Tawny Miller, a.k.a. Adolphia, demonstrates the Legion of Terror makeup artistry at its gooiest.

David Bartholomew Greathouse knows a thing or two about blood. “We use several different blood formulas,” he explains. “We use [cosmetologist] Maurice Stein’s blood, which is great – let’s call it a ‘drooling blood.’ Number two, we make our own blood, a mixture of Karo syrup, food coloring and chocolate syrup. Then we have a thick blood called ‘fresh scab.’ That’s blood in a jar, which you just pull out and scrape across your face, and it stays in place. So when you see someone running around with a nasty gash across their face, that’s usually ‘fresh scab.’”

But before you call the police, or maybe the loony bin, note that Greathouse is not only a professional makeup artist, whose Hollywood résumé includes such gory outings as Species and Tales From The Crypt, but he’s also been a haunted house actor for the better part of 20 years. No such thing? Don’t tell him that, nor his 40 to 50 associates known as the Legion of Terror, who have been scaring the pants off Cleveland haunted house goers for the past 15 Halloweens.

Anyone who has visited Bloodview Haunted House in Broadview Heights, Ohio—the Legion’s home from 1985 through 1996, and again this year—needs no convincing. At its height, the mansion drew up to 3,000 chill-seekers on a single October evening, most of them too terrified to absorb the hundreds of minute design details that epitomize the troupe’s year-round labor of love. All the technical elements that go into good theater are on hand: prop specialists, sound engineers, lighting experts, set designers, set builders and, perhaps most importantly, makeup artists like Greathouse. The primary difference is that these experts also don masks and slather themselves with festering wounds—they’re both cast and crew, all rolled into one. Another small difference is that they’ve all assumed macabre Legion of Terror alter egos, such as Nemesis, ShadowLord and Marquess Medusa, Mistress of Weirdness. Your local PTA ghost and puppet show this is not.

“It’s a very intense show,” says Greathouse, a senior member, who bears the relatively benign moniker ‘Lord of Acting.’ "We threaten people with stuff like ‘We’ll suck your brains out’ or ‘Pray to the blood gods.’ Sometimes all the zombies come out in masks, and they attack certain customers that are part of our organization, posed in line as regular customers.”

Which is fairly dark subject matter for a project sponsored by the Broadview Lions Club. “We’ve gotten away with some pretty racy stuff,” he concedes. “It’s definitely an ‘R’ rating.”

The troupe began in 1977, when a dozen or so amateur haunted house aficionados—a combination of nice, upstanding citizens and colorful renegades—came together informally as the Knights of Frights. But the group’s vision crystallized in 1985, when it increased in size and took up residence at Bloodview Haunted House, a 15-room mansion in an upscale suburban Cleveland neighborhood. The newly-named Legion of Terror developed into the preeminent horror attraction in the region, not to mention the only group focused on haunted house acting that Greathouse discovered during years of attending horror conventions. The troupe held monthly meetings at Bloodview, planning new themes for the September-October season and blueprinting modifications to the building, to keep the show evolving from year to year. (This year, Legion members have radically altered six rooms to look like an old Victorian mansion, in a style vaguely influenced by The Addams Family).

But following its most successful year—1996—the group voted to move to a new, bigger location built specially for them inside a nearby water park. The decision nearly proved fatal. The plans didn’t pan out as hoped, and personality clashes splintered the group in two, with key members defecting to form a rival group, the Nightmare Society, which moved back into Bloodview. The Nightmare Society eventually collapsed under the weight of its own internal politics, and most members were absorbed back into the Legion.

Now back at close to full strength, in its original location, the Legion considers this a reunion year—right in time for the 20th anniversary of Bloodview Haunted House. And with ambitious design plans for the 2000 scare season, the thrill is definitely back.

Greathouse gets excited when he talks about the new six-room Victorian set—the centerpiece of this year’s reunion season. “Everything in it is crooked, slanted, a little larger than life,” he says. The workload has been larger than life, too. “We’re usually there three to four times a week. We come in and construct, we light and wallpaper—we do everything. We really want the rooms looking that good.”

Some secret features aren’t supposed to be visible. “Each room that you go through, there’s a [false] door,” says Greathouse. “It may just look like wallpaper or a picture framed on the wall, then all the sudden that sucker will blast open and a monster will come charging out at you.” The [false] doors and a network of hidden hallways also serve the function of getting actors “offstage” without having to interrupt other scenes in progress.

Quentin Jordan (left), otherwise known as Pain Grin, begins the transformation of Lori Gallagher (Nemesis) into a frightening ghoul of the night.

The similarities to mainstream theater don’t end there. Lighting is an important part of setting the mood. “You have your traditional strobe lights, your black fluorescent lights,” says Greathouse. “But we also use a lot of low light spotlights, 10- to 25-watt bulbs on dimmer switches. Some of them are just tiny little ‘pin lights,’ just illuminating a portrait on a wall.” The lighting is all actor-operated.

Sound is also a key element. “Each room is specifically designed by several members who are in the audio field,” says Greathouse. “We make our own soundtracks, incorporating sound effects, maybe some old B movie records, and things that we create.”

Makeup is, if anything, more rigorous than a traditional dramatic show. Because of the intricacy of the process, many actors have become their own makeup artists. “We have everything from your basic greasepaint and highlight/shadow makeup, all the way up to foam latex appliances and full body creature suits,” he says. Actors can add a series of protrusions or eyes hanging from sockets through a process of mold making, fast casting and sculpting. They have a bust made of themselves, then take it home to create the design. The result is all degrees and shades of facial wounds, decaying skin and warts—grotesque faces that truly churn the stomach.

Rounding all this out are a number of supporting gadgets and props, most notably, fog machines, which flood both the house and the courtyard area outside, where actors spook the customers even before they enter. A torture chamber—one of Bloodview’s few unchanging rooms—comes equipped with chains, cages, torture racks and stockades.

With so many elements in common with traditional theater, it’s a wonder more theater groups don’t use their own equipment in service of a first-rate haunted house attraction come Halloween. Greathouse considers it a lost opportunity. In fact, he thinks one of the reasons the scare industry lacks respectability is the amateur size and scope of most projects. “It still hasn’t really broken through yet,” he admits.

In the meantime, Greathouse and his companions don’t mind cornering the market on the theatrical art of bringing terror to the masses. Their ambitions are only growing. Next year, Greathouse hopes to build a couple more haunted attractions on Bloodview property, and this fall, he’ll put the wraps on a documentary of the troupe’s history entitled Legion Of Terror: Confessions Of A Haunted House Actor.

As for his troupe’s spot in the realm of theatrical respectability, Greathouse is realistic, but hopeful. “I don’t consider us much different than a comedy troupe that specializes in live improv,” he says. “It’s really guerilla theater. If you can’t scare ‘em, freak ‘em out. If you can’t freak ‘em out, gross ‘em out.”

And that’s where those three kinds of blood really come in handy.

For more information on the Legion of Terror, log onto www.legionofterror.com.