Jessica Andrews at Moline's Factory of Fear
Touring the haunted halls and dark crevices of Skellington Manor is scary enough, with its depraved permanent displays and figures. But add the colorful, creepy live performers during the haunted-house season of October 3 through November 2, and the fear factor is super-charged.
Terror at Skellington Manor, Rock Island IL
For Storm Marie Baca and Molly Wilkison, two of the dedicated performers for Terror at Skellington Manor, getting to be part of the haunts and jump scares is about the most wonderful time of year.
"I'm not a fan of haunted houses,” the Rock Island-based Baca said recently. “They scare me really bad. But I'm very good at screaming."
A 24-year-old theater veteran, Baca started performing at Rock Island's Skellington Manor Event Center (420 18th Street) three years ago, and has been involved with theater for about 10 years, ever since she was a student at Geneseo High School. Haunted houses, she said, are like improv. "There's not a script, so you figure out what you do and stick with that. Sometimes you'll hear a person's name and go off that name, or see someone cowering in the back and call them out."
For her part, Wilkison has performed improv comedy for 10 years – formerly with Show Us Your Pokeballs at the Village Theatre, and currently with the Nightcaps, which has been based in the Circa '21 Speakeasy since 2022. She had been going to Skellington owners Penni and Mike Steen’s Terror in the Woods (a combination of indoor and outdoor scares) since 1997.
Skellington Manor has many dark, foreboding rooms and hallways, plus more than three floors with elaborately decorated scenes featuring skulls, gory figures, witches, and clowns. This suits Wilkison fine, as she is a huge fan of horror films, including those in the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street series. "I'm usually on the side of the bad guy, because (victims) are so annoying. Why are you splitting up? That's just stupid."
Of the haunts she's presently involved with, Wilkison said, "Ultimately, we are here to entertain. I want to make sure people are entertained, and make good memories with the people they're with."
Visitors, she said, appreciate the swirl of unique visuals, sounds, and scares from real and fake characters. Even if people aren't frightened, but rather thrilled or amused, that's just as good. "I'll switch to comedy if I have to,” Wilkison said. “As long as they're having a good time. Whether you're gonna have nightmares about me the next six months, or think I'm funny, either way is fine.”
Both Wilkison and Baca admitted their characters are not very scary, but do aim to be "creepy."
"I'm good at sitting really still and then screaming, doing a jump scare," Wilkison said. "I want to creep them out, mess with their minds more than anything."
Baca's Terror at Skellington Manor character is Doris, an 85-year-old widow in Minnesota, who has gone insane, with a collection of dead cats, and she doesn't know they're dead. "She treats them like they're alive," she said, noting they all have names, and that she painted one of the faux cats as a rotting carcass that hangs upside down. Baca also made a cat casserole, with tails sticking out.
"The attention to detail that Storm brings is great," Wilkison said. "It's very creepy. Not every scare is a jump scare. They're very unsettling; it's something that's gonna get into your soul."
Wilkison plays a white-eyed demon in Hell who delivers inhuman screeches. Baca, meanwhile, sometimes just lays on the floor, which alone freaks people out. Each performer provides their own costume (Baca spends up to a half-hour doing her wig and makeup), and they earn money depending on attendance each season.
kellington has more than 10 rooms, with a big cemetery-type area (the former theater) in the four-story building and former Masonic Lodge that dates from 1913.
Describing the events themselves, Wilkison said that the performance of any given night "depends on the people coming through, what we say to them, if we say anything, how we react to them. We just react to what their reactions are." Sometimes, for instance, she'll breathe on the back of someone's neck, or slam a book shut to scare people. "If we say anything, it's short, to the point, and pretty horrific.”
While in character in her Terror at Skellington room, Baca usually knits. And when she screams, people often run. Performers also tailor what they do to the patrons' age. Baca likes scaring middle-school boys, who sometimes bring girlfriends, and tend to get more scared than the girls.
"It's a grueling job,” said Wilkison. “For the most part, you're running and lunging the entire night. It's physically exhausting.”
