site explains the difference between this organization and Hell House, a point that is emphasized repeatedly. The Web site states that the only similarities are based on the setup of the productions, stating that Judgement House focuses on the fact that “a person must make a choice about what to do with God’s offer of a saving and personal relationship with His Son Jesus Christ before their death.”15 The difference, according to Judgement House, is this emphasis on choice; additionally, the organization does not deal with the controversial issues (such as abortion, homosexuality, and suicide) that Hell House addresses or use demons as guides “who want to convince the audience that there is a penalty for these sinful social behaviours.”16 In addition to this information, the Web site includes brief outlines of the scripts that are used in Judgement House. Themes that are addressed in the production include domestic violence, the dangers of the Internet, school shoot- ings, and drunk driving (all of which can also be found in Hell House productions), and, depending on the way in which the scenes are presented, it can be expected that they will be quite graphic and distressing. In terms of issues with control and distance, the presentation of realistic themes is particularly interesting: scenes that incorporate real-life tragedies such as domestic violence or the victims of drunk driving have the potential to really “hit home” with the audience, a situation that is less likely when dealing with a more fantastic theme such as a zombie invasion in a secular haunted house. For those members of the audience who see a personal experience performed in this setting, the sense of control and distance will be dimin- ished, and it is likely that they will be affected more than other visitors. For all patrons, however, issues of control and distance have a part to play in the basic setup of the presentation. As stated earlier, live performances have a stronger emotional impact than books and movies

254 Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception as one is seated in the same room as the characters played out onstage. The intimacy that is already present in a traditional stage-spectator setting will be further enhanced in the case of a walk-through-style presentation, where the audience is positioned closer to and (possibly) en- veloped by the performance. In addition to the basic concept of an experiential production, Judgement House has added another feature that further diminishes the feeling of control and distance of the audience over the material. The “What is Judgement House?” Web page describes how, in the scenes of judgement, hell and heaven, visitors are addressed, one by one, by actors portraying the judge, Satan, and, ultimately, Jesus Christ:

Each of the members of the audience will have their name called by the actor portraying the “judge.” They are then told, as a group, that unlike the main characters in the story, they still have time to make a choice about what to do with God’s offer of a saving and personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ . . . [In Hell,] they are then addressed by an actor portraying Satan, and again told that they, unlike the characters they have just seen, have a choice . . . [In Heaven,] group members are then personally and individually welcomed to their eternal reward by an actor portraying Jesus.

By personally addressing visitors by name, any sense of distance is completely removed as audience members become part of the performance themselves. Not only are patrons drawn into the show, the characters who address them can be seen to add additional weight to the experience: it would seem safe to assume that an encounter with an actor portraying Jesus Christ will have a strong emotional resonance with at least some of the visitors (especially after the group has just progressed through hell). In this case, not only does the setup of the production cause an emotional response, but also the potential familiarity of the themes and the use of names and religious icons are likely to further affect the audiences of Judgement House. Hell House, the youngest of the three organisations, is described by Jackson as “a spatial sermon that culminates in a virtual tour of hell” (2007, 42) and “a modern morality play meant to convince youth of the inexpressible horrors awaiting the unrepentant sinner in the afterlife” (52). He continues: “Rather than rely on mere metaphor ...HellHouse constructs a physical sermon that invokes the aesthetics of immediacy via amateur dramaturgy and sequential staging” (54). Roberts advocates a production that contains seven scenes: two of these are depictions of heaven and hell, with the other five incorporating various themes. These latter five cover the so-called “social-sin issues,” addressing homosexuality, abortion, suicide, drunk driving, and Satanism” (Pellegrini 2007, 921). Of these, homosexuality and abortion are always featured in Roberts’s production, with the other scenes changing depending on the issues that he feels need to be discussed. Jackson notes the primary issue with control and distance that is present in Hell House: “The senses are heightened by the three-dimensional effects of a live-action stage play where there is no stage—virtually no space at all—between the viewers and hell’s torments” (2007, 55). In addition, like in Judgement House, the idea of familiarity is a problem, which exists on two levels: first, there is the familiarity of the audience with the themes that are addressed. Ratliff’s documentary shows a woman who fainted after seeing the abortion scene. Having experienced two miscarriages herself, she describes how the scene looked “really life-like and real . . . , so life-like that it just brought back some memories to me and I just passed out.” Sec- ond, it should be noted that Hell House, as well as Scaremare and Judgement House, is a community effort, with members of the church helping out with construction and taking on various roles (in Pellegrini, Pastor Roberts describes his own experiences in his role as “death

