How NOT to Review a Haunted House

Are your reviews helping or haunting? 👻

In this episode, Bryan from Team Skelegore and Taylor and Morgan from Team Brady Pack dive deep into what makes a great haunted house review… and what makes haunts roll their eyes. From fair feedback to petty complaints, we’re breaking down what customers should include in a review — and what to leave in the grave.

Whether you’re a haunt owner or a horror fan who loves sharing your experiences, this one’s for you.
→ Why vague reviews don’t help
→ What haunts really want (and need) to hear
→ How to be honest and helpful
→ Our biggest review pet peeves

🎧 Tune in for laughs, lessons, and the unfiltered truth from those who read and write hundreds of Halloween haunted attraction reviews every year.

Transcript

0:00

Shadows crawl and nightmares call. Brace yourselves, one and all... It's The Scare Factor Podcast, Season Four. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Scare Factor podcast, the Number One Haunt podcast with humor drier than a corporate memo about laughter. My name is Brian of Team Skelegore in central New York. Joining me this evening are Morgan and Taylor of Team Brady Pack somewhere in the Midwest. Ladies, how's it going? I'm great. Oh, it's been going really awesome. Like to hear it. Anything new and fun and exciting happened since last week. If you encountered any more ghosts since then? Not yet, but we have a few really cool things planned out for Team Brady. That'll be happening super soon. Yeah. So? So stay tuned. Excellent. I like to hear it. So, yeah, things are not really any different for me in my worlds. This is my last week of work because I work in a school, so, we're we're finishing up this week, and then after this week, I don't really have a lot going on, so I don't know what I'm going to do with my time all summer. Try to find another job. I guess. Good luck with. That. Yeah, the job market kind of sucks right now where I'm at this week we are talking about leaving customer reviews. How can you, as a customer, leave a better review that is good for the entire audience you're writing for, right? What should and shouldn't you say any customer review, right? You go to a place and you leave a review on Google and it you know, it's it's one more that just says, good was it. That's not a good review. I mean, yeah, has the word good in it is a review that says good. I suppose that is a good review, but not really in the not really helpful to the, the business owner. Right. So this week we are talking about how to write informative and helpful reviews for other customers and the business owners that will be reading your reviews. Trust me, you left a review on some business. The owner or somebody at that company has read your review. So let's let's talk about mediums for reviews. Where can you leave a review? I mean, you've got the obvious ones, right? You got Google, Facebook, Yelp, for pretty much every business except for haunts, I think you'll find some haunts on there. There's Reddit and of course the scare factor. Right? We have a section on each haunt listing where you can leave a customer review. Are there any that I'm missing here? Am I forgetting any? Not that I can think of. No. So, yeah, I mean, those those are the major ones, right? Those are the ones where you gonna find the most people reviewing, writing customer reviews of haunts. So the first thing we want to think about when we sit down, we've, we've just got back from, I don't know, Hells Gate or, you know, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, wherever it is that we've just gone, we and we're going to sit down and we're going to write a review. The first thing we need to figure out is who are we writing to? We need to identify that audience. And for me, I think the answer is simple. You are writing for everybody. And by everybody, I don't mean every single person in the whole world, because not every single person in the whole world is is really applicable here. But you are writing for the haunt owner, you're writing for, customers that are thinking about going and you're writing for customers that have gone right. So, I mean, I think that pretty closely follows, you know, it's it's who you're writing for. You know, when we write a review for The Scare Factor, that's that's really who we're writing for. We're trying to aim more towards the customers. But look, we get it. Owners are reading our reviews. They're taking what we have to say in stride, and they're making improvements based on that, you know? So like, who else do you think we're writing reviews for? Probably just particular groups like depending on the attraction would depend on if it's like a family friendly attraction, like for children or if it's something that's extreme and you want those extreme enthusiasts that want to go. Okay, so, so and that's you know, that's a really good point, right? Because if you're writing a review or customer review of a family friendly haunt, the people reading that are going to be families that are looking to go to this place. Right? So maybe you want to tailor your experience to, you know, those families, you don't want to go in there and talk about like, oh man, this was the scariest scene I've ever encountered in a haunted house. Well, it's family friendly. It shouldn't maybe it shouldn't be that scary. You also don't want to, you know, go in dropping a lot of a lot of words. Right. That's that's probably not good. Families generally don't like that sort of thing. I mean, mine does, but, you know, it depends on the family. Right. On the on the other hand, if you're writing for those those extreme haunts of the people who are going to extreme haunts, you could talk about the really gory details. Right? I think that's a good point of, you know, like, who specifically is the audience? Right. That's starting to narrow it down, I don't know, what do you guys think? I'm not the only person on this show talk, please. For the love of God, I've got nothing to say. No, I think I mean, you guys are definitely, Right. Independents, like age group. Are we writing to teenagers who are just trying to have fun on the weekends to find, haunted house that's going to scare them or make their girlfriends or boyfriends run, you know? Or are we writing for, like, older people? Like, it is in a more extreme, situation, right? You guys are right on the organ there. So once you've identified that audience, we need to start thinking about what you should cover, right? Like what should be in a customer review? Probably more than just one word that says good or scary. Exactly. It's not helpful. So what do what do