Jim Talent spends his days tethered to skyscrapers with a safety harness, installing communications towers hundreds of feet in the air. When he reports to his second job, however, things get scary: “I walk in the front door of the house, announce myself to the ghosts, and say, ‘Don’t fuck with me,’” he says. Along with four partners, Talent runs Dream Reapers–a 14,000-square-foot stretch of strip mall in Melrose Park that’s considered one of the best haunted houses in Illinois.
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Though the partners’ duties tend to overlap, Talent is the electrical pro and carpenter of the Dream Reapers team. Rick Zawodniak designs the props, John Vitiritti is the set painter and makeup artist, and Mike Cash rigs the animatronics. And Ken Spriggs, who has a vast knowledge of life casting, also serves as human resources director, overseeing the crew of about 40 volunteer actors who help haunt the house. The partners, who range in age from late 20s to mid-50s, started Dream Reapers in 1999, after an acrimonious secession from another area haunting outfit they decline to name.
While the house is open for business, through much of October and into the first weekend of November, the actors report for duty at 5:30 PM. Most are friends or friends of friends, but some are strangers who just showed up and filled out applications. Everyone comes in a layer of basic black–a blank slate for the costume and makeup department.
A good scare can provoke other physical reactions too. Talent recounts with relish the story of a coulrophobic girl who passed out in the circus room and was brought back to consciousness…by a bloody clown. Spriggs says he watches for people leaving the house with a coat tied around their waist–a telltale sign of a spooked bladder. Trevor Bishop, a paramedic pal of the partners, is usually on duty at Dream Reapers, and when he’s not, another paramedic is.
