What to Expect When the Deer District Transforms into the Fear District

Normally, you would not expect to run into so many in-character actors in the shadow of the Fiserv Forum, but that’s what you’ll find in the in the Deer Street/Fear Street area. Vampires, dead pirates and scarecrows serve as carnival barkers, but carnival barkers with complex back-stories and motivations: A dead sea mate confined to a large skull-chucking area had been doomed to remain there, and another carried around a relative’s cranium, Hamlet-like, saying something about Davey’s Locker.

Oak Island Creative, the Kentucky company that’s putting on Fear Street, held auditions for improv actors and other “scare actors” who could potentially “crouch, stand, and/or vocalize” for long periods of time, in order to frighten people. While the improv types are supposed to mix with the crowd, the scare actors manned three large, one-story haunted house areas themed after vampires, dead pirates and scary corn fields.

The Beer Garden’s gigantic outdoor TV will be used to show classic horror movies on Thursdays starting Oct. 3 with Halloween (followed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Oct. 10). On opening night, it broadcast the Packer game as the less-talkative ghouls stamped through the three houses and vocalized. One of them asked me in a hungry voice, after I had climbed a low barrier to take a photo, “Did you go the wrong way?” Pennywise would be proud.

The pricing is a la carte: A ticket good for three haunted house visits costs $20 per adult and $15 per child under 13 and adults over 65. The carnival-esque games cost about $5 for three throws with prizes available. Special food, including a “mummy dog,” costs extra, and so do special cocktails, merchandise and a sit-down with a psychic.

On Saturdays and Sundays prior to 6 p.m., the street is a far cheerier place with kids’ activities and fewer ambushes by undead sailors.