AkronNewsNow.com

MULTIMEDIA Bloodview Scares For Charity
9/29/2008 5:05:47 PM | Ryan Haidet

Along a small road in Broadview Heights sits Bloodview -- a haunted house that has been striking fear into the hearts of its visitors for 28 years.

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This attraction is where The Legion of Terror -- a frightful acting troupe -- is used to achieve the scares.

"The Legion of Terror is a nonprofit organization that specifically is made for haunted houses and the haunted, Halloween community," Geremy Havanec, the Lord of Communications for the LOT said. "We specialize in improvisational horror acting and theatrical-quality makeup. You won't find any masks here."

Many of the Legion members create their own creepy characters that they practice on all year long. "Usually we'll hone it in the off season," Havanec said. "We do a lot of improvisational acting things -- if you've seen 'Who's Line is it Anyway?' -- we do a lot of that kind of stuff; except more of the haunted things."

LISTEN to Havanec explain the Legion of Terror

The Legion's creepy cast is made up of volunteers. "No Legion member gets paid," Havanec said. "All we do is we get reimbursed for our gas and some makeup costuming. The Lions donate all the proceeds to charity."

That's where Gary Cerasi comes in. He's been with Bloodview for 12 years and is in charge of running the entire attraction. "I get to keep a lot of dysfunctional people functional," Cerasi joked.

Working with the Lions Club, the proceeds raised by the haunt go to charity. "We help a lot of charities...we do scholarships for children, we do a Lend-A-Hand program for the city of Broadview Heights where we feed 40 families every month, we have bought blind people computers with braille, we've done so many things for so many different charities," Cerasi said. "I guess it's just a great place for people who want to help the community to come together."

LISTEN to Cerasi explain all Bloodview has to offer

For one price, guests get to tour all three parts of Bloodview. "We have two buildings and a set of woods," Cerasi explains. "You go through our first building, which we call our 'Gore House,' which has a lot of body parts and a lot of blood and a lot of guts. Then you go through our woods, which are of course a haunted woods.... Then you go through our main house, which is 7,000 square feet of mazes and rooms and slaughterhouses and catacombs and a lot of clown rooms."

WATCH a video on Bloodview via YouTube:

Protection and security are essential elements to how Cerasi operates the attraction. "We always have a couple police officers on site -- just in case something goes wrong we have backup here.... We are very strict in that you cannot touch an actor. An actor will touch you on the shoulders when you go by or something like that, but you cannot touch an actor back. And if you get a little bit out of hand, we will put you in jail."

Cerasi has one piece of advice for somebody who has never attended Bloodview before. "Be very scared."

Bloodview is open every Friday and Saturday from 8 p.m. - midnight and every Thursday and Sunday from 8 p.m. - 10 p.m.

For more information on Bloodview or the Legion of Terror, visit www.bloodview.com and www.legionofterror.com.

Video added on 10/16/08 at 7:55 a.m.

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