you guys think? Like what should be in a customer review and just kind of generally speaking, what sort of points do you think you'd want to hit there? I mean, there's a there's a lot of points that I feel like would be useful in a review for a customer. Like what was your experience like? Was it was it a good experience? Did you not enjoy it? Why didn't you enjoy it if you didn't or why did you if you did, is there any, information that was on the website that was inconsistent with what you did experience other people should know about? Are there costs that are, additional to what is on the website or what they market for? What what to expect in general? Before you go, is there anything you need to know before you go? You know, those kind of things? Yeah, I kind of like the level of how scary it is. Again, going back to the audience part, like, if it's just the you're right amount of scary to scare a child, but not too terrible then obviously family friendly. But if it's again too extreme, then maybe it's for the extreme of so you kind of want to know like a rating on how scary it is. I like Morgan's idea about the cost, because some places based on like their popularity is how much they'll charge a ticket for, and it's still not a decent price for what you actually get to witness. So maybe that that could be a part of it. And we should have we should have had Tiffany on on this episode because she will talk all day and all night about haunts that charge oodles and oodles of money, and their show is just not that good. Apparently the Pacific Northwest is notorious for that sort of thing. But yeah, I think I think you guys bring up some good points here, you know, like that inconsistent information, right? You it doesn't say anything on their website about being touched. And you show up and these actors are touching you and they're groping you and whatever. You know, it's it would have been great to know that ahead of time, right? You know, but tell me on the website if there is an escape room that costs $10, that sort of thing, I think it's really important to make sure that your bases are covered, in terms of information that you're putting out as a haunt and the information that guests are receiving both from your website, your social media, whatever, and what they experience when they get to your haunt. Real. Yeah. And especially, like special information you might need. Hey, by the way, we're not handicap accessible. Not that many haunts are. But, you know, it's maybe it's good to know that ahead of time for sure. Oh, yeah. Like we bring. Can we bring me more and hers in her in a walker in the scooter. And then you can try. What? You mean you are handicap accessible. I'm going to report you all to the federal government. You know, just things you should know ahead of time, right? So. So, like, what do people want to know that I mean, you know, they want to know the obvious. Like, was it. Scary things on the outside or just as important as things on the inside? The midway is super important. Like what offerings do they have there? And what to expect before you get into the haunt after you get out of the haunt. Like those things are just as important as the inside. What happens on the inside? That's very true. You know, it's it's really important that, you know, what's what's happening all over the place, you know, is, is going to leave a lasting impression on your customers. Right? So your common areas outside your firepit, your movie screen, your two actors, all that stuff, the customer service, especially because people love to bitch about bad customer service. And I'm one of them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll I'll tear your ass up over bad customer service all day so. That you. Know, not me. Of does that really deal, Brian? Look like most of my career has been in customer service, so I think that I know a thing or two about giving good customer service. And, you know, how do you make things right for a customer? And a lot of haunts are completely missing the mark. Yeah. There with with working with an Amazon DSP. It's insane. I believe it. You know, so so this kind of leads us into what do people want to know, right? They want to know the obvious thing. So was it scary or am I going to be touched? Things that they also probably want to know that they may not be voicing right away. How long was the wait? You know, am I standing in line for three hours? Because I'm just going to go ahead and buy the VIP fast pass if that's the case. You know, what else is there to do? Are there escape rooms? Are there games? Is there merch? Is there other stuff that I can be doing? Maybe. Maybe I want to get there really early and go through the haunts and then I want to, you know, go do the other stuff before a bunch of people show up or if there's nothing else to do, well, screw it, man. Let's just, you know, go waste time. We'll go like, you know, we'll go in the middle of the during the middle of their operating day. And ultimately people want to know, is it worth the money? Right. Hey, I paid 25 bucks to get into this place. Great. Was that a good deal? Was that a was that good value for you, or do you think you overpaid? And, you know, ultimately that's what I'm trying to figure out when I order something on Amazon. Right? I'm looking at customer reviews and I'm going, okay, but is it worth the money that they're charging? I'm trying to think of what the last thing I bought on Amazon was, oh, I bought a water pick. Right. So I'm going through the customer reviews and I'm like, well, it's ten bucks, right? You know, it's what is it worth that $10 at least. And you know, the customer reviews. You know, I'll we're, you know, said good things and so oh okay. Yeah. Sure. It's it's worth ten bucks. Why not? All right. You know, for $10, I'll, I'll go and buy this thing. And if it sucks, then whatever. It was $10. But but, you know, like, I probably wouldn't have bought it if all the reviews were one star saying, like, well, it broke the first time I used it and it's it's worth a dollar. And, you know, it listed all these really bad things. There weren't really any pros to it. Well, then, no, I'm not spending the money on that. It wouldn't be worth the money and I would be able to glean that information from the customer reviews. Again, we all do this all the time. You know, maybe some people just don't realize it, but, you know, so we've talked about what should be in the review. But what about things that you should leave out. Right. Like my big one here is net picky suggestions, right? You go in and you find some teeny tiny little thing because you feel like you