Penni Steen, co-owner of Skellington Manor, has participated in 32 years of haunting altogether, starting with Terror in the Woods along the Wapsipinicon River in Donahue, Iowa, and since 2009 at Skellington Manor.
“It was in those early days we asked ourselves: How could we turn this event into an opportunity to help others?” says SkellingtonManor.com. “Hence, our Paying it Forward foundation began first by supporting the local North Scott Food Pantry. Thousands of pounds of canned food and money donations were given to this worthy cause helping many local families in need. As the years rolled on, the popularity of the haunt was extraordinary! Families would plan their fall Halloween entertainment to include a trip to Terror in the Woods, a unique experience unlike any other local haunt. The popularity of this event became legendary so much so we were deemed too scary for Iowa! And the search began for a suitable location to expand our vision (or nightmare!).”
In 2009, during the severe economic meltdown, the Steens purchased the former Rock Island Masonic Temple. This 28,000-square-foot building was the “perfect fit to bring our brand of haunt entertainment back to life!” says the Web site. “We chose the name Skellington Manor to bring a bit of flair to the building, a creep factor that had a bit of a regal undertone. By the fall of 2009, they added murder-mystery dinners and wedding receptions rentals to our offerings. In 2016, escape-room games were added to the entertainment option list.”
Wilkison is three years retired from the Davenport school district as a special-education para-educator, and Baca works in customer service at Dohrn Transfer in Rock Island. Dohrn, said Baca, has a big Halloween party in which she wears her haunt costume, and she supplies her own clothes as Doris. Wilkison changes her costume each year, employing different contacts and makeup. And local theater director Mike Turczynski oversees Terror at Skellington, assembling creepy music that includes the sound of a cat mewling for Baca's room.
Today, part of Skellington's proceeds go to support clean well-water projects in Kenya, Africa, a collaborative "Paying It Forward Foundation" effort with Fishers of Men Ministries. They provide performers snacks and water for free.
Also, as a rule, they do not touch any patrons. Wilkison has met good friends with the haunts, and as she said, "We bond over our love for terrifying the general public and not getting an assault charge.”
From October 3 through November 2, Terror at Skellington Manor is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 7 p.m. to midnight, and Sundays from 7 to 10 p.m. General admission is $25 (all ages), with a timed ticketing Fast Pass for $30.
For more information, visit SkellingtonManor.com/terror-at-skellington-manor.
Factory of Fear, Moline IL
Two other local women, Jessica Andrews and Morgan Carter, have a great time scaring up a memorable time for visitors to the popular Factory of Fear (5027 Fourth Avenue, Moline IL). It launched its haunted attractions in late September, and runs weekends in October and select dates year-round. The haunts are 7 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, and 7 to 10 p.m. on Sundays in October, plus 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, November 1, with $30 admission and $40 VIP Fast Pass.
Andrews, 28, of East Moline, attended Black Hawk College when she first started acting there at 18. The number of Factory of Fear actors vary by season, usually featuring 30 to 40 per weekend. “My first time acting, there was a maze that led to a train horn hallway, I’d be in a corner, would scream, do something kind of scary, people would walk past me and the train horn would go off,” she said recently.
“Scenes have changed a lot, changed aesthetic, to make it more cohesive,” Andrews said. “It used to be a more cookie-cutter haunt. Scenes without many transitions.” Factory of Fear subsequently added new elements to build up the attractions and make the experience flow better. The haunts are in the first three floors of the building, and the fourth floor is used for a photography studio.
A United Township High alum, Andrews didn’t do theater in high school, but did play flute and tuba. She wasn’t a fan of haunted houses as a teenager, but has come to admire them given all the work that goes into creating looks, atmospheres, and the scares.
“The last couple years, I’ve been in our medical scene as a nurse,” she said. “Before that, I played a cat character.” There typically is blood in the surgeon’s room, and as that nurse, Andrews walks around and suddenly screams.
Andrews says she has made a lot of friends at Factory of Fear.