255 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2 Summer 2012 monitor,” the demon guides used in Hell House [2007, 914–915]). The documentary shows the efforts of families and staff of the church and the Christian school in building their Hell House. One of the teachers takes on the role of a drug dealer, waving around and using a shot- gun in one of the scenes. A father and daughter discuss whether Dad should try out for the domestic violence sequence, upon which the daughter comments, “I couldn’t see you hitting a woman, fake or otherwise, and stabbing her much less. . . . Now, that would be interesting.” It can be assumed that seeing familiar faces in these violent and intense scenes adds another dimension of intimacy to the experience of certain visitors, thus further diminishing the sense of control and distance. The roles of the guides in Hell House should also be noted. Whereas the guides that are assigned to the groups in Judgement House function as leaders and teachers, Hell House uses “death monitors”: demon guides that lead the groups and are featured in the scenes as well. Pellegrini states, “PastorKeenan...suggestsusingtwodemonguidespertour” (2007, 928), which implies a large role for the guides in a group that ideally contains twenty people. In addition, it links the guides to the demons in the scenes, drawing the group further into the drama (as, indirectly, characters from the scenes are part of the group). Whereas the guides in Judgement House can be seen as teachers and protectors, the death monitors in Hell House are the “bad guys” and are there to be feared. Their presence in the group, amidst ordinary visitors, could heighten the sense of unease in the patrons, potentially causing emotional distress. Again, as in the other productions, the message is key. Hell House is not there to scare its patrons or to provide them with a fun thrill-ride, and the production is not meant to be enjoyable (although Roberts acknowledges it could be): “Hell Houses are playing forkeeps....Therollercoastereventuallystops,buthellisforalleternity.What’smore, within the worlds laid bare by Hell House performances the devil is neither allegory nor pro- jection of the unconscious; he is real and he is coming for you” (Pellegrini 2007, 915). The audience perception of the productions varies greatly. Visitors who have already been saved will view the performance in a different way than non-Christians. Youth groups, students, and parents who feel that their children need to see the production all are counted among the patrons of the venues, bringing their own opinions and ideas, making it difﬁcult to ana- lyze a more general idea of their views and expectations. However, given the arguments presented earlier, it would be safe to assume that there is a large potential for any member of the audience to have some kind of emotional response, be it anger, sadness, disgust, or the desired “seeing the light.” In relation to the Christian haunted houses, it is interesting to mention the production of Hell House that was done in 2006 by the New York–based theatre group Les Frères Corbu- sier.17 Working closely with Pastor Roberts, the company acquired a Hell House kit and staged a production that was largely similar to the work by the church. Changes made included the use of additional scenes (nine versus Roberts’s suggestion of seven) and the use of one demon guide per group (Pellegrini 2007, 928). The goal of the Les Frères staging was the idea that “it was important for New Yorkers to see what actually goes on in Evangelical communities–to foster dialogue and understanding.”18 Alex Timbers, the director of the production, states that the main reason for people to visit the production had to do with curiosity, and describes the response of the patrons:

Audiences took away what they wanted to. If they were looking for irony, they found the production ironic. If they wanted to see it as sincere, then that was their impression of it. We also had groups of Evangelicals come through who didn’t realize the show wasn’t being done by an avant-garde theater group and they were profoundly moved by it. That to me was the ultimate

256 Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception

demonstration of the efﬁcacy of our project. Our intent was to present a Hell House as it would be done in the country’s red states, without commentary, and we clearly succeeded at that. (e-mail correspondence)

