Puppets are inherently creepy. This is the unshakable premise of Kennywood’s newest haunted house, “Detached,” debuting Sept. 12 as part of Phantom Fall Fest.
Described as the theme park’s most extreme haunt yet, its story takes shape around a puppet master gone mad. Thrill-seekers go on the Puppet Master’s Frankenstein-like “delusional quest” to make the perfect toy — where he’s handpicking both human and doll parts — which, needless to say, turns gory, then demonic, ending with a gruesome grand finale in a full-scale puppet theater.
Naturally, wordplay abounds from the world of “deranged dolls and manic marionettes”: keep your head on straight! Pull yourself together for “Detached”! Are we all just… meat puppets?
Pittsburgh City Paper got a peek behind the scenes as Kennywood “unleashes” its longest-ever Phantom Fall Fest, featuring six haunts and four designated “scare zones,” running select nights through Sat., Nov. 1.
Bryce Ring, Kennywood’s entertainment and events manager, says the puppet concept was always central to designing the new haunt, especially as it unfolds across from one of Fall Fest’s scare zones, a deranged clown-filled carnival called Fear Fest.
“Just like clowns are [creepy] to a lot of people, there’s something about toys and puppets being in places and settings they shouldn’t be,” Ring says.
“Detached” is Kennywood’s first new haunt in three years following “mALICE in Wonderland” (also returning this year). The park aimed for scale, creating a storyline that would take guests through scares in vastly different locations. The haunt’s gritty Nightmare Alley-era exterior asks “brave souls” to enter through a toy shop — its address is 1898, a reference to the year Kennywood opened — and exit past a vintage-red ticket booth.
“When you see the [haunt’s] facade, you go into a toy store, and you come out through a theater, so right away it tells you you’re not just going to go into one setting,” Ring says. “This is definitely the most elaborate maze we’ve done. It has the most detail. Everything about it is intentional.”
Inside, the haunt was designed, constructed, and lit by Kennywood’s in-house team of carpenters, scene builders, and electricians, who even crafted colorful light panels for a scream-filled alleyway. Dolls covered in cobwebs fill dusty pegboard shelves in the Puppet Master’s workshop — including a blonde Barbie head plopped onto a camel doll’s body, a favorite of henchman scare actor Bryan Wilt — along with life-size dolls hanging on the walls.
Visitors are herded through the Puppet Master’s office (watch out for animatronics) and an ominous shadow puppet display before lining up for the slaughter in front of a body conveyor belt. Human puppets then traipse through darkness, strobe lights, and a dressing room with slamming doors (and don’t get me started on the creepy music box soundtrack) before their big on-stage debut. Throughout the haunt, smells are piped in, including popcorn for the theater’s concession stand.
Old-timey carnival posters and signs, many of them with Easter eggs referencing the park’s other attractions, line the walls (though, controversially, Kennywood confirmed that it used AI to generate some of the images).
Dan Horgan, a scare actor who also works in Kennywood’s marketing department, plays the Puppet Master, wearing overalls, bright white contact lenses, and steampunk goggles.
Though he’s technically the star of the show, he and the “Detached” scare actors predict nothing will beat the creepiness of the dolls and puppets themselves, some of whom are actors lying in wait.
“It kind of depends on what your personal phobia is,” Horgan tells City Paper. “Because [for] some people, that’s very much dolls, some people that’s henchmen, some people that’s the Puppet Master.”
“It’s cool; we have a diverse cast of characters,” masked henchman actor Wilt says.
Though the cast of 30 is excited for the haunt’s opening and to take on new characters, they like to get their scares in anywhere they can.
Horgan and Wilt usually work as “rovers,” actors who wander the park looking for unsuspecting visitors to sneak up on. Wilt has regularly played a chainsaw-wielding clown at Phantom Fall Fest for 16 years, while Horgan will sidle up with a blaring trombone, sometimes playing Chapelle Roan.
“No place is safe in the park,” “Detached” henchman Stephan Hazuga reminds Phantom Fall Fest goers.
Along with Hazuga, there is a “third member of our little chainsaw clown trio,” Wilt says, who plays Sparky, known to send people running by sliding in knee pads with a chainsaw.
“He slides in, starts that thing, laughs,” Wilt says. “It’s literally terrifying.”
“I love interacting with people,” Wilt adds. “As much as the scares are fun, I’ve enjoyed interactions and just reactions from people. Just sitting down with them on a bench and [asking], ‘Can I have some popcorn?’ I’m just doing weird stuff like that.”
Even in mid-September, after a full dress rehearsal, the Kennywood actors say it feels like Halloween season.
“We’re just itching to have some guests to scare,” Wilt says.
