Photograph by Paul Myers
Tuba Saffaie (right) is set up in an executioner's chair by her grandson, Cyrus Saffaie, in the haunted house created in their back yard for Halloween.
Local trick-or-treaters to run a gauntlet of cinematic horrors
By Rebecca Ray
This Halloween, Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Michael Myers from "Halloween," Jason from "Friday the 13th" and Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" are converging on Saratoga. Two Saratoga High School alumni and their friends and family members built a haunted house that features characters and scenes from classic horror films.
Cyrus Saffaie, 21, a member of the Saratoga High School Class of 1999, has converted his home on 12960 Paramount Ct. to a terror-filled exhibit each Halloween since 1998. The haunted house has grown and has featured new characters and more attractions each year, and this year is no exception, Saffaie says.
As trick-or-treaters approach Saffaie's house, they hear screaming, pounding and the roaring of chainsaws, which are coming from the 20 or so friends and family members who helped build the sets. While the trick-or-treaters line up in the front yard amid tombstones, coffins and rolling fog and await the excursion through the spooky abode, a tour guide prepares them for the characters they will encounter inside.
As songs from the soundtracks of horror flicks play, spectators enter Saffaie's three-car garage, where they watch the actors depict scenes from scary movies. Viewers are then directed to the actual haunted house in the back yard, where they see medieval torture devices such as electric chairs, guillotines, nooses and stocks. At the end of the tour, trick-or-treaters can grab treats from a buffet table.
"I've always been into the special effects in film and directing and stuff like that, and this is another way to bring that out," said Saffaie, who is studying engineering and film at West Valley College and would like to be a director.
"It's a way for us to share our liking, our appreciation, with the community," said Jason Augustine, a fellow Saratoga High School Class of 1999 alumnus who is helping with the production.
Although Augustine has known Saffaie since they were seventh-graders at Redwood Middle School, this is the first year Augustine has helped put the haunted house together. Augustine, 20, a junior studying finance at Santa Clara University, focuses on the business aspects of the production and would like to be a producer.
Building the haunted house and rehearsing the scenes is like making a movie, Saffaie said, in that actors, directors and producers have a set time to complete the project. Usually, the crew spends a few months working on the haunted house, up until Halloween, and will rehearse the day before.
Each year, crewmembers spend at least a few hundred dollars on new materials, Augustine said, even though they also use props from the year before. They build props out of metal, aluminum, wood and other materials that last for years. Also, Saffaie studies the costumes in horror movies so that he and the other crewmembers can make their costumes look more realistic than store-bought ones.
One thing Saffaie doesn't want to hear is that something looks cheesy. What he likes to hear the most, he says, is when people say the house looks better than the year before.
Parents and children alike enjoy the spooky setups--if they make it through. Some children have seen others run out screaming and have decided not to enter.
But most trick-or-treaters go through, Saffaie said. On the first days of school this year, kids who attend Argonaut Elementary, Redwood Middle and Saratoga High schools with Saffaie's younger sisters, asked if he was setting up the haunted house again. And the first time Saffaie built the haunted house, a parent said that the haunted house was a safe place that kept children out of trouble.
The spooky extravaganza gets bigger every year, and next Halloween may be the last time Saffaie sets up the haunted house at his home. After that, he says, he might have to rent another space for it.
This year, trick-or-treaters can see the haunted house on Halloween from 7 to 11 p.m.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
