Freddy Friday - Glove Love

 Back in the 90s, I was helping out at a local haunted house with a couple friends. It was as small, local thing and most of the 'actors' were teens. I wasn't getting paid but, seriously, dressing up and scaring people is something I will do for free any day of the week! This was during my big Freddy phase so that's who I dressed up as. 

 

The haunt was in a huge, mostly empty, three story house. The third floor was used for dressing rooms. A guide would take each group through the house starting on the second floor. This floor was mostly large bedrooms, each of which had its own scene with a jump scare of some kind. A large section of the first floor was a dark maze. The guide, knowing the maze, would rush through leaving the group to stumble their way through it. There were spots where actors would sometimes lurk too. Being the 90s, it was pre-cell phone so no one had a flashlight and occasionally the guide, or a stranger in the dark, would need to help them along. 

 

Sometimes I would be 'featured' in one of the rooms but mostly I was on line duty outside keeping the crowd entertained. The mask I had fit very well and was a little warm when worn a long time, so when anyone would touch it, it was surprisingly like touching real skin. One of my favorite 'tricks' was seeing the name on a high schooler's jacket and them having no idea how I knew their name!

Anyway, the real reason for all this reminiscing and setup is the glove. When I started out, I had the run of the mill plastic glove that anyone could buy. This was all that was available at the time but I used some model paint on it to make it as screen accurate as I could. Let me tell you, nothing takes the tension out of a face to face with Freddy when some smart ass grabs your glove and the plastic blades bend.

One of the guys I went to high school with was very handy with tools and surprised me with a hand-made metal glove one year. This was a game changer! I took the paints to this one too to get it just right. 

There is something SO satisfying about curling your fingers and then snapping your hand open to make the glove clack. And now when Joe high schooler tries to look cool and grab the glove, he has quite a different reaction when he realizes it's metal. There was a rusty drainpipe on the side of the house that I would run the glove over. A few times I carried a hand-held chalkboard for extra crowd torture.

This glove had a revival in recent years when my stepdad took up the Freddy mantle when we go into Salem on Halloween night. After a few more years of use it had to be retired. 

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