When asked about his ideas on the effectiveness of a production such as Hell House, Timbers notes, “It was an incredibly visceral experience. And, in the effort to “scare people straight” and as a tool for conversion, such an aggressive form of entertainment must be more effective than a lecture or a documentary.” This comment points to similar ideas on control and distance that have been considered throughout this paper. Given the methodology that was adopted by Les Frères, the issues with the setup and the role of the demon guides are similar to a religious staging of Hell House (although familiarity might be less of an issue). In addition, given the difference in the background of the visitors in New York and Colorado, the production will resonate differently with its audience, potentially producing amusement rather than fear and awe. Pellegrini states, “The media made much of the fact that the production was a ‘faithful’ and ‘sincere’ presentation of a ‘real’ Hell House” (2007, 927). She, however, notes that this sin- cerity “may have been its undoing”: “To put the matter in theatrical terms, you could say that Les Frères was coolly Brechtian when it needed to be engaged and Aristotelian, let alone bloody red and Artaudian” (927). The religious engagement that is present in the work by the church communities was (naturally) missing from this production. Those involved, however, were not dissatisﬁed: “According to Roberts, ‘Hell House’ gave New Yorkers an opportunity to meet Jesus and to get acquainted with the risks of sin. And according to Timbers and Lemon- Strauss, it gave viewers a peek, albeit extreme, inside an unfamiliar world.”19

Conclusions The aim of this paper has been to obtain a better understanding of the effects that Christian haunted houses aim to achieve and to outline what the performances intend to do. By applying theoretical material from other disciplines, as well as initiating a direct dialogue with those involved in both religious and secular productions, data has been gathered on the ideologies underlying the productions, their intentions on audience response, and the relations between scare attractions and Christian haunted houses. Using the theory of control and distance, as applied to scare attractions, it can be said that the three Christian haunted houses examined here aim to break down barriers between the audience and production in a similar way, thus managing to emotionally involve visitors in a variety of ways. However, because of the intention of the venues (entertainment as opposed to conversion), the concepts of control and distance and, consequently, the emotions that are elicited from the audience operate differently in each, most notably in terms of familiarity with themes and the actors. A question can be raised regarding the “effectiveness” of Christian haunted houses, as it is almost impossible to measure the success of Christian haunted houses by simply counting the number of conver- sions. Because of the adopted setup of the performances, the themes that are used for the scenes, and the way in which these themes are addressed, emotional responses from the audience are imminent, yet it remains to be seen whether these reactions are the desired ones. Audiences can be scared by what they see, a response that may result in conversion, or they may become angry, disgusted, or physically ill. Others might simply ridicule the experience and brush it away. Following the theory of Sargant, the ﬁrst response, that of fear, is most likely to have the desired effect of one recommitting or converting. However, as we have seen in his writings, any situation in which a visitor becomes emotionally involved can result in a change of heart and, ultimately, a conversion.

257 Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 24:2 Summer 2012

Although it remains difﬁcult to comment on exactly how effective the productions are, there is a lot to be learned from Christian haunted houses and the way they are staged, both in a religious and a secular setting. Practical work with materials such as the Hell House kit would allow for a deconstruction and close observation of the processes underlying this phenomenon. This approach, as well as gathering data on visitors of actual Christian events will be the aim of future research and will allow for a way to test the possibilities and intentions outlined here. By remaining objective and open-minded, by constructing a dialogue as opposed to lambasting the message, valuable insights can be gained into the methods and “the faith [of Hell House] in the power of theatre to reach in and transform its audience” (Pellegrini 2007, 920).

Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank Pastor Keenan Roberts of the New Destiny Christian Center, Whitney Marvel and Dr. Jonathan Vandergriff of Scaremare, and Alex Timbers of Les Frères Corbusier for taking the time to answer my questions and providing me with the information necessary for this paper. Second, I would like to thank Debra Levine for allowing me to use her work. Lastly, a big thank you to Professor Richard Hand of the University of Glamorgan for his support and advice during the writing of this paper.