should be. You need to add something technical to make yourself sound smart, when in fact you're probably not. Here's the thing, man. You're not an authority on whatever subject you're making you're bitching about so nobody cares. No. Oh, the sound was an EQ would properly get the fuck out of here, I don't care, the sound was good enough. Did you hear the sound? Great. It was. You cued properly enough. Oh, that. That species of vampire bat is inconsistent with the place you live in. Nobody fucking cares. Go somewhere where that vampire bat does live. They bought that. Sound on. Unfucking CD 20 years ago. It's the sound of bats, man. Like you're the only person that knows this. Well, what about if you. If you see, like, a water bottle or some food on in the corner that, you know, obviously isn't supposed to be a part of the set? Oh, God forbid that they have to eat. Well, they work right. And I and to be honest with you, I don't find those nitpicky. Right. As if you're really hammering and you're really needling. I'm like, oh my God, water bottles. If it was really bad. Okay. Yeah, that's something you should talk about. But I mean, you saw one water bottle, I would mention it, we mention it, but we're also authorities on the fucking subject matter for sure. You know, like, yeah, if you're seeing things that's taking you out of the immersion, it is something to talk about. But, you know, to really harp on it, to really needle in on that sort of thing, like you're taking away from the rest of the review in that case. Yeah, I know that's water bottles and things that take you out of the immersion like that. It's it's a tricky one to balance. You know, I personally I would default as a customer to not talking about it. Unless you can really find a way to mention it and be constructive about it. You know, in the scenes we saw water bottles, we saw backpacks, we saw, you know, actors, jackets and whatever. You know, maybe those should go somewhere else is a good way to phrase that. Yeah, I think so. And it depends on the intention. Like we were talking about earlier, the audience and who you're writing to. Like if it's a customer of you, most likely you're writing to other customers. So like the water bottle isn't going to really, affect all. Yeah. Right. And it's like I said, it's worth mentioning it but don't really don't really, you know, hammer down on that one point because it's worth mentioning. Because that whore is going to read your review, most likely they need to know about that sort of thing. If it's if it's a night where somebody from the scare factor isn't going to be there, because let me tell you something, if we see it, we're absolutely talking about it thousand percent. You know, it takes you out of the immersion. Look, you know, we're here to give you an honest review, you know, so it's so like so like, what other things do you guys think you should leave out of a of a customer review. Like what shouldn't be in there? I mean I guess to go along with like when people complain about the sound, sometimes they also complain about, oh, there's too much smoke and too much fog, but the scene that you're you might be in is Swamp Scene and it's like, no shit. Of course there's going to be fog in this. Like they're trying to create the illusion of water. Or I've heard stuff about the lighting before and I get it like obviously something that that would be put in be if, if there's like a lot of flickering lights because you want people to understand, but most times they have warnings for those. But some people just complain about that one light which is so bright and it's like, all right. And the rest of them were perfectly fine. Like, chill out, you're okay. Yeah. So complaints really is what that boils down to is if you're complaining about something, don't don't bother putting it in the review right. Oh I don't know. Is there anything else we're missing there. Like things you really shouldn't put in? I think complaints is really a good umbrella term there. Not that I can do. Like I mean, I've been through several in that. Yeah. Like, they're not all perfect to what I would find as a perfect haunted house. But again, I've never really been scared throughout a haunted house. So I, I go through the the see the story unfold, and the few jump scares are really awesome, but I just don't get scared. But other than that, there's really nothing that I've ever complained about. I've just always had people around me who complain about one thing or another and I'm like, you guys missed the entire thing because not one thing haunted you through the whole attraction. A haunted them. She said. The thing she said, the thing. So, okay, so, you know, don't don't bitched too much in your review. That's that's probably a good thing. So how much should you write? Give me a number. How many words exactly how many words do I need to write? Oh, for a customer review, I'd say like, I don't know, 10,000. Probably like a good start, right? So thousand, Ryan, not 10,000 right there. I want them to read everything I felt when I went through. I mean, my my reviews with the scare factor are usually average, around half of that. I tend to write between 3 and 5000 words. For my reviews. That's a professional review, Brian. We're talking about customer customer review here. I mean, probably because a lot of people don't like the ones who are going to write the most are the ones bitching about it. But like on average, most people will have really good, like good comments, but are probably somewhere around like 150 to 300 words because they're they want to talk highly about it, but they don't want to go into all that detail. You also don't want to make it super long, even with a good comment or a bad comment, because I'm the person. After I realize how long it is, I stop reading. I'm like, I ain't reading all that. Fair enough. So. So it should be long enough to convey, you know, the facts of your visit. What? What you thought about your visit. But it's probably more than a one word review. That's a scary, right? Sure. For sure. It's probably somewhere between 1 and 10,000 words. Probably. I mean, you're. Spot on and. It's very narrow down. Yeah, I. Don't if you if you're reading like if you're writing more than 10,000 words, I think you've just completely missed the point. You've gone off the deep end there. We're at a short story at this point. I just I need a complete novella about this place that you went to. You might as well do a video on it, too, while you're at it. I mean. I mean, I do for a lot of the ones I go to now. Yeah, I'm writing the I'm two video, so. So I wrote this thing and it's setting the