By Emily Godwin
The first thing you notice is blood, there seems to be blood everywhere. The walls. The floor. The people.
The next thing is the music, the kind of music that is played in the background of a horror movie that makes it ten times scarier. Before you know it, an actor jumps out at you and makes your heart race.
It is completely unexpected and despite the fact that I had overheard his plans ten minutes prior I was terrified when he popped out.
Beginning at 7 pm during the month of October the gates to Fright Furnaces at Sloss Furnace open and a crowd of people looking to be scared begin to walk through.
The line has been forming since 6. The crowd ranging from children as young as 6 to men and women in their 60s are all waiting to walk through the haunted attraction.
In 1998, Robert Yarbrough wanted to turn Sloss Furnaces into a haunted attraction. For 21 years Fright Furnaces has been growing and has become one of the biggest haunted attractions in the southeast.
The attraction is based on the dark history surrounding Sloss.
In the late 1800s Colonel James Sloss built the first blast furnace in Birmingham. It would produce iron and help build the railroad industry in the area for 100 years before shutting down production.
Its history resulted in the deaths of many and lead to its haunted reputation today. Majority of it being around James “Slag” Wormwood, a foreman who worked the “graveyard shift” who was known to overwork those under him. He died in 1906 when he fell into a vat of melting iron ore.
He is one of the many violent spirits people believe to be haunting the furnaces
Production on Fright Furnace begins in July. The crew begins to come up with new ideas and begin building the sets and towards the end of September they go in to the furnaces and start assembling the attraction.
The actors who work each year are passionate when it comes to scaring and are enthusiastic when they come to work each night. Some actors have been working since the beginning others have only been working for a few years.
While some stick to doing the same thing each night, others will come up with a new way to scare spectators.
Beginning at 4:30 in the afternoon the make-up crew is called in to begin setting up their stations. An hour later at 5:30 actors begin to roll in to get their make-up done for the night.
The make-up id gory and outlandish, so the minute the actors step in the trails the dark and flashing lights make them look terrifying.
The person in charge will do a roll call for the actors at 6:50, ten minutes before the gates open. There are a few stragglers coming in late, but at 7:00 everyone is off to take their positions for the night.
The second the first group walks in the actors have left who they are behind and take on their roles. Role inspired by the troublesome history surrounding Sloss.
Sloss runs Thursday through Sunday night throughout the month of October every year. It is closed for the year but will be back next year in September of 2020.
Vallo Vision News 