The Design of Fear: An Artist's Hauntings and Creations, from Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion and Beyond

How the Haunts Happen

When former Disney artist RJ Ogren left the Mouse, he began his journey in the macabre, designing haunted attractions across the country, from hayrides to the Queen Mary. Armed with black-light paint and his fiendish imagination, RJ bent his Disney training to the design of fear.

While working at Walt Disney World, RJ did what most of us would love to do: he walked through attractions like the Haunted Mansion before the park opened, when the rides were running but empty of guests, looking for imperfections or damage that he would repair in his on-site studio.

From there, RJ went into business for himself as a "fear designer", specializing in custom-painted, 3-D, haunted rooms and attractions, some of them in places, such as the Queen Mary, already haunted by their own ghosts — and RJ isn't ashamed to admit that he may have run into a few of those ghosts himself.

The Design of Fear is a diary-like account of RJ's career, starting with the Haunted Mansion and continuing through indoor and outdoor "scare zones", through the boiler rooms of ocean liners and under the flapping folds of tents pitched in the wilderness.

If you're ready ... walk this way....