tone. And so what I mean by this is setting the tone of your review, setting the tone of what you're writing. And to be honest with you, I really don't have a good way to articulate this right. When I set the tone of my reviews on the scare factor, it's it's a natural thing for me, right? Because I have an established writing style. You know, I have an established tone that I can write into. So I, I'm hoping that maybe you guys have some insight that we can give to people or, like, how do you set the tone of what you're writing? Because I ain't got shit. I have so much pressure. Brian. Well, when I normally write because I like to write short stories and stories in general, normally the tone for those kind of things are on the like, ominous is it's not kind of just going with the vibe, kind of feeling like it's almost like adrenaline rushing is when I'm like, that tone fills. But for like a review, I would almost just make it like neutral. Like I don't want to influence people to feel like my words go only to the good side or only to the bad side. I want them to read it as if this is some kind of medical document, like it's not boring, but it's just on the neutral side. And then they make their own decision and they can lean one way or another. Okay. Fair enough. You know, so you're trying to be as neutral and, you know, unbiased as possible. I think that's I think that's a good way to approach it. And I think it'll help people kind of get into that. You know, it, get into a tone that is uniquely them without really forcing a tone into their writing. I think that's I think that's a really good way to approach that. So speaking of setting the tone, like, let's talk about emotion, how do you how do you convey emotion in writing? Right. We've all I'm hoping that we've all read books and short stories and things on the internet, and I'm hoping that most of us can kind of gather the sorts of emotions the author is, is trying to convey to us. Right. So, you know, what you're asking yourself is, how does an author convey happiness, sadness, anger, that there are scared anything like that. And, and ultimately it's going to come down to the, the exact word choice you're using. So, you know, if you were, if you were really happy that you found this haunt that is just so perfect for you specifically talk about that. Right. Use words like, I was so elated that I found this haunt because it is absolutely 100% perfect in these ways. And ABC and and I am overjoyed that this heart owner expresses the feelings that I have on these things. Right. You want to use these these words that mean happy, right? And you want to use a lot of them. You want to use a lot of synonyms, break out the thesaurus, boys and girls, because you're going to fucking need it. You know, but on the other hand, if you're upset or you're angry about something, right, how do we, you know, you're going in and you're using words that mean upset and angry, right? I was furious with the customer service ticket agent that, you know, laughed at my T-shirt and said I was five years old because I showed up wearing a Bernie and Friend's T-shirt. You know, you know, you like you want to use words that that mean the feelings that you were experiencing. But also, if you were upset by something, explain what was upsetting to you and why that was upsetting to you. And you want to do that in as much a detail as you can, right? Because what you want here is you want your reader to feel the same thing that you felt. Be that happiness, anger, sadness, you know, whatever it was you want them to feel that in the same way. I think that just as important as word choices, like using your five senses, like writing them down, like, what did you see? What did you hear? Like those those things, like, really helped, the reader feel, the emotion that you're trying to convey, if that makes any sense. Absolutely. You know, I mean, scent is a big one that we're starting to see. And more haunts now, if anybody has read my latest review of Demon Acres in Hannibal in New York, you will know that they are making use of scents in their haunts, and they won an award for the best use of scent. And so that's all. I'm going to say. Go, go read the review. There's, in one of their finale scenes, they are using such a scent. That it sounds very. Realistic. It's very realistic. It's awesome. That's one way to describe it. Yeah, let's go with that. I feel like I just smells like a shit now. It does? Yeah. Smells like it smells like shit. So the scene is you go, you walk into a bathroom scene, and this is an homage to an older scene they had where, Jojo the Clown was in there, and it was. It was like a bathroom scene. And this actor who went by Jojo the Clown, he had an upside down plunger that had something in it. And he. He would offer to you, he'd say, hey, you want some of my popsicle on? And, so the first time I went through it was the first time I went through, I was like, yeah, sure, I'll have some. And I just reached out and like, I got a little bit of whatever was in there on my hand. It felt really cold. So I'm thinking it was like maybe it was frozen yogurt or like ice cream or something because he was eating whatever it was. That's gross. Yeah. Hold on. I'm sorry. Joe. Joe. It wasn't like it had been like chocolate ice cream or frozen yogurt. Something to that effect that, like, you know, he could just sit there and eat it all night, but, like, yeah, bro was eating whatever he had in this upturned toilet plunger. So the the new scene is a bit of an homage to that where you walk in, it's a new, bathroom scene and it just. Oh, my God, it smells so strongly of shit. As a customer, how would you have wrote about that experience, Brian? The exact same way I did in my professional review. So then I guess you're going to have to go read it. The short story. Yeah, yeah, you're going to you're gonna have to go read all or a thousand words of that review. That's funny. Yeah. I mean but but like, that's you know, it's a good point though. It's like I wrote about that in as much detail as I thought I could without throwing up. And that is to say, I could have written a lot more detail notes. I'm, I'm like, man, you could have just farted in there and no one would have known. Oh, I absolutely did. I absolutely ripped ass walking through that scene. Like, who's going to fucking know, Dirty smells like shit in here anyway. That's right. And I feel I feel so bad for the poor actor that was in that scene. I feel like you just kind of go nose blind to it after a while. I wonder if they're using that, fart bug thing like that fart fart spray. There's no telling. It's it's hard