Ben Isitt: The evil genius behind the scenes at the Black Lake Haunted Asylum

“Those lab specimens … those body parts … Are they REAL?”

You may well be asking yourself that if you work up the courage to show up during “visiting hours” at the Black Lake Haunted Asylum at Freighthouse Square on one of its last four evenings this year: Thurs., Fri., Sat. and Sun., Oct. 28 through 31, from 6 to 10 p.m.

The creepy props and nightmarish scenery comes from the prolific imagination of designer/fabricator Ben Isitt (www.BensArtWorks.com), whose work experience runs the gamut from Hollywood movie sets to amusement park atmospherics, from commercial décor to parade floats, from fountains and other topiary sculpture to home entertainment spaces and – dare I say it? – kids’ rooms!

Not that this should surprise anyone: The versatile Mr. Isitt, age 43, originally from San Pedro, Calif., and now of Puyallup, is a professional artist and hardly deranged – although you might suspect otherwise on seeing him throwing off all “restraints,” so to speak, at the Haunted Asylum. But even there, in the dark basement corridors of Freighthouse Square, Ben surgically attaches humor to horror, schlock to shock, creating a tour experience that’s part Hieronymus Bosch and part P. T. Barnum … or maybe Ed Wood and Ed Gein?

You decide … Meanwhile, I asked Ben about his work: His answers reveal some of the influences behind his inventiveness …

AmeriCollector: Have you always been a full-time artist, or did you do something else for a living before that?

Ben: I’ve always been a full time artist.

AC: Did you study art formally in school, or are you self-taught?

Ben: I studied art from an early age and eventually attended Phoenix Institute of Technology in California, for commercial art and pursued prop fabrication through apprenticeship and through hands-on work.

AC: Where is your studio located?

Ben: I have a shop on my property at my home in Puyallup as well as a work studio in the basement of the Freighthouse Square.

AC: Do you have any hobbies not strictly related to your artwork?

Ben: Yes, I enjoy building unique flying model aircraft from time to time.

AC: You specialize in sculpture and 3-D props, which is a lot different from working on a flat surface. What materials do you prefer to work in, and in what size: life-size or larger-than-life?

Ben: I enjoy the difference in scales differently. I don’t really have a preference in size, but I enjoy working with six-pound urethane foam versus other products that are commonly used in prop fabrication.

AC: You do a range of work, from signage to statuary to parade floats – even costumes. Are there particular objects you especially enjoy creating, or themes that you like to work in?

Ben: I like the imagination and variety of working within the horror genre most because of the limitless ways to express one’s imagination. And I use the “Haunt” (Black Lake Haunted Asylum) as a practical application for showcasing creations and frightening people at the same time.

AC: The Black Lake Haunted Asylum follows a classic carnival tradition, but it goes far beyond the usual cheap funhouse effects. How did you get involved in this annual event?

Ben: Having worked for Six Flags for 10 years and building props and creations for their Fright Fest influenced me to pursue these endeavors for myself and also appease the need to be creative in something that was relative to sculpture and prop fabrication.

AC: How much new stuff do you create each year, and where do you get your ideas? Do you decide what to create by committee, or do you have free license to do what you want?

Ben: It’s hard to describe where these ideas come from. Each year, I try to incorporate something new and exciting but most of all unique. Often in haunts you see the same ideas happening in the same ways, with little difference, but I try to create things that no one has ever seen before.

I do have free license to create props for the haunt depending on the annual budget. Some years are better than others. This year, we added an organ-grinder/Gatling gun, complete with rabid zombie monkey perched on top. This takes a clichéd machine-gun effect and gives it an interesting new twist.

AC: The Haunted Asylum appeals to many people’s desire, going back to childhood, to be frightened within a safe context, such as seeing a horror movie. Were haunted houses, horror films, Halloween and other scary but fun experiences a formative influence for you?

Ben: Absolutely. Whether it’s old film or new, I always enjoy special effects no matter what capacity they are used and appreciate the ideas and the imagination behind them.

AC: What ARE your favorite horror films, anyway?

Ben: “The Thing,” all of the “Alien” movies … I enjoyed “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” and “Time Bandits.”

