This is a response by a haunt employee who attends cerritos. Its great. Hi. i sent you the replies on that message board, not because I wanted to hurt you in any way, but because I wanted you to see how dissapointed we were at how journalists can completely bash something that they don’t completely understand.

I am a Cerritos College student and was shocked at how bad a review we got from you when I opened the paper last week. I could have raged against you but I chose not to.

Just so you know, I was not the one who posted YOUR article on the ultimatehaunt.com messageboards. But I did email you with the replies.

Despite what some people have said on the boards, MOST of us CAN accept criticism. These people, obviously ARE going to be a little upset if the thing they love to do gets a bad review. That is normal. What you don’t realize (and most guests that come to Halloween Haunt) is that we take Haunt VERY seriously!!!! Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. Trust me, we don’t do it for the money…we do it because we LOVE IT! There are thousands and thousands of people who work their asses off to give the guests a good time and hopefully a good scare. Knott’s is the BIGGEST Halloween event in the world, and still it is hard to please everyone. Also, in light of the events that took place in September, I’m sure it made Knott’s rethink Haunt this year and how far they would allow themselves to go.

I am sorry you had a horrible time at Haunt but you did attend the first weekend and monsters (especially new ones) are still adjusting to the strenuous working environment. It can be INCREDIBLY difficult to work at Haunt (in a maze especially). We are, a lot of times, the victims of rude young people who show no respect and find humor by hittingt (and sometimes attacking) us! Many of us walk out of the maze brused and beaten (!) because a guest thought it would be funny to hit the monster. I’ve had friends receive black eyes! Some guests come to Haunt high on drugs and THAT is REALLY scary. Last year in one of the mazes, a girl monster, who was dressed up as a vampire bride almost got raped by a man. Can you imagion what that would fee like? Therefore, it can actually be very scary for us. Street monsters have even had rocks…yes, rocks thrown at their heads causing them to really bleed. If no action is going on by a monster in a maze or on the streets, a lot of times it’s because they are tired of dealing with the abuse.

We (monsters) usually get to see the Elvira show before anyone else but they had technical problems and they we not ready for us to see it. It seems that on the night that you attended they were having some problems as well. What can you do? They were still working out the kinks. Lots of people have given the Elvira show a bad review this year and that is unfortunate.

All in all, I would have hoped that you would have gone to Knott’s with more of an opened mind. I can’t help but wonder if you’ve got it out for somebody that works at Knott’s…I don’t know. But it seemed that you went hoping it would fail you. The way you wrote the article made you seem angry. It’s frustrating when we see guests walking in our maze and criticising everything they see that they don’t like or because they aren’t getting scared. If you go into it with skepticism, it is going to make it harder for you to have a good time.

I am sorry if I have offended you by sending you the previous email. Again, I did not mean to make you angry. I just hope that you see things in a more positive way. Either that or give the story to a person who is not so skeptical about things.

I hope I have cleared up things. e.g.

(This letter should be published.i think. he emailed it to me and wanted it published.)