to tell, I think. So I had gone online and I had looked up the different sense that they were using in other scenes and other attractions, and I think I came across the, the vendor that they had bought from just because, like, there's too many similarities, right? That being said, I could be way off. They could have just purchased all of these from frogs because frogs does offer, you know, sense that you can put into your foggers and, you know, it's, you know, you can have scented fog, no problem. And, you know, so it's possible that they that they had purchase from frogs. I wouldn't doubt that just considering the, I guess, the popularity of frogs and just how how ubiquitous of their products are in the world. But it was oh my God, it was awful. Definitely memorable though. Without a doubt. Memorable, right. That's. Yeah. But like, hey, that's that's a good thing for a heart, right? You want somebody talking about this forever. You want them to remember that experience. That ultimately is what it comes down to, right? If people remember the experience they had, they're going to talk about it for a long time. I'm not going to put it in the review. Other people are going to read that review and they're going to go, I got to go see the shit room. What a new thing to do to like, I didn't know people were doing that, but that's actually really cool because what if it's not particularly scary, but people are talking about it because different rooms just have all of these different sins, and that's that's actually awesome. That's definitely more immersive for sure. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's it's one way that I think haunts are trying to break down the barrier of, you know, immersion. Right. So so you know, think about this. This is a question that I asked, at a behind the scenes that we were shooting, a month or two ago. And I think this is a question I want to ask of more haunts is what are you doing as a haunt owner and as a scene designer to, to immerse guests in the scenes even further. Right. So imagine you're you're in an indoor haunt, right? It's all indoors. And you have a scene where you are, you have the facade of a building, you have the outside facade of a building. Well, what you're telling your guest is you are outdoors, but all of the environmental cues that guest is getting is not telling them, is telling them anything other than you're outdoors, right? You're sweating your ass off because you're inside, and you can hear the air compressors and the foggers and the, you know, other people screaming and all this stuff that's going on. You're not feeling the wind in your hair. You're not feeling that cool night air. None of none of the environmental cues that you're getting are telling you that you're outside, right. So I think that the use of sound is something that owners can use to help break down that barrier. Right. Well, I'm telling you, you're in the bathroom. Your visual cues are telling you you're in a bathroom. But what about the environmental factors? Right. Well, it doesn't really smell like a bathroom now, does it? Well and shit smell now. It sounds like a bathroom. You know what? If you're. What if you're trying to tell your guests you're at the circus because there's clowns and I have, you know, big top themed scenes. Okay, my my visual cues are telling me I'm at the circus, but, you know, the environmental cues are there. I don't smell cotton candy and popcorn and, you know, all the things that I would experience, the things that like, you know, when you're at the circus because you. Right, you smell these things, you know, there's you're gathering all these environmental cues that maybe you're not consciously thinking about them, but when you don't experience them, you, you know, something's wrong. Something's off here. And you're trying to put your finger on it, you know? So I think it's a great way for haunts to do that. Sorry. We're going way off topic. I'm on time here. No, I love it like it's the same thing. Like there's been multiple haunts that you have to go through, like a subway or like a train kind of scene. And even though visually you're like, okay, this is a haunted train subway scenario, but the smell, I mean, granted, I've been on many trains or subways, but if it smells like sweaty feet and it's like, I'd be like, this is a train, like, this is a subway. Like. This is the New York City Subway system. Right? Well, you know, and like, not only that, but, you know, you also have the environmental cues of, like, you're on the train. Well, if you've ever been on a train, you'll know that the train car kind of wobbles a little bit as it goes over the imperfections in the rail. It's not perfectly stationary. So, you know, you should be feeling these, these little bumps and and wobbles as the train goes down the tracks. That's what's telling you you're on the train, right? Yeah. So you know, it's it's little environmental cues like that. And, and I think more haunts would do better to consider all of these environmental cues. But it's they are hard to identify when you don't know like when you're not actively think about thinking about them in the real life situation of that scenario. You know, if I go and get on a train while like, yeah, you know, I'm on a train because everything around me is telling me I'm on a train, but you're not thinking about the little bumps in the track, and you know, the smells that you're smelling and, you know, it's it all needs to add up just right for me to tell you that. Yes, you're on a train. Yeah. Especially for people who get normally scared around attractions. But if there was more elemental parts about it, it'd be such a better story. Like when you're outside, you're like, I wasn't really scared, but this walking room was awesome because it did this. And and I think those cues can help make somebody like you or me more scared, right? You know, last week we talked about how, like, I just don't really get scared in a haunts, right? Because it's all so cartoonish and fake in some way. I think that as haunts become more and more realistic in the immersion factor, the more they can really sell you on the setting and and the things that are taking place right before you. I think the more likely it is that somebody like me is going to be scared by, you know, something that's not a complete phobia. Right. And, and I look forward to that day. I would like to see the day where I really believe that I'm in the park at night and there's a monster in front of me, but right now it's like, no, I'm inside this warehouse and I'm sweating my ass off and I can hear the air compressor go off when that