The Reign of Terror
“There is so much detail,” said Bruce Stanton, director of Reign of Terror, “that the average person would have to go through (the haunted house) ten times in order to capture the detail of all that is there.”
The Reign of Terror spans over 70 rooms and can take up to 45 minutes to go through. It has a permanent home in Janss Marketplace, in a warehouse above Gold’s Gym, allowing for volunteers to construct and decorate the haunted house year-round.
Workers on the project focused much of their time this year on perfecting every aspect of the house and adding detail to the pre-existing maze.
“We put so much of a high level of detail in because that is the passion we have,” Stanton said. “We want to provide an incredible haunted house, but it has to be incredible to us. We are the biggest, hardest critics.”
Since childhood, Stanton has always been fascinated with the concept of Halloween. The event first began at Stanton’s own home in 2000. After 8 years, it became so popular that they moved to the Janss Marketplace.
“Scaring people is really only a byproduct … not what I’m interested in,” Stanton said. “I’m interested in the whole element of the haunted house … this is what people want.”
One of the volunteers, Robert Nitzsche, has been a publicist and actor for the attraction for two years. He was drawn to volunteering at the Reign of Terror because he’s “always been passionate about Halloween.”
Despite continuous expansion, this haunted house was never meant to grow into a business. Stanton already works as a dentist. This is purely a hobby for the staff that is fueled by what Stanton calls “a labor of love.” All funds raised by the haunted house are donated to the Thousand Oaks Teen Center.
“We calibrate ourselves as a Universal Studios-style haunted house, but we feel that we have a better product because people go through the haunted house one small group at a time,” Stanton said, as opposed to commercial haunted houses. The Reign of Terror isolates people into small groups of three or four to enhance the scare factor and keep the experience personal.
Universal Studios, on the other hand, has the entire public stream through in a line.
Stanton said, “in order to scare them you need to take them out of the real world and put them into the world you want them to be in. With the high level of detail in the set design we have, we’re able to do that very easily. So you quickly forget that you’re on the second story of a building inside of the Janss Marketplace.”
The haunted house is meant to be tradition for all Thousand Oaks families, which is why Stanton provides specific dates when the Reign of Terror is “less scary;” they keep the lights on and have no actors working in the haunted house. These days are meant for younger family members, who still want to experience a haunted house.
