Spookers Page #2

---

Then you've got to dislike people.

The struggles, the struggles of life.

Yeah.

But then you have people like Bubbles,

and Puppy and Bunny...

make life all better.

SPEAKER:
Oh, it's OK.

Bubbles and Puppy are here for you.

(BARKS AND GROWLS)

BETH:
About 1990 I got really sick

and it turned out that I

had an auto-immune disease.

But that took a long time to diagnose

and I was quite ill for a long time.

And we had a business at the

time, which we had to sell

because we couldn't manage to run it.

But we went on to do other things.

If I hadn't had that time,

we wouldn't have had Spookers.

At that stage we were growing

around 200, 300 ha of maize

and I saw a little wee

sentence in a newsletter

that I was reading on the internet that

said, "Have you seen the maize maze?"

And as soon as I saw that sentence,

everything just became

absolutely crystal clear.

ANDY:
We started with a

day maze and then one night

we got a whole lot of our friends

into the maze in the evening

and we thought we'd try it.

So it just sort of developed and, you

know, we just used the local farmers

and they're all mates and they'd jump

off their tractors and just arrive

and they'd grab their chainsaws...

- BETH:
And bank managers.

- ANDY:
Yeah, and the local cop.

BETH:
Two bank managers

and the local policeman.

ANDY:
Yeah. And we'd just

run around like idiots.

It was so much fun.

BETH:
We turned the wool

shed into a haunted house

for Halloween one year

for kids and families.

We thought it'd be fun.

And then it got so busy in the

wool shed that we kept it open

while Corn Evil was open

and it ended up that

Andy used to have to truck

the sheep away to somebody else's farm

to get them shorn because our wool shed

was always a haunted house.

We started looking for somewhere

in Auckland to do a haunted house

permanently and have

it open all year round,

because with Corn Evil we could only do it,

January till the end of April,

and that's when the

maize all gets harvested.

ANDY:
Yeah.

BETH:
We found this building

and it all just started.

SPEAKER 1:
Like, you know, before

when it was a mental hospital,

I mean, there was mental patients in there,

did they, like, kick them

all out just to make this?

Or did they all die or something?

SPEAKER 2:
I doubt they all died.

SPEAKER 1:
Well, how did they...

SPEAKER 2:
They've could have transferred

them to another mental institute.

SPEAKER 1:
OK.

INTERVIEWER:
What do you think of them

turning it into a place like Spookers?

SPEAKER 2:
I think it's

a really smart idea.

- SPEAKER 1:
Yeah.

- SPEAKER 3:
Really smart.

SPEAKER 2:
Because there's already, like,

those, not rumours

but there's already like that sort

of rumour thing going about, like,

oh, yeah, it's haunted sort of thing.

But, like, to have the experience

of actually going in there

and being scared by, like,

everyday people, you kind of get...

SPEAKER 1:
You think it is haunted.

- SPEAKER 2:
Yeah.

- SPEAKER 3:
Yeah.

SPEAKER 2:
Like, for

all we know it could be.

But, like, for the people who are like,

it's not haunted, sort of thing,

they're still getting that, like,

still getting scared by it, sort of thing.

Yeah.

I think it's a really smart idea.

- SPEAKER 3:
Yeah.

- SPEAKER 2:
That was the basis.

SPEAKER 1:
Whoever came up

with the idea, well done.

- SPEAKER 2:
Genius.

- SPEAKER 3:
Well done.

JULIA:
We, you know, we did

really have to hum and ha of,

you know, should we be here

when we knew, you know, obviously

we found out very quickly it

was the old psychiatric hospital,

and we really did think

long and hard about it.

BETH:
Whether it was appropriate.

JULIA:
Yeah and I think

you'll find a lot of the nurses

and things that used to be here,

they actually just like that

something is being done with the site

and that, you know, there's areas

of it that are being looked after.

And people are happy to come to

work here and things like that.

Yeah.

EMMA:
I'm an incubator, so the character

kind of is a nurse who has, like,

babies in incubators, which is a bit crazy.

So, that's what I'm trying to go

for... like, the crazy nurse thing.

INTERVIEWER:
Do you know

much about the nurses

that used to live here?

EMMA:
No.

I'd like to though.

It's an interesting subject.

Creepy.

MARY:
I used to live in

that room just up there.

It had its own little

access down to a bathroom.

It was pretty cool.

I was really pleased that it was being

put to some decent use, you know.

And I thought it was sort of appropriate

that they'd picked sort of a remote

place that had sort of

some history like that.

But in other ways, we're trying

to de-stigmatise mental health

and here they are sticking

up these homicidal killers...

...in an old mental health

institution. You know.

(THUNDER)

(SCREAMING)

SPEAKER:
Can you let me out?

INTERVIEWER:
And what was the character

that you were playing in the jail cell?

SPEAKER:
Just like a crazy person who

got locked up there for eating their,

like, friend and killing

them and stuff. Yeah.

You know, I just didn't want to be there.

I like doing it, that's for sure, but,

it kind of scares me knowing that people...

Like, the old people that used to

be here, part of the hospital,

would act like that and

it's like making fun of them.

But, you know, if they were

actually here, as ghosts, ghosts,

then they'd probably be like,

"Why is she acting crazy?" Yeah.

DEBORAH:
It's interesting to have a maze,

a physical maze here.

With madness, what madness

takes from you is your essence

and you're always trying

to find your way back.

And it is like a maze.

So that's pertinent I

suppose, in some ways,

that they're going to put one here.

There was so much distress

and so much misery here,

and brutality in lots of

ways that people experienced.

To see them mocked in any way is upsetting.

And that's upsetting for me to think

that they would be mocked in any way.

And also that idea that...

...people who were here

were violent and dangerous,

which couldn't be further from the truth,

sort of fitting into that stereotype

that people who experience any sort

of mental illness or any sort of mental

distress are fundamentally dangerous.

(SCREAMS AND CRIES)

(SHOUTING IN DISTRESS)

(INCOHERENT SHOUTING)

(GRUNTING)

INTERVIEWER:
What have you got there?

CAMERON:
A straitjacket

that I ordered from America.

(SCREAMING)

CAMERON IN CHARACTER: Things

grow like death down here.

INTERVIEWER:
So, what

character are you playing?

CAMERON:
Basically it's

just a psychopath that's...

...slightly childish but smart.

Educated kind of psycho.

CAMERON IN CHARACTER: Then when I came

back here they locked me into this.

But one of my arms is free now.

(CACKLES)

CAMERON:
Sometimes if I'm

sitting there the straitjacket

I start thinking about it

...just what happened and

if I'm being disrespectful.

Because some of it was pretty bad.

- INTERVIEWER:
In the hospital?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes