Behind the Scare: Inclusion in the Haunt Community
My name is Anna Knapp, but in some places in the world, I am known as Taser Girl. I am writing to tell you about my passion for all things Halloween. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, but in the past decade, I have developed an ever-bigger love for the holiday. I started full-time haunt acting at my local haunted attraction and was immediately hooked. Over the past decade, haunt acting has given me more confidence than I thought possible.
My passion for Halloween really started in 2017 when I created a haunt character named Taser Girl. Taser Girl was a clown who worked at a traveling circus but got trapped by a disturbed Ringmaster. After years of torture, she now does to other people what was done to her. I have had a lot of amazing opportunities. Still, the best thing to come out of creating Taser Girl is having a platform to share about being a scare actor with a disability and to bring awareness to the Disability Community.
From my experience, the haunt community is very inclusive, but there is always room for improvement when it comes to accepting and understanding the needs of disabled people. I was fortunate to have worked for people at my local haunt who understood that I needed to be in a place where I had the option to sit down while I was scaring people. For the first several years, I scared guests on a wooded trail, and I had an old wheelchair tucked away so I could sit down in between groups. In recent years, I have acted in an old school bus which still allowed me to sit down while waiting for guests to come through my sections of the haunted attraction.
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Haunt acting gave me an escape from the “real” world for one month out of the year. Once I was in character, I was able to put my disability aside for a couple of hours a night in October because no one walking through knew I was disabled. Having that escape is a very freeing feeling and I believe a lot of people in the haunt community would agree with me. I have never left like an outcast within the haunt community and that is something I am incredibly grateful for.
From my research, there are only 5 haunted attractions in the US that are ADA-accessible. Most haunted attractions have wooded trails, dirt paths, and haunted houses that are too narrow and dangerous for mobility aid users to move through. I would like to see more haunted attractions consider the disabled community when they are building their attraction. I was lucky enough to visit one of the accessible attractions last October and I plan to visit more this year.
Halloween is becoming a more inclusive holiday, but there still needs to be some work to be done. For example, many stores including Target and Disney have started selling adaptive Halloween costumes for children and adults, but their collections are limited. There is always work to be done to include the disabled community in a non-disabled run world, but Halloween is one of the most inclusive holidays and it has given me the chance to share my story and spread awareness.
About the Author: My name is Anna Knapp, I am 29 years old and from rural West Virginia. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, building LEGOS with my partner, and exploring areas in my home state.