animatronic moves, you know, it's not if it's adding up for me, I'm missing the the immersion and the the environmental cues for sure. You know, and it's and it's a question I like to ask owners because the last owner I asked this to, they were like, that's a great question. I'm going to start looking into that. So the answer, I think for a lot of these haunt owners is I never considered that right. They didn't know that that was something that like but but it's absolutely true. Right. You're absolutely right. These these factors have to be there in order for it to be believable. I think that leads right into our next topic. You know, I think it does. Thank you for getting us back on topic. I'll talk all day, like all day about this. Yeah. What what are we looking for and haunts? And what can you look for to write a better review? Environmental cues. Right. Immersion. How immersive is it? Right. That's that's one of them. And then like what? How how are the actors? Like, what are the actors doing? Are that there a storyline like, there's all kinds of, aspects that we're looking for to write a better view. Or, and if you want to write a review just like we write ours, you can go to the scare factor.com and you can look at any of the reviews we've written. And you can you can pull each one of those, those topics, and you can see all the questions that were that were scored on when we write a haunt and when we write the review on that, on, you know, so you can see what do we cover? We cover cast, costuming, customer service, scare factor, which is how scare how scary is it? Immersion. Special effects. Special effects and entertainment value. I feel like I'm missing one. Tyler. Not. I'm so sorry. I can't remember. I feel like I should know this. I've been a member of The Scare Factor for five years. Guys, you believe that shit? Wow. That's awesome. One year for a while. Yeah, I've been at it for five days, and I'm just kidding. But. But who's counting? So, Yeah. So, you know, like, those are the things that we're looking at, right? You want to look at the cast and the costumes, right? The costumes. And who's wearing them is, is the the acts, the behavior that this character is displaying consistent with the character that they're playing? Well, yes. No. Maybe. So, you know, maybe talk about those inconsistencies or talk about like, hey, this actor was doing a really great job. I really thought that they, you know, played the role of the boogeyman really well, you know, I, I was at a hall that, was it last year? I think it was this past season. I was at a haunt, and there was like, they had an actor who looked just like Harold Remus from Ghostbusters, who, you know, Harold Remus famously played, Egon Spengler. And, you know, like this, this kid that they had playing him really looked like Harold Ramis. So I was like, wow, man, you know, you really look the part. And I think his his act could have been a little bit better. Maybe he could have tried to get the voice down a little bit more. But yeah, I mean, this like he really looked the part, but I think he could have I think he could have watched the movie a few more times. He could have really, you know, gotten more of Harold Ramis, his, behavior down a little bit more, if that makes sense. Right? Yeah. So if I was going to. Yeah, if I was going to review that one specific actor, I would give him maybe around like a seven, seven and a half just for like his toe for his costume. His costume is really great, right. You know, I'm sure he. Who's to say if he had much say in the costume and what he wore, but, you know, the costume. Look, the part he, as an actor looked the part, which helps a lot. But, you know, I think his acting specifically could use a bit of work. You know, he he's he's a mostly there, but he could use some work. So you know, and then, and then we and then we look at what's happening around that costume and the actor that's wearing the costume. Right. So what's how well built for the scenes. How believable and realistic aren't they. What's what's happening in this scene. Right. This is our immersion. How does it make sense? Does it make sense if a clown is in an abandoned ghost town? Does that make sense? Batman in the belfry. As we look so like the say here on the Scare Factor podcast, it's, Yeah. Well, why hey, why why, why is Batman up in the up in the attic? Oh, well, you know, because, because, you know, bats and bats in the belfry in, you know, he's a bat and he's in the attic, like, okay, so, Yeah. Bat that man in the belfry, right? That's there's problem there. So, you know, like, you want to make sure that you're or you want to pay attention to that sort of thing. Should this character be in the scene or or as I like to say, maybe zombies shouldn't be in a prehistoric dinosaur exhibit. You never know, Brian. You know, that is the thing, though. Most most people use zombies in every scene. And I get that zombies are people and they can be anywhere. But sometimes I feel like it's too much. Does it have to be everywhere? Well, here's the thing is, they can be anywhere except for a walk among living dinosaurs because humans and dinosaurs did not exist at the same time. That's fair. I get a I really want to be like, where do we know we two? Actually, I could get into the science if you want. We don't have to. We could. We go about it. Tell me how you really I yeah. No like we we can't get into the science on this one. If you really want to. I bring Bill Nye the science guy. On life. Right. I would love to get Bill Nye. Bill Nye, if you're listening. Right. Please come on to the show. Please, I beg, I beg of you. We'll talk about zombies during the prehistoric era, but let's during the Jurassic period, I want to know the the the likelihood of zombies existing with T-Rexes. That's awesome. Is it more than absolute zero? I'm messaging him right now just to figure it out. And I'm scared. Please, please, for the love of God, do it. Get get that man on this show. In case you didn't know, we were tight. Me and Bill Nye. Yeah, but. Yeah. So, you know, like the those are the sorts of things we're looking for as, as the horn to the hole. And, you know, we're looking at the customer service right where we did. We have a friendly experience at the ticket booth. Where were the security guards onsite. Helpful if we needed to ask them questions or anything or the other staff helpful and friendly, or were they just complete jerks? Right. Those are the sorts of things we want to look at that we want to see that we're going to talk about entertainment value. Well, what else is there to do on site? You know, do we think it's worth