Spyder the clown, a fright walk character, waits for haunt attendees at the end of a maze. Photo by Jovanna Olivares.
What began as a small haunted house inside a Portland, Oregon family garage in the early ’90s, is now one of Northern California’s scariest fright walks, and it’s located right here in San Jose.
San Jose resident Steve Darrough, founder of Dead Time Dreams Haunted Attractions, located on Tully Road in East San Jose, created the local Halloween fright walk in 2010.
“I worked [for] Intel and had to move to California but then decided to bring the haunt along with me,” he said.
Megan Darrough has worked alongside her father, Steve, as a creative designer who organizes the event and helps manage the ticket booth.
She is also one of many scare actors for the attraction, volunteers who act as frightening characters to terrify haunt goers.
“It all started as a bunch of kids and [my dad’s] friends [coming] over for Halloween parties and dressing up and scaring each other,” Megan Darrough said. “Now it’s grown to be what it is today and it’s gone scarier and bigger as the years went on.”
Steve Darrough said he rented out a vacant grocery store in Portland and used it as Dead Time Dreams’ first haunted house and remained in that location seasonally for five years. The garage was no longer big enough to fulfill the neighbor’s fright requests.
Steve Darrough brought truckloads of unused props to California, which were originally created for the Portland haunts.
Megan Darrough said most props are handmade and designed by her father.
“He’s a business owner and a builder,” she said. “He makes the props and hand paints [the] walls. He’s an artist.”
This year Dead Time Dreams is featuring “Horror Alley,” Steve Darrough’s first-ever, open-air haunted attraction in order to accommodate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
“The open-air attraction is a completely unique design,” Steve Darrough said. “It’s an outdoor corn maze without corn but all the scare possible put in there through its scenery.”
The fright walk began Oct. 16 and will be open until Halloween. The attraction is located in an empty lot, but the overflowing parking lot for the event on Friday spoke to the fright walk’s popularity.
Upon entering the lot, all you can hear are the screams of the attendees. Upon arrival, volunteers directed guests to line up for tickets while also ensuring guests wore face masks. Groups were limited to four members or less per party and were spaced six feet apart.
Megan Darrough said the attraction differs from other Halloween experiences because of the time and dedication spent year-round on making this fright walk possible.
“Even in early days, it was pretty well established,” Megan Darrough said. “You’ll see a lot of originality at this show for sure.”
Scare actors and the fright walk’s prop designs created an immersively horrifying environment, which scared some attendees so badly that they didn’t finish the maze.
Every year, Dead Time Dreams Haunted Attractions invents a new theme, and this year’s theme included props and wall designs of graveyards, zombies and whimsical voodoo forests. The “Midway of Terror” is a mysterious carnival waiting line before other attractions, which Megan says is a fan favorite.
Every detail altered one’s perception of reality as they walked through halls of flashing lights while scream soundtracks echoed and adrenaline filled their body.
The attraction’s website even has Amazon webpages for diaper boxes and underwear linked under its “recommended items” tab to prevent attendees from having bowel and bladder emergencies.
“We call it a ‘code yellow’ and ‘code
brown,’ ” Megan Darrough said. “[It] happens quite often actually.”
The Halloween season brings out creativity in many people, including those who volunteer at the attraction. The Halloween haunt is a volunteer-based operation with many volunteers coming back to act as scare characters for the fright walk’s duration.
“The entire organization is all [run] by volunteers,” Steve Darrough said. “I may own all the materials and trailers and help be the primary builder, but this is a volunteer show and has always been. We are really a family.”
Among the most notable of its frightful monsters include characters like Patches, Trembles and Spyder the clown.
“We really just love the craft itself,” the actor who only identified himself as Spyder the clown said. “It’s an art form and a creative outlet and Dead Time Dreams is unique in its way of allowing us to do that.”
Megan Darrough said Dead Time Dreams Haunted Attractions encourages actors to “get their creativity flowing” by encouraging actors to foster that year’s theme to create unique characters.
“We’re not like a Great America,” Steve said. “We are just people who love Halloween and come together to share that with the community.”