Make-up transformation — go! At Beware the Dark Realm, a haunted house in Santa Clarita, the makeup is always an important part of making nightmares come to life. From dreaming of something that is terrifying to something that is scary and coming to a reality, as seen in the photo above, this is something that changes the way someone looks.
Just a simple touch of eye makeup can change the perspective of how someone can see someone. With that, seeing the haunt of people has changed from doing basic makeup to having a friend doing professional work where you can have cosmetics where you can look like the scarers from the theme parks.
Kenneth Knolls (right) has been helping Scott for about 20 years; with makeup for scarers. Without that touch of makeup and the fake razor-sharp teeth, there is no way of possibly scaring someone within that haunting maze. Noll’s makeup skills have helped with the touch of fear to everyone who decides to come in and see this family haunt.
Danny is getting ready to be a medieval jail police and will be holding onto chains to scare people outside of the haunt, the ones waiting in line. Getting ready for scaring people in the haunt always takes time and making sure everything is on point. Seeing from this photo, it is one of the backstories to show that makeup is very important to the actors and actresses who take part in making this haunt successful.
The Sivley Halloween tradition; Beware the Dark Realm has and is still haunting for 50 years. These walls hold a chunk of history for this family haunt of Southern California. People from all around the county come to see this haunt. For 50 years, this haunt has reached people of Santa Clarita to a resident of Ireland.
Being one of the top 10 haunts to see according to Care.com, all this hard work has paid off majorly. Within the time span of the haunt, there was not just Scott Sivley working for the haunt. As time went on, there were friends and family helping out for the haunt.
While growing up, sons Christian and Jacob Sivley were helping Scott keep his dream alive. Scott saw the dream of the haunt come to life and made it into something magical, passing it down to his children so they can keep the dreams alive. He was inspired by; “a guy that lived to grab a corner from me, obviously work for 20th Century Fox Studios, was wearing the old Lost in Space TV series, was wearing costumes from the show, and running around scaring people.”
Since then, there was a spark of dream that has been put into motion and from there, there are still screams that come from those walls every night.
SCREAM! Since 1971, there have been screams coming from within the Styrofoam walls. Scott Sivley, the founder of Beware the Dark Realm, has been scaring his community since he was just in his 20’s. With that, there is something scary about how one’s dream was something small and created a dream that came to be something magical. He has the support of his wife Cindy, who continues to support and help during the times of the haunt.
As the walls started to expand, there were more screams that were being heard throughout the castle. There are talks about the haunt being at this location for 50 years. The truth is that this was only started about 20 years ago in this location. The true question is: What can happen within 50 years?
The major things that can happen during that time can be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. When trying to spread the word, it can be difficult, but at times, it is important to wait.
Great Scott! The man who created it all, Scott Sively. Without this man, there would be no such haunt as what we know today called “Beware the Dark Realm.” Starting from the time of watching horror films to seeing someone down his street scaring people has sparked something for him. Without his dream, his contributions, there would not be something as spectacular as this.
Sively has been partners with the non-profit organization “Family Promise of Santa Clarita” for some time. He spoke about the struggles of trying to get the help of the Santa Clarita and having the haunt in a special location within the valley. With only one famous local non profit haunt that works with a non profit organization, they were able to contribute nearly $3,000 dollars within a short amount of time. Sively donates all of the money that contributed to Family Promise to help those that are homeless.
According to Sively: “There’s a lot of money… In 2023 Shades of over in the kingdom country area kind of overlay my Golden Valley High somewhere around there bus here highway and all over inside there. That’s great that they gave them a building.They’re going to need an awful lot of money, though, to help pay for those people being housed inside their food, clothing, shelter and everything, and you can’t always wait teams, wait for donations to happen. What we’re doing here is giving him red basically cold hard cash for them to do that. So if they invested in it with us to do it probably could pay for the housing of those people all year round, just by doing a few couple of events a year.”
Just a half of a lifetime. When a tradition of scaring people becomes a part of your life. Making your house into something that is fantastic. Making something for people to come and see like an amusement park. Even making something for people that are enjoying the underrated holiday of Halloween. This holiday has always influenced the sons of Scott Sivley; Jacob and Christian.
Christian is one to take charge and to help in his father’s dream of running the castle for the 50th year of scaring people. Mainly when it comes to helping his dad, he has taken to social media and a lot of ways to keep spreading the word of his dad’s haunt. Being one of the leaders to help the haunt function the way it does and to help show the different layout every year so far, there is something that he does every year and that is being someone who is very enthusiastic to show people a place that is fun and exciting and terrifying.
Jacob, the younger brother of Christian, is the one who monitors the audio, the effects during the haunt, and many other factors during the haunt. He was just as affected from being a part of the haunt. “My dad inspired me for the haunt and he’s been doing it for so many years prior to me being born and I obviously share the same passion that he has both with him and my older brother Christian. We also get inspiration from movies, whether it be old or new horror movies, different theme parks such as Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s scary farm, and the smaller ones such as like the Queen Mary and Los Angeles haunted hayride.”
The aftermath of, when it comes down to the aftermath of the night from scaring people for three hours. It comes down to having a small afterparty with food, laughs, and discussions of groups that have come through the haunt that night. It is very different from makeup prep. Having the afterparty experience is something very big because volunteers can bond with each other. If you make a new friend that night and your new friend is helping the following night. There is a chance that the night will be more entertaining. When you plan to come back the next night,you can change your costume and have a different approach (when scaring people, the next night).
With all of the scaring that was done for the night, there is more scaring to come for the following scare night. Scaring people can affect them for having the thrill of excitement and terror. One of the aftermaths was having people come back to the haunt and recognizing one of the scarers.
“Yo! This guy is here every year,” a Santa Clarita resident said, referring to the Grim Reaper played by Bobby. “He’s so cool!”
This can show the effect of showing and telling people what they know about the haunt, and it will attract more people to come and visit.
Scary, scary creatures in the dark! From the dark realm of scary creatures, there is nothing more satisfying in a haunted house than hearing people screaming. The scream is something that makes something scary in the first place, alongside fear. With not knowing what is in the areas of the strange abyss, it is the thought of going in to find something that is terrifying. When there are screams coming from those walls, Scott and his family know that they have made something for that year a place that is fun and scary and funny to go through.
There are people that are thrilled when it comes to something like this and are very excited to be scared. Most of the people that come out of the haunt, have stated that the haunt was indeed “scary and fun.” To know that this haunt will be here and that there are more thrills to come soon, is a feeling of excitement. Scaring people and being a part of the haunt can be very exciting, from seeing the results of putting fear into people’s eyes. When the fear comes to them and they start screaming, it is very entertaining.
50 years is quite the milestone. There is a major difference from the beginning when Scott was scaring people and then having a crew at his own home and scaring people. Seeing all the people that volunteer to help and be a part of the crew that scares people during the Halloween season is incredible. There can be a group of 10 to a maximum group of 26 people partaking in the haunt. One thing that is astonishing is seeing the different age groups volunteering from early teens to young adults to mature adults. Also, from knowing some volunteers from just a couple of months to nearly 50 years of haunting.
Out of all the greatest moments in Scott’s life this would “probably one of the best things, is how much my family and people that live on the street that I live on in my community have enjoyed going to it and working on it and being with it, and actually participating. You know that day, I think that’s probably the most satisfying thing. I never would have thought of 1971”.
The amount of time and patience that this dream was undergoing for years was truly the double or even triple of what many people would wait on. It would expand to something farther than anyone would think of.
Just to see a dream come from something very small and have it blossom into something more spectacular is something.