Notes 1. It should be noted that it is impossible to use these ﬁgures as decisive evidence, not in the least because of the views of the churches themselves on conversion: the timing of the actual conversion is in the hands of God and can occur weeks, months, even years after a visit to the production. 2. Although the idea and methods of Hell House did not start with Pastor Roberts, he is responsible for the appellation “Hell House” and has created and markets the “Hell House Outreach Kit,” which contains a range of how-to materials. 3. Interview between Pastor Keenan Roberts and the author, August 25, 2009. 4. A clear example is the description of the “sermon scene” in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), referenced by Jackson (2007, 42). 5. See http://lesfreres.org/hellhouse/newsweek.htm. 6. Interview between Pastor Keenan Roberts and the author, August 25, 2009. 7. Interview between Pastor Keenan Roberts and the author, August 25, 2009. 8. I would like to stress that I do not wish to condemn any of the organizations discussed of being involved in techniques of brainwashing. The reasons for incorporating Sargant’s work are the ideas as outlined in this paper. 9. John Wesley (1703–1791) was an Anglican cleric and is considered one of the founders of the Methodist movement. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was a preacher, theologian and missionary to Native Americans. Both are famous for their sermons on hell and the consequences of sin. For more information on Edwards, see Jackson (2007). 10. Interview between Pastor Keenan Roberts and the author, August 25, 2009. 11. Interview between Pastor Keenan Roberts and the author, August 25, 2009. 12. E-mail correspondence between Dr. Vandergriff and the author. 13. Repeated attempts were made by the author to get in touch with the organization. These attempts, however, were unsuccessful. For this reason, no direct input from Judgement House could be used, as opposed to the information provided by the other organizations. 14. See http://www.judgementhouse.org/What-Is-Judgement-House-_39_pg.html. 15. See http://www.judgementhouse.org/How-is-Judgement-House-Different-_8_pg.html.

258 Hell to Pay: Christian Haunted Houses and Audience Reception

16. See http://www.judgementhouse.org/How-is-Judgement-House-Different-_8_pg.html. 17. In 2004, a theatre group posing as “The Youth Group,” staged a parody version of Hell House in Hollywood. It appears that their intention has been to make fun of the concept of Hell House, focusing, as many critics have, on lambasting the message. For this reason, the approach taken by Les Frères Corbusier is of more value for the current discussion, as their performance looked at the viewpoint of what Hell Houses do. 18. E-mail correspondence between Alex Timbers and the author. 19. See http://lesfreres.org/hellhouse/newsweek.htm.

References Fletcher, John. 2007. “Tasteless as Hell: Community Performance, Distinction, and Countertaste in Hell House.” Theatre Survey 48 (2): 313–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0040557407000701. Harding, Susan. 2001. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton: Prin- ceton University Press. Hell House. 2005–2010. New Destiny Christian Center. http://www.godestiny.org/hell_house/HH_kit. cfm Hutkin, Erinn. 2007. “Scaremare’s Holy Horror House.” The Roanoke Times, October 24. http://www. roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/136987. Jackson, Brian. 2007. “Jonathan Edwards goes to Hell (House): Fear Appeals in American Evangelism.” Rhetoric Review 26 (1): 42–59. Judgement House. 2006. http://www.judgementhouse.org/ Corbusier, Les Frères. 2002–2006. Les Frères Corbusier. http://www.lesfreres.org/ Morreall, John. 1985. “Enjoying Negative Emotions in Fiction.” Philosophy and Literature 9 (1): 95–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/phl.1985.0118. Pellegrini, Ann. 2007. “‘Signaling through the Flames’: Hell House Performance and Structures of Reli- gious Feeling.” American Quarterly 59 (3): 911–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/aq.2007.0067. Ratliff, George, dir. 2001. Hell House. Plexiﬁlm, New York City. DVD. Sargant, William. 1959. Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brain-Washing. London: Pan Books. Scaremare. 2008. Liberty University. http://www.scaremare.com/

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