“For all of our hard work, we get to celebrate at a crew party, at the end of the season, which gives us something to look forward to,” she said. “We bond, we do awards for best actor – that gives everybody the boost to work a little harder.” The actors are volunteers, yet get a small stipend based on attendance at the end of the season.
Andrews, who doesn't take part in theater beyond Factory of Fear, has worked as a haunt manager and runs the makeup team. She's also a fan of ‘80s horror films, psychological thrillers, and the Saw franchise, and enjoys visiting other haunts, too, including Hell’s Gate in Lockport, Illinois, and Eloise Asylum in Westland, Michigan.
At the latter, she did a guest-acting trip as her Factory of Fear nurse about two years ago. “That was my first guest experience, and we brought our own costumes,” she said. “Their haunt is really cool, and the makeup artist they had was really good.”
Morgan Carter, 29, of Princeton, Iowa, said she was born to be part of haunted houses. She has been acting at Factory of Fear since 2018, but was basically born into her family’s Haunted Carter Farms in Princeton, which ran 24 years until 2022.
“It was something I was always around,” she said recently. “We had a corn maze.” The outdoor haunted attraction also had about 120 volunteers, with about 40 people working per night during haunt season.
“We were non-profit, we donated a lot of canned food, three tons annually to local food pantries,” Carter said. At Factory of Fear, she is one of the main makeup artists, and she acts, as well. “It’s kind of a bigger beast than where I came from.”
She's currently in the blackout haunt downstairs, which she said is “an old-school kind of nostalgia scare: all dark, actors look similar with masks. I like it. I've been in every set at this point before, and filled in the spots that needed to be filled.”
She has a soft spot for zombies, but said “they definitely got overdone with the craze for zombies, Walking Dead, shambling around, grunting … .” Factory of Fear occasionally hosts an event year-round called Infected – a zombie escape room in which patrons have to find the cure.
“That is, by far, one of the best team-building activities,” Carter said. “You all get to roam the haunt, have fun. I love doing that. I like to be more physical.”
Carter said she enjoys going to haunted house conventions in the U.S. and overseas.
“The haunted house community is the biggest draw for me – I probably put three weeks a year spread out, traveling, and go work to be part of big shows,” Carter said, noting the Trans World convention as one of the biggest. “I see people globally. I’ve met people from Europe, Australia … . It’s an amazing community of people who share ideas, share concepts, lift each other up.
“I adore it, the people I’ve met, I never want to leave it. It’s in my blood,” she said of haunted houses. “I’ve grown up doing it since I was six years old. With Factory of Fear itself, I have so many friends I will have for life that I’ve made at Factory. Like any family, there’s dysfunctional moments. But I love to see people grow.
“As an actor, I love getting the scream, it fuels you. To get that good scare, it’s just fun. That’s the thing. It’s not an industry you're in to make money. You go to express yourself and have a good time. And for patrons, it’s the experience of going to a haunt, feeling the adrenaline rush, laughing, and sharing it with a group. It’s a great time, that bonding moment. If it’s not your cup of tea, you can laugh at your friends hitting the floor screaming.”
For more information, visit QCFactoryOfFear.com.
Other Haunted Attractions:
* Shock House – QCCA Expo Center, 2621 Fourth Avenue, Rock Island IL. Fridays and Saturdays 7-11 p.m., the last three Sundays of October 7-10 p.m., actor-free kids nights last three Thursdays in October 6-8 p.m. $20 general admission, $30 VIP Fast Pass, $10 for kids, and free admission with military ID. Visit Shock-House.com.
* QC Haunted Forest – 3501 207th Street North, Port Byron, IL. 7 p.m.-midnight Fridays and Saturdays through November 1. $25 admission. Visit QCHauntedForest.com.
* Torment at Twelve Hundred – 5030 North 1200th Avenue, Orion IL. Fridays and Saturdays 7 p.m.-midnight, Sundays 7-10 p.m. Visit Facebook.com/tormentattwelvehundred.
* Check out more spooky activities at QCHaunts.com.