the money ultimately is what it comes down to now in at the scare factor for the reviews we do minutes per dollar, right. So we take the amount of minutes that we were inside an attraction, and we divide that by, by the amount of money that it cost to go through to buy a ticket for us. And so on average, what I found is around one minute for $1 is it's a pretty good conversion rate. However, I would much rather go see the greatest haunts in the world that has a minute per dollar rating of 0.1 versus, you know, where I'm getting, you know, six seconds for every dollar spent. But it's the greatest haunts in the world rather than the complete opposite. End of that, a minute per dollar rating of ten, right? I'm getting ten minutes of value for every dollar that I've spent or ten minutes of haunts. Right. But but it's but it's the worst haunt you've ever seen. It's I don't think we've had anything score a one on the site, but like that would be the haunt, right? Yeah, that would be. Or are you just go on a trail and there's like absolutely no actors or scenes or anything? Oh, there's been so many times that that happened. And I'm like, this is actually shitty. It's actually so bad. So bad. So bad. Would you know me and Morgan? I've had this conversation before where I was like, I kind of don't want people to know that I'm part of scare factor when I go through, because I don't want them to act any differently. I can recount anytime I've been through a haunted attraction and like things have been like, super great. I don't want them to act any differently because they're like, oh, she's with Scare factor, like, let's do this and do that. And I want them to think I'm an actual customer. That's how they treat everybody else. Yeah. And that's that is a legit, there's a legitimate, you know, concern that some of us have. Now, if you ask Tyler and Nora, they're not really that concerned about it. They're going to talk to pretty much every haunt they go to before they go. And, you know, you can't get comped tickets if you if they don't know you're coming now, I am of I'm of kind of the same mindset that you have is I don't want them to know when I'm showing up. I don't care if they see my face and they go, oh, hey, Brian's here. I didn't know we were getting reviewed tonight. Right? But but, you know, it's like, I don't want them to. And I'll say this as a former haunt actor, you do know when when actors or when, reviewers are coming through, right? We knew when and when a reviewer was going to show up because all our management would tell us. By the way, there's a reviewer coming tonight. Make sure you're on your way, game. They're not telling us, like, make sure, you know, you go 110% for this person. But like they're selling saying like, hey, you know, tonight's not the night to fuck. Up, right? And that that I think is kind of the mild end of, you know, prepping your actors. On the other hand, it's this is the guy that's showing up and they show your picture and they go, when you see him, you give him all the attention. You know, that's that's the other side of it is like a really they're really nailing it in on you and like, you think, wow, I'm having such a great time. This is such a good show. But is everybody getting that experience right? That's why customer reviews are so important. So we know. Exactly. The customer is experiencing. Exactly. You know, you know, and then, you know, so like special effects or something else that we look at and we want to see, you know, you know, lighting design and sound design, you know, is it, is it well done? Is it does it look good? Does it help the scene, or is it just like, yup, you got a strobe light in here. So not really doing much for you, but you got it. You know, that sort of thing. Is it are your special effects helping the scene and helping the story, or are are they just they are for the sake of being there, you know, because if it's the latter, it can really hurt your score. Like, yeah, it's cool. You got the strobe light and like it kind of does this neat thing with, with the other parts of the scene. But I don't know. I mean like, what's the point? So, speaking of shit, that looks really cool. It haunts photos. Where can you take pictures? Pretty much anywhere except inside the hunt. Unless they say it's okay, right? Common areas almost always. Okay. You know, you seek actors roaming around, they come up, they scare you. Whatever. Ask them for a photo. Don't just go up and immediately take a photo. I do that shit. But sometimes I do it because I know who that actress personally. Right? You don't just walk up to, an act to an actor and take a photo of them. Generally speaking, they're going to be okay with it because they understand that's why they're out there to interact with guests, to get their picture taken, to do all that shit. Just ask. It's not so hard. Hey, can I take a picture of you? Right? Can I take a picture with you? Go take selfies with them. That's why they're out there. Go take pictures. The cool shit that you see out in the common areas, right? They got this cool scene set up for you to take selfies. Go fucking do it, man. That's why it's there. Once you go inside the haunt, though, inside the ticketed portion of that haunt, absolutely. Do not take a picture. It is not allowed. I cannot be held liable if your phone gets taken and stepped on. And in fact, I hope it does. Right. And less and less. The haunt says, hey folks, still photography is okay inside the haunt. Do not take photos, do not take photos inside the haunt. Video almost is never allowed inside the haunt. Now we at the scare factor do video inside haunts. But that's because again we have good personal relationships with these haunt owners. We're reaching out to them and showing them, hey, here's our portfolio of things that we've done. Can we come and shoot a video like this at your haunts? Right. They understand. They understand the marketing implications that comes with that. They understand this is a good thing for them. When you as a customer do it, it's not the same. It doesn't carry that same weight. But yeah, you know what does help them as you, as a customer? The things you can do to help them the most leave a well-written customer review and take pictures and post them on social media. Take pictures outside in those common areas. That's what helps that haunt, you know, on their marketing side. Because now, because now people can see those things and they go, hey, I want to go there. That looks like. Fun. A lot of haunts have photo opportunities for you as well. For you to go to take pictures with. So which feels new for a lot of them. Like talent, falls is an excellent one that we've been to for years, but when I went last year, they had photo op opportunities and I wasn't there when we were in high school. And it is it is interesting to see that they are places are changing for you to be able to take photos so you can say, hey, I've been here. And that's normally how people talk about their experiences when they have a place to take a photo. