Bel Alton, Md. — Eerie masked characters, disturbed children, distraught monsters and outrageous clowns are all things that visitors can be frightened by inside Charles County Dive and Rescue’s Vampire Manor this Halloween season.

A frightening guide leads groups of visitors through various themed rooms of the haunted house. Each room has a distinctive set up with different plots, characters and staging, leaving visitors anxious of what is coming next.

 

“Vampire manor is different because each room has a story to tell where as a lot of [haunted houses] just walk you through and you never stop walking, they just try to scare you around every corner,” said Bob Johnston, who has been coming to Vampire Manor since 1991.

  “Here they actually stop in each room and tell you a little backstory, and then they scare you,” Johnston said.

Hair-raising sections of the house include masked monsters in the dark and narrow passageways, as well as threatening characters that intrude out of unseen entrances of the small dim rooms. 

The actors that play these spine-chilling characters throughout the house are “all volunteer,” said Donna Porter, Treasurer and Captain of Charles County Dive and Rescue. “There are probably thirty or forty kids from the different high schools and different communities [in the area] just to come out and help us,” Porter said.

Shiara Beausoleil, a six-year volunteer at Vampire Manor said although she helps out with the building, skits and design of the haunted house, her favorite part of the experience is acting.

“Tonight I’ll be in the very last room as a victim,” Beausoleil said with painted bleeding wounds on her face. This particular room was full of daunting zombie mannequins hanging from the ceiling by thick metal chains.

“There’s a lot of cool features this year, a ton of new editions, they really went all out,” Beausoleil said.

Not only are the skits and characters unique, but the costumes are as well.

“A lot of [the costumes], these days we pick up at corporal Halloween stores, some in the district, some down here locally, some of the more intricate ones we build,” said Benjamin Wilmot, a director of Vampire Manor. “Those are the ones that give the loud pop and wow and add a lot of pizzazz to things,” Wilmot said.

Although Vampire Manor is only open from Oct. 6 to Oct. 31, it takes a lot of time and effort to get the house ready to scare each season.

“It’s a huge amount of work every year,” and takes about six weeks to build, said William ‘Skeeter’ Porter, Chief 13 B of Charles County Dive and Rescue.

“I’ve been at every Vampire Manor that we’ve had since the beginning,” Porter said.
When the dive team was started in 1989 they were in a need of funding, so they thought of creating a haunted house for a fundraiser. Since Porter had years of experience working in the haunted houses sponsored by the Waldorf Jaycees as a teenager, the team knew he was just the man for the job.

“I was asked to step up and take on the task and I did, and that was our first year, in 1989, and we had a very successful Manor… and now here we are 28 years later,” said Porter.

This is Vampire Manor’s 28th year of operation and is expected to entertain between 4,000 and 5,000 visitors this season, said Wayne Winker, President of Charles County Dive Rescue. 

All proceeds go to “Charles County Dive Rescue and the Bel Alton Volunteer Fire Department,” Winker said.

For Vampire Manor’s schedule, ticket and parking information visit their website at http://www.vampiremanor.com/