As trivial as it would seem, even the undead do not transcend cafeteria laws as we know them. The zombies don’t sit with the werewolves, werewolves avoid wolf men. And the prison guards? Well you prisoners sure as shit better not get caught sharing cup-o-noodles with them! What? Read on…

Last week, FEARnet slaves Jenn Wexler and I had the opportunity to visit Eastern State Penitentiary’s haunted house, Terror Behind the Walls, have the poop fondly scared out of us and then had the rare and coveted chance to go behind the scenes of the Terror Behind the Walls experience courtesy of Program Director, Sean Kelley and the entire ESP cast and crew!

In Volume I, we posted a lengthy description about The Haunt and what we learned from going through the tricked-out prison, but today we’re bringing you an exclusive look behind the walls of “Behind the Walls” and what we found is quite possibly more terrifying than what we saw on the outside!

Stepping into the green room of Terror Behind the Walls is pretty surreal. You’ve got physically disfigured lunatics brushing back their dreadlocked wigs to unwrap candy bars and zombies snubbing flesh and brains for microwaveable noodles in Styrofoam cups. Looking around the room you can basically recall their terrifying faces from just minutes ago when their flailing bodies lunged from prisons cells and they stuck their bloody brows and noses square against your furrowing brow inhalant nose. Minutes later, you look at them in the break room and their chatting on cell phones and blowing into their hands to warm them in between reapplying make-up and gearing up to go back into the prison.

Putting the creepiness aside we cornered the tall, scary and fully made-up Kalief Ali, a student, actor and employee at the Doubletree Hotel who just happens moonlight at Eastern State as an as an undead prison guard heading up the Intake section of the haunt. But what’s good without evil? What’s a prison guard without a subhuman prisoner? While cornering Kalief, we also caught up with Ryan Rygh who’s pursuing a film career and whose credentials actually includes “full-time body double” for Mark Wahlberg on films like The Happening. Though Ryan says that the haunted house is a departure for him since he’s used to film projects, he has quite a few scare tactics up his sleeve:

“I like the creeper approach,” he says. “I like to let them pass by and make them think I’m completely sane and then get within and inch of their head and sniff ‘em.”

And while Ryan likes to creep, Kalief likes actually BEING a creep to guests who pass through with a “you can’t scare me attitude.” Though he’s jovial and sweet in the green room, I personally remembered a much different Kalief from his post inside the haunt during Intake where his duty is separating terrified men and women to walk down divided corridors; a point when most people flip out.

“Yeah, actually right before I came in here one girl said no and wouldn’t separate and said she didn’t want to do the haunt anymore.”  He continued, “I even came out of character and told her there’s really nothing in the room, but she said no she couldn’t do it. So she just wasted her money but it happens all the time.”

While the aim of the haunted house is good ol’ fashion pee yourself scared, the real allure of these attractions is making it out alive. So we asked Ryan if there’s ever a few unfortunate souls that just don’t make it and surprisingly, he actually had an answer!

“Yeah, just last night we had a group of 6 ladies fall into a chain link fence and fall completely to the ground.” He continued, “They got caught up in the camouflage and left heels and earrings and necklaces. You’d be surprised how much jewelry we find; which is fun because we don’t let up. After a few minutes we’ll help them but it’s fun to take advantage of it”

After our chat with Kalief and Ryan you may be wondering how a seemingly normal guy can get wrapped up in the haunted house industry. We talked to fellow prisoner Nick Stathopolous while he stopped to take a snack break—and no, they aren’t rancid entrails that he’s snacking on. Just noodles.

“My friend worked here and he basically came home and told me I should get a job here so I came and auditioned…that was four years ago.”

Four years into the job, Nick must have some pretty advanced tactics up his sleeve, when we asked for his industry secrets, he said, “I don’t know if I should be giving up my secrets but I think being in places where people aren’t comfortable like being down low or being up high.” He continued “being in places that people aren’t necessarily used to. I alter my speech pattern and talk in a high pitch voice sometimes. Moving quickly and climbing on things to be above them. I kind of do the same things every night. I’m kind of in a rut.”

And while the prisoners work increasingly hard to make that bowel-and-bladder-control-combo act erratically, there’s also a group of behind the scenes zone leaders that are creeping in the haunt’s crevices relieving actors for breaks, giving them tips and updated information and watching for any crazy behavior—yeah, I’m talking to you “Mr. I like to walk through a haunted house with a lit cigarette that keeps signing the person in front of me’s neck hair.” There’s no chance of that happening at Terror Behind the Walls because:

They are the few--well, actually there’s quite a lot of them. The brave, and the walkied and there’s seventy-effin-two of them lurking in the shadows of the haunted prison to make sure each event goes off without a hitch.

The drive to apply shredded skin and boiling blisters each and every night would seemingly come from a dark place, instead, in Eastern State’s green room, we found that physical mutilation and mayhem actually comes from the quite charming Kristen Phillips, the costume and makeup designer of Terror Behind the Walls.

Not long after becoming part of the tech crew in 2004, Kristen physically dismantled and stashed the body of, errrrrr, uhhh, graciously and professionally took over the position of costume and makeup designer in 2005. But she’s no amateur! In addition to designing animatronics, prosthetic pieces and elaborate props for the haunt and heading up a team that each night engages in a three hour process of preparing 155+ actors in full makeup and costume, Kristen also is the lead designer/fabricator at Safari Anomalous (SafariAnamalous.com), her own local costume, prop and animatronics shop which helps prepare key pieces for films and haunts in the area.

But for this specific project, Terror behind the walls 2008, we asked Kristen where she gathers her inspiration.

“I take a lot of inspiration from the building itself,” she said. “The walls are crumbling and there’s a lot of interesting textures going on. We keep it prisoners and guards since it only makes sense for us to keep the characters that way. We try to push it wherever we can by were staying true to what Eastern State was all about.”

And while sticking to the Eastern State theme is important, she says, “The classic zombie movies are great inspiration.” And continues, “I try to go online and find pictures from those movies for inspiration. We do a lot of undead looks.”

When we told you we’d give you an inside look, we meant it since when we chatted with Kristen, she gave us some of the details on how she creates those macabre make-up masterpieces:

“We use gelatin prosthetics for most of our pieces, gelatin glycerin, sorbitol and zinc oxide. We make them in advance so they stay soft for a long time. For the most part the pieces are disposable so we’re using a new piece every night. Once you put it on and apply the color it’s kind of hard to save it."

In addition to the make-up, Kristen also designs and prepares the elaborate costuming which is heavily accessorized with wigs, jackets and key weaponry pieces (faux of course). In between chatting with Kristen and the cast and going further behind the scenes behind the walls, we snapped a few pictures of the talented actors in costume and makeup while they were on break:

Yeah, yeah, yeah so the makeup and costumes are scary and the haunt sounds pretty effing amazing; but what makes this prison-style haunted house any scarier or worthwhile than the haunts in your own neighborhood?

Well my dear Watson, the prison itself is ACTUALLY haunted, according to numerous studies, which 99% of the time ended in an affirmative paranormal experience. Check back tomorrow for a closer behind the scenes look at REAL hauntings at the Eastern State Penitentiary.

For pricing and more information visit the official Eastern State Penitentiary website.

Special thanks to program director Sean Kelley and the entire Terror Behind The Walls cast and crew!