There are many ways to celebrate Halloween, but nothing can compare to the thrill of entering a haunted house. For only a few dollars, a person can enter an old abandoned building infested with zombies or serial killers for a few minutes of frights, or they could come to the Varsity Center and watch how these haunted houses make “The Fright Stuff.”
The Varsity Center is set to preview the documentary “The Fright Stuff” on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, right in time for the Halloween season. Admission to the show is free with doors and the Varsity Bar opening at 6 p.m. with the screening itself starting at 7 p.m.
“The Fright Stuff” is an all-access documentary that takes the viewer behind the scenes of the haunted house industry. The documentary aims to explore the beginnings of haunted houses and the 365-day pursuit to give people the fright of their lives. Though the documentary was filmed and produced in the Chicagoland area, its true origins started in the Communications Building of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.
Advertisement
John Laflamboy, founder of Zombie Army Productions, which “The Fright Stuff” follows, was a theater major at SIU in the late 1990s.
“My career started in the green room of the theater department in the communications building in 1996 when I pitched the idea —- ‘Theater people should create their own marketplace inside the haunted house business,’” Laflamboy said.
Later that year, Laflamboy and his fellow theater majors started a haunted house in University Mall in an abandoned shoe store and raised an estimated $6,000 in two weeks. The money was used to send 26 SIU theater students to the Southeastern Theater Conference in Miami, Florida.
A year after Laflamboy graduated from SIU, Mike Meyer, director of “The Fright Stuff,” started his education in the Cinema and Photography Department of SIU. Meyer graduated from the program in 2002 and started work in the film industry.
“So throughout the years, I worked for a number of companies, largely doing every aspect of production,” Meyers said. “I was involved with, oftentimes, people or people along the relationship chain of people I met at Southern.”
Around 2006 or 2007, Meyer got in contact with Chris Sato, a future producer on “The Fright Stuff” who is an SIU Cinema and Photography alumnus who graduated from the program two years after Meyer. The two did not know each other while they attended SIU. Sato and Meyers, along with five other members of their loft space in Chicago, worked on media projects ranging from commercials to sketch comedy.
In 2010, while making a feature film, Meyer and Sato came in contact with Laflamboy, who ran Statesville Haunting Prison in Joliet, Illinois. At the time, Sato had an agent who was looking for content for cable television. When the agent asked Meyer and Sato if they had anything, they pitched an idea.
Advertisement*
“The show we pitched was a reality show following him (Laflamboy) and his exploits throughout the year,” Meyer said. “It sorta fizzled on the vine, but over time…we found a way to keep a version of that show that led to the movie that’s going to be screening at SIU.”
The film began production in February of 2016.
“My favorite part of the production was how much we learned about the origins and history of Halloween and Haunted Houses in America,” Laflamboy said. “And on a selfish note, I’m really happy that all the work and dedication my crew had during that opening year is forever captured.”
While the film was being shown in St. Louis at a convention, Meyer talked to Jeremy Cory, who is also an SIU graduate, and talked to Myers about getting more involved with a group of alumni of the SIU School of Media Arts. Meyer said yes and got to talk to SOMA students over Zoom.
“You know, the idea sort of popped into my head like, ‘Hey, I should come down as the season started changing to talk about haunted attractions and see if they want to show the film too,’” Meyer said. “Even beyond just people who are in film production or theater.”
Myers talked to Karla Berry, director of the School of Media Arts, who helped him set up the event.
“What is special about this screening is that we are doing it, for not just people at Southern, but to show people at that stage that it is possible to do this,” Meyer said. “You know, not just to make a film, but to do it independently.”
Videographer Will Elliott can be reached at [email protected].
Advertisement
