‘The Staff Told Me They Are Not Supposed To Do That’: Utah Woman Goes To Haunted House. Then An Actor Takes Her To A Room

Going to a haunted house is supposed to be scary fun, the kind where you scream, laugh, and leave with a good story to tell.

But for one Utah woman, what should have been a thrilling Halloween outing turned into a terrifying experience. It left her filing a police report.

Her account raises serious questions about where the line should be drawn between scaring customers and crossing into dangerous territory.

Woman Has Beyond Creepy Haunted House Experience

Content creator Trinidy Barnard (@trinidybarn) recounts a disturbing experience she says she had at a haunted house in Utah. She says an actor’s behavior went far beyond acceptable boundaries. Her video on the matter has over 229,000 views.

Barnard explains she went to the haunted house with approximately 10 people, including her then-boyfriend.

The group got glow stick necklaces. The necklaces signal to the haunted house actors that participants are willing to be touched during the experience.

“I was like, ‘Yeah. This is how you get scared, right?'” she recalls of her reasoning to wear a necklace. She also notes she’d had similar experiences at other haunted houses before.

However, what happened next was unlike anything she’d encountered.

She claims that an actor wearing a doll mask immediately singled her out from the group, grabbed her throat, and pinned her against the furniture while pressing his body against hers. She says the actor whispered, “‘I’ll be seeing you later,'” before letting her continue.

As the group moved through the attraction, the same actor repeatedly appeared and targeted Barnard specifically, she says.

Singled Out And Separated From Her Group

Barnard says the situation escalated dramatically when a bag was thrown over her head. She says she was dragged away from her group.

“They were lifting me. And I had no idea where I was going,” she says in the video. “At this point, I really couldn’t hear anyone.”

Barnard says she was taken to what she describes as a triangle-shaped room and laid flat on her back in pitch darkness. When the bag was removed from her head, the same actor was on top of her.

“He’s pressed up against me, like, laying flat on top of my body. And he’s whispering in my ear,” she says in the video, recounting that he made inappropriate comments while she was pinned down and unable to move.

Barnard describes the actor pressing his mask against her lips “to the point where we were, like, kissing through a mask.”

When she was finally released, she says she found herself separated from her group and trapped with strangers. “That group was even weirded out that I was not with my group,” she says in the video.

She says she removed her glow stick necklace and began running toward an exit, despite staff members yelling at her to get off her phone and stop running.

“I was so scared,” she says in the video.

Did He Get Fired?

After reuniting with her group and explaining what happened, Barnard says she contacted the haunted house manager and called police.

“‘That’s not what’s supposed to happen,'” she recalls other staff members telling her.

She says the manager apologized and promised she wouldn’t have to see the actor again. Yet, the manager ended up bringing him in for a conversation, she says.

“As soon as I saw his face, I turned back around and went back,” she says in the video. “I told [the manager], I was, like, ‘You promised me you weren’t gonna make me see him, and here we are.'”

Barnard also criticized the responding police officer’s approach, claiming the officer diminished her experience and asked, “‘Do you wanna be a victim?'”

Despite filing a police report and requesting the actor be terminated, Barnard says she never learned his name and doesn’t know if action was taken. “I don’t believe that that’s out of character for him. I believe he’s done this before,” she says in the video.

What Are The Rules For Haunted House Contact?

The haunted attraction industry has ongoing debates about appropriate boundaries when it comes to physical contact with guests. That’s according to the Haunted Attraction Network, a leading news resource for haunted attractions that reaches up to 100 million people globally.

Industry professionals generally agree that when full-contact haunted houses are offered, clear parameters must be established for both actors and guests. The basic rule in full-contact houses follows “lap-dance rules.” That means performers can touch guests, but guests cannot touch performers.

Swenson recommends that actors be instructed to only touch guests from the armpits up and from the knees down, avoiding the torso area.

“We want guests to feel frightened, but, in most cases, we don’t want them to feel violated,” the article reads.

Crucially, haunted attractions must inform guests multiple times before entry if physical contact will occur. Haunted attractions should “make sure guests know, going into it, what to expect” through appropriate marketing.

What Barnard describes in her account—being separated from her group, having a bag placed over her head, being dragged to an isolated room, pinned down, and subjected to unwanted intimate contact—goes far beyond industry-recommended guidelines for appropriate guest interaction, even in full-contact haunted houses.

Commenters React

Based on the location and the comments she liked, Barnard seems to have loosely identified the haunted house. Viewers claimed to have similar experiences there.

“Omg. This same thing happened to me probably 5 years ago at I believe this same place. Took me out of the place, really sweaty, took me away from the group. Hearing this makes me think it was the same person. I’ve never been to a haunted house since,” a top comment read.

“Omg this happened to my sister at the same place,they locked her in a coffin she was so scared,” a person said.

“Same thing happened to me at the same place in middle school. the bag, the choke slam, the whispering in my ear, separation from my group – ALL OF THIS WHILE I WAS 14 BTW,” a commenter shared.

BroBible reached out to Barnard for comment via Instagram and TikTok direct message and to the haunted house in question via email.