AC: The mental asylum concept seems to generate an especially strong response in people. How do you explain it?

Ben: I think because most human beings fear the loss of their own mind, the power of thought or control, people are uncomfortable with the theme; however, we’re not looking to promote the negative aspects of mental illness in itself, but rather point it in a direction of a fictional character, Dr. West, who through medical experiments creates his own monsters much like Frankenstein. This allows people to experience being afraid or uncomfortable in a safe environment. This is a haunt, after all: It’s all theatrics and not intended to offend but rather entertain based on a time period when such places existed but also add a terrifying twist to the theme.

AC: Who are your artistic influences?

Ben: My artistic influences vary, but if I were to name a favorite it would be artist Judson Huss and designer of the Aliens from the “Alien” film series, H. R. Giger.

AC: What is your “dream” project?

Ben: I would enjoy working on a large intricate sculpted relief or frieze of a dramatic scene like something from Dante’s “Inferno” or even “Alice in Wonderland,” but perhaps combined with a contemporary setting.

The Black Lake Haunted Asylum tour is conducted in groups of four to six guests, lasts 15 to 20 minutes and is not recommended for children under 13. Admission is $13 but tickets are limited: Get them online at  www.hauntedhousetacoma.com. Freighthouse Square is located at 2501 East “D” St., Tacoma. For directions, visit  www.freighthousesquare.com.

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Images courtesy of Ben Isitt, Ben’s Artworks, www.bensartworks.com

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Hold on to your frontal lobes: The Black Lake Haunted Asylum is back at Freighthouse Square!

Tacoma’s answer to Bedlam, Black Lake Haunted Asylum – a South Sound Halloween “institution” if ever there was one – has been re-created in the bleak basement bowels of Freighthouse Square again this year … But you better surrender all sharp objects and commit yourself quick: Your last chances to get the shock of your life are Thurs., Fri., Sat. and Sun., Oct. 28 through 31, from 6 to 10 p.m.

I haven’t been to this year’s “treatment” yet, but I know from last year that this isn’t your grandparents’ amusement park haunted house – unless Grandpa was Boris Karloff. For one thing, Black Lake Haunted Asylum comes with a “history”: As a consequence of gruesome experiments and procedures performed by its psychopathic chief of staff, Dr. Hubert West, the Black Lake Medical Asylum and Research Facility was the scene of horrific incidents of cruelty and violence culminating in a riot and fire that destroyed the main structure and several outbuildings. While bodies of upwards of 125 patients and staff were found in the smoldering ruins, and another 64 succumbed after being taken to area hospitals, Sheriff Ronald Smith estimated the death toll at more than 200 and possibly as high as 300. That figure does not include Black Lake Asylum’s most notorious inmate, an oddly fetching cannibal named Kristen Starkey; she had been the perfectly happy and well-adjusted daughter of the asylum caretaker before becoming the object of twisted Dr. West’s special attentions and medical ministrations, including electro-shock, with disastrous results. The fate or whereabouts of “Crazy Kristen” – who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mister Rogers – remain unknown, but each year there are numerous sightings of her at the Freighthouse Square event, and she may actually be running for representative in the 26th Legislative District this November. (Be sure to use a blue or black pen, fill in the blanks completely and mail your ballot in early!)

That’s the story in a “nutshell,” so to speak; you can read the contemporary newspaper accounts on the asylum Web site. If you’re the jumpy sort, I recommend bringing a mentally stable friend to clutch – or at least a change of underwear – and enjoy this year’s tour, which features another slew of enthusiastic actor-participants, haunt makeup by The Voyeur Dead Girls (www.voyeurdead.com) and AMAZING custom props by professional designer/fabricator Ben Isitt (www.BensArtWorks.com), whose résumé includes work on the films “Jurassic Park” and “Army of Darkness” and on the “E.T” ride at Universal Studios.

The asylum tour is conducted in groups of four to six “patients,” lasts 15 to 20 minutes – less if you’re a fast runner – and is not recommended for children under 13. Admission is $13 but tickets are limited: Get them online at www.HauntedHouseTacoma.com. Freighthouse Square is located at 2501 East “D” St., Tacoma. For directions, visit www.freighthousesquare.com.

