Six Pines haunt delivers new thrills and chills

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This article was published 02/10/2021 (1778 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

James and Judy Thevenot are no strangers to share their love of Halloween with the rest of the province. Year after year, they are delighted to welcome new guests at Six Pines who dare to brave the family’s actor-driven haunt each October.

“For me, it’s when you scare a person and they drop on the ground, and they are really scared,” James Thevenot said.

“We’ve had people ask to leave and some have had accidents.”

“We’re crazy,” Judy said, as she laughed.

“You know I said when we were doing our training, the look on the kids’ faces that are our actors, these guys have been working here since they were little, and just to see how it all comes together is special.”

For 23 years and counting, the Thevenot family is continuing to delight and fright Halloween fanatics at Six Pines Haunted Attractions and the group has no plans to slow down their efforts.  

“It takes a lot, we start in August, sometimes before that it all depends on how our other businesses do like our petting zoo,” James said.

“Since COVID-19 we’ve had a lot of time to go through things and we’ve really gone overboard on the stuff that we’ve done.”

“We take every single room, take everything out, make a clean slate and redo it all, everything is new every year,” said Thomas Thevenot, James and Judy’s son.

This year, the family has created four new haunts for their 2021 season; Chewy’s Playground featuring a haunted house full of demented clowns, The Bayou where monsters lurk in the swamp, Enter Sandman where the Metallica song has influenced nightmares for all, and the Hillbilly Run where you will not want to become the next dinner guest for those waiting in the shadows.

The family said their favourite movies and feedback from the 75 to 100 actors they are able to hire each year help generate inspiration for future haunts and themes.  

“The best thing we do is we get off the farm and go for a drive,” Judy said.

“There’s four of us in the family that are doing this. We talk about what we want to see and it changes just about the time until we’re setting up. 

“Because we each run a haunt, we each put our own spin on things,” James said.

“We’ve never done the same things twice aside from our Chewy and Wolfman characters. I guess it all depends on who you are. We don’t like going to the same production over and over.” 

The Thevenots said each haunt will have a different approach to scare for those who wish to check out each one.

“The clowns are a circus kind of feel to it, very hyper in your face,” James said.

The bayou is more of a very visual kind of acting theatrical feel. The barn of doom is more of a blood, gore kind of thing.”

The family said their investment in the Halloween spirit has never waned and through the actors they’ve been able to hire, the group has become a tight-knit community since 1998. 

“We bought the farm and it was already doing the school tours, and James and I were both Halloween fanatics,” Judy said.

“We said, ‘this would be a great place to do a Halloween haunt and 23 years ago nobody in Manitoba was doing this,” James said.

“Our actors make up the haunt, it’s how we place them, how we scare you, it’s not the same thing. They aren’t just jumping out at you, there are different techniques of doing this.”

James has shown Thomas, now 19, the ropes of set, costume and model designs at the farm. For 10 years, Thomas has helped his family with construction and character inspiration and worked with the actors they hire. 

“It’s like getting into character and being on stage, you have that role and you’re that till the very end of the night,” Thomas said.

“It’s like a switch flips and they are a totally different person. It’s fun, it’s like a big family, our big extended haunt family.”

For James and Judy, it’s seeing their kids involvement and returning actors to Six Pines that makes the Halloween season a delight.

“That’s why we do what we do,” James said.

“The actors and actresses that we have, we have one that has been with us for 23 years, and another for 10, 11 years.”

“We have an actress named Val, she celebrated her 18th and now 25th birthday with us and has been doing it all those years,” Judy said.

Guests attending Six Pines will need to be fully vaccinated and show proof with their ID and QR codes upon entry. The haunted attraction runs every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from Oct. 1 to Oct. 31 including Halloween night. 

For tickets and more information, visit sixpineshaunted.com