(scary music) Good evening.

Tonight is all about the art of fear and what better place to do that than here at Double M Haunted Hayrides in Ballston Spa, New York.

Now, if you're ready, follow me.

(voice echoing) (scary music) - For us, in the Capital District, I think we are a tradition here.

We've been doing it so long and people know that we know what we're doing.

We know how to scare you.

(scary music) (intense music) I grew up here.

I'm second generation on the place.

My folks started the place here over 60 years ago.

Haunted Hayrides originally was a, a franchise out of Syracuse, and they approached us and asked if we wanted to be part of it and we jumped on board.

(scary music) I always loved Halloween when I was a kid, so I was attracted to it.

And my folks were like, you know, if we want to do this, we want you to run it.

So, I'm the owner here at Double M's Haunted Hayride for the past 31 years.

(scary music) - So we have a pretty massive operation here at Double M, about a hundred plus employees.

We have a management team that kind of guides the process to make sure all of our actors are in their spots and everything's going smooth.

- If you have your makeup done you know where to go, please go to the wagon!

Thank you!

(scary music) - So we gather our creative brainstorm team in March.

It's a handful of us that get together.

We talk about the past season, what worked well, what's time to stay goodbye and introduce some new themes.

We'll talk about ideas that each of us has for the next season and then we'll kind of sketch out a rough draft of what our haunts are gonna be so that we can start planning the process.

So our tractor-drawn hayride takes you through our woods where we have various scenes with different themes.

So each scene is a different theme.

It's not like the hayride's one theme.

So you're gonna get a little taste of a lot of different things when you go out there.

Different types of characters, different experiences.

Some high energy, where it's loud and intense, (chainsaw buzzing) some might be a little more low energy where it's more creepy and suspicious.

So everything's a little different.

We try and switch up as you go through.

So you go through kind of a range of emotions as you're going through the hayride.

- Our actors, when they're cast at the beginning of the season, everybody gets assigned a specific haunt is what we called, which is a scene throughout either the hayride on the trail or throughout one of our various houses here.

And they're typically at that spot for the entirety of the season.

What's really fun is seeing people come out of their shells by like the second weekend.

It usually takes a couple weekends, but once they get into the groove, they're awesome.

So, it'll sort of be, you know, looking at their character or their scene that they're a part of and determining, you know, what, if they're struggling, what might motivate their character or what, you know, is the objective of their character.

What obstacles do they have to them getting what they ultimately want?

- You have beautiful teeth.

I'm going to add them to my collection.

So wait, right here.

(circus-themed music) - I am the makeup artist here, at Double M Haunted Hayrides and I've been here 16 years and on a normal night I can do anywhere from 60 to 70 people in an hour and a half, in order to get them out on the trail to do their job.

(cirus-themed music) They line up according to haunt and they all come in at once and I do them all like assembly line style and then send them on their way.

Integrated the sponge technique and then, kicked up the airbrush.

And now, the airbrush is what enables me to get through so many people and you can do so much more with it.

(cirus-themed music) And to be honest, makeup can only do so far.

It has one job and that's to make you look a certain way.

If you don't act a certain way, doesn't matter what you have on your face.

So, it all depends on our actors.

They are the ones who make things happen.

- It's dinner time.

(woman laughing) - Come on!

- I think people like to experience something that is almost unimaginable in a normal day life.

So you get to come here and put yourself in a world that you would never experience on an everyday basis.

And there's so many different fears that we might touch upon.

Some people it might be, go through one scene and think it was nothing and then, the next one they might be crying because it's just, we hit on that fear that that deep down they're terrified of.

(scary music) - Back late nineties, we had a haunt with a wizard, okay?

I purchased a staff with a globe on it, okay?

And it, you press the button and it makes a a thunder and lightning sound and it flashes up.

Just so you guys know, I still have that staff from the late nineties.

I've never ever put batteries in it.

We no longer, I haven't done the haunt in 20 some years and it still works.

(Leo laughing)