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And usually there's a sign that says like, hey, tag us on social media. They want to see this shit. They want to see. People having. Fun at their haunts. You know, so like, I think those are I think that's I've harped enough on don't take pictures inside. So the the last thing you want to do when you write a customer review after you've written everything out is you want to proofread this, right? Grammatically spelling, formatting, walls of text that are not readable are bad. I cannot express how bad they are. Tell us how you really feel, Brian. So I'll tell you how I feel. Please, for the love of God, make sure that what you're writing is readable by humans that have half a brain in their head. That'd be great. Thank you. I don't want to, though. That's boring. I want it to be printed and a mystery. No. Yeah. You know, I mean, I, I could go on to Google right now and just go find really poorly written customer reviews of just anything, any business, anywhere. Most of them are just five star reviews. They don't have anything written in there. It's just five stars. Like, okay, I guess it's good. I'll have to take your word for it. What words though, Brian? But, you know, on the other, on the other side of that, there's like, you know, the just the wall of text that's really poorly spelled and formatted and the grammatical errors know the difference between your in your two, two and two. What else am I missing here? There they are. And they're, you know, please, please, for the love of God, folks understand the difference between these. Don't use the wrong one. You'll look like a fucking idiot. And if English is not your first language. I'm sorry. He's a fucking translator. They exist, but they're free to use. Google has one that you can use. No problem. You know, a big thing. When I was, while I'm still in school, where we had to do anything with using words at all, like, even if there was a small discussion board, you had to use some sort of document like Google Docs or Word Doc to at least write it all out. So it would make sure that it was grammatically okay, and then you would submit it. To make sure it was it was grammatically not not grammatically. Grammatically. It's like it's like caramel and caramel. But you know. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. That's that's that's, like Kentucky. Indiana. English. I can see that dialect. Yeah, I can write real good, but I can't speak real good. I can write okay. Yeah. I mean, like, the ultimate. Like. Yeah. Make sure the grammar in your in what you're writing is correct. Grammarly is a really good resource. We at the scare Factor use it a lot. I don't because I'm a perfect human that writes perfectly the first time every time. But I understand that not everybody is as good as me. I'm just not allowed to use it so I don't have it. For school, they literally say that that's AI, so I can't. Grammarly. Really? Well hold on, let me tell you something. I have been using Grammarly since before I was a thing. Okay, now I'm I'm in my mid 30s, so do the math. On when I went to college. When I went to high school, we were using Grammarly in high school and in college I that is so dumb. Use it. I, I would say, I would say use it because who's going to who's going to know. Like all it's doing is correcting your grammar. Oh, apparently they know because I accidentally used it. And then they were like, oh my God, how did you use Grammarly? This came up as I and I was like, oh my God, I did not, You know, that's that is a whole discussion for another time. Yeah. I mean, you know, the use of AI in, in schools and in academic writing, I mean, yes, there are AI detectors out there and you can feed text through it, but like, how accurate are those? Because those are run on AI. So which I do I trust. Right. Yeah, I bought another I bought out their. At some point this season we're going to have an episode on the use of AI enhance. And how do you use it, how do you best use it? And where where should the line be drawn. But I I'll say this, you know, I think it does have a use in the creative fields. Sure, absolutely. But I do think that there is a line that needs to be drawn. I have a lot to say on it, especially as a musician, as an as a visual artist. Right? As a photographer, I have a lot to say when it comes to I. Say to. I understand, I understand everybody has their own, their own feelings on this. Some people are just A-okay with whatever fucking slop I pumps out. I'm not one of those people, you know? But I think that it can. It can help you brainstorm in certain ways. But we'll discuss that in that episode. I'm not going to get into it here because, you know, we are starting to come up on our time here. God, I love I I'm gonna just throw that out there. Such an I just say helpful. It's helpful a lot. But like you said Brian, that's for another episode. It absolutely is. So, all right, so that's about all the time we've got for today. You know, I think that when it comes down to it, writing custom review is not going to be all that difficult for most people unless you're a total idiot that doesn't understand how to write. Which, you know, I take that back. It is going to be difficult for most people. So, you can follow the scare factor on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Check out our website first scare factor.com. To read reviews, find haunts and check out the newest section. Section. I'm not redoing this a second time. Spooky spots where you'll find fun and spooky places to go all year round. This podcast is available on Spotify, Spotify, Buzzsprout, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, podcast, attic, Pod Chaser, Deezer, player of FM and Podcast Index. Basically, if you're listening to it, you found it. The scare factor is now an affiliate of Franken. Fuel energy drinks for weirdos like you. Yes, you. You can get 15% off your order today by going to Franken fuel.com for slash scare factor or by clicking the affiliate link in the show's description. Franken fuel wake the dead people the living. We have been Brian of team Seliger. Morgan of team Brady Peck Taylor with team Brady Peck. And this has been the scare Factor podcast. Stay scary.