The Shovel Newsletter Archives

F.E.A.R is the acronym we use to teach the stages of a great scare. It stands for Foreshadow, Escalate And Resolve.

Foreshadowing is to give your victim a glimpse of what’s to come. Create a pattern that they are able to recognize and then set the pattern in motion. The familiar cello in Jaws foreshadowed the upcoming shark attack without ever seeing a single fin.

Escalate means to tease them, torment them, let them think they know what’s coming and then draw out the expectation. Make them walk the creaking bridge into the baited trap. Let them see, hear and smell what is coming and give them no other option but to proceed.

And is the “A” that makes this into a cool acronym.

Resolve is to finish them off. This is the startle, the pop, the boo, the surprise.

Last night I took my wife to a haunted house for it’s spring show. It’s cool when a haunt is open in the off season. ( I have a rat inside me that needs to be fed and it gets hungry if it has to wait clear till October.) We had a great time even though I tend to analyze things a little too much.

At one point as I saw that I was going to have to cross between a shadowy figure that was sitting in a wheelchair and a shadowy figure that appeared to have a chainsaw I thought to myself “What is the scariest thing in the world?” As I stepped into the room and between these two ominous figures the chainsaw kicked up, both figures closed in and I stepped back, quickly.

The only way out of this room was through these two monsters. My rational mind knew I was safe but my instinctual mind had taken over. I stepped forward and then back again no less than three times before I clenched myself into the smallest line I could make. I then willed my body slowly forward, clinging to that rational hope that they couldn’t legally kill me.

I was right. They didn’t kill me. In fact they didn’t even touch me. However, they had gotten into my head. They had teased me and tormented me and drawn out the expectation. They had done this all so well that if there had been anymore surprises at that moment I may not have been able to cope. That would have been it. That NEXT thing would have been the scariest thing in the world; no matter what it had been.

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Sean and Adam Murray