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Images courtesy Black Lake Haunted Asylum

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This week, the screams are at ‘FRIGHTHOUSE’ SQUARE

Freddy Krueger, get a day job! The REAL nightmare isn’t on Elm Street but on East “D” Street in Tacoma, where the Black Lake Haunted Asylum will scare the giblets out of “patients” three more evenings of this week, through Sat., Oct. 31 (Halloween).

I voluntarily “committed” myself to the Asylum last night, and glad that I had used the toilet earlier, or it would have made for an unpleasant ride home. Of course, I won’t – CAN’T – recount all the high-voltage horror I endured (loving every second of it), but suffice to say that the last time I saw so many crazy people with their mouths open, it was around the buffet at my bar mitzvah.

Now in its second year, the Black Lake Haunted Asylum isn’t your garden-variety amusement-park haunted house: It’s a heightened state of mind – so long as you don’t lose it during the Asylum “tour,” which takes place in the cellar of Tacoma’s century-old Freighthouse Square (a place I wouldn’t want to stroll alone even in the daytime). Again, you can pump me full of Sodium Pentothal and I won’t tell you what I saw – why spoil the fun? – but it’s an experience you’ll be eagerly telling your coworkers, classmates and/or analyst about for days.

Part “Mystery at the Wax Museum,” part Off Broadway play and all Halloween FUN, the Asylum is a collaborative effort of master sculptor/prop fabricator Ben Isitt (www.bensartworks.com) and professional haunted-house creator Clark (so behind-the-scenes that he preferred not to tell me his last name). I didn’t have a chance to meet with Ben, but Clark is a beefy, goodhearted ex-Marine who you’d want on your side if you ever DO wind up in an enclosed space with a lot of homicidal maniacs.

Also integral to the “treatment” in this basement Bedlam are the dozens of volunteers – Clark said at least 36 participate in each show, many of them students at the Tacoma School of the Arts – whose talents make the Asylum come alive, in a manner of speaking. So there’s no need to dread suddenly finding yourself alone in the dark amid lab specimens and experiments gone awry: THEY are always there … although, as Clark casually assured me, “they’re all crazy!”

And before you go, I advise ratcheting up the shock value of your tour by visiting the Asylum Web site at www.blacklakeasylum.com and reading about the institution’s “history” – which seemed so real that I went through four pages of Google search results before I convincing myself that the twisted Dr. West and Crazy Kristen (who scared the pants off me, to the disgust of other visitors) were figments of the Asylum organizers’ twisted imaginations. I think.

Incidentally, being of an inquiring mind, I couldn’t help asking Clark if anyone had suggested that the Asylum is, well, making light of a sensitive subject. (Actually, I asked him if anyone flat-out complained that satirizing a mental institution is in lousy taste.) Yeah, Clark replied, someone asked why he couldn’t stick to standard haunted-house fare: murderous ghosts, butchered corpses, ghouls and zombies with bad personal hygiene and even worse table manners – good, wholesome stuff like that. “Serial murderers are OK, but not an asylum? It’s ENTERTAINMENT,” he pointed out.

Entertainment it is indeed – and you have only three days left to enjoy it. Remaining show times are Thurs., Oct. 29, from 7 to 11 p.m. and Fri. and Sat., Oct. 30 and 31, from 7 p.m. to midnight: Check www.blacklakeasylum.com for details. Admission is $13 per “patient” ($1 off the price of one ticket at the door with military ID). Freighthouse Square is located at 2501 East “D” St., Tacoma. Visit www.freighthousesquare.com for more information and directions.

NOTE: The Black Lake Haunted Asylum actively supports My Sister’s Pantry (www.mysisterspantry.com), a Tacoma food bank that serves hot meals and distributes groceries and clothing to the poor and the homeless. Visitors to the Asylum are encouraged to bring a nonperishable food item for My Sister’s Pantry for which they’ll get $1 off the ticket price at the door.

Images provided by Terry Carpenter of Lugh Waterman Surreal Photography

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