There’s a very specific type of person you’ll find at any horror event. They’re not there for the haunted houses. They may not even enjoy being scared.
They are there for the scare actors. More specifically, for those scare actors.
Somewhere between the rise of dark romance, BookTok, and the growing fascination with attractive men playing terrifying characters, audiences have become increasingly drawn to the very characters meant to frighten them. The fascination has even begun to spill into the real world through horror events, creating an unexpected second attraction: the scary actors themselves. For dark romance readers, haunted attractions provide the perfect setting for the mysterious, intimidating character archetype. The actor performs a role designed to get a reaction from the audience, but sometimes that reaction isn’t exactly fear. Suddenly, the guy holding a chainsaw isn’t the monster anymore: he is the love interest.
When the Scare Actor Becomes the Main Character
The internet has always had a complicated relationship with fictional characters, with social media only fueling the fascination even more through videos regularly circulating online of scare actors. Give Gen Z a morally questionable character dressed in black, and someone will make an edit, a fan account, and an entire argument about why he is “actually misunderstood.“
The appeal is not necessarily the person underneath the makeup—it’s the character’s performance. An actor walks toward you, and somewhere in the crowd, someone thinks, “Wait… why is he kind of…“. That small moment turns into a 7-second TikTok that reaches thousands of people who were never even at the event.
That distinction matters because horror attractions are fundamentally built around performance. Hersheypark’s Dark Nights, for example, has found itself in the center of this phenomenon, as its scare actors have become an attraction of their own. The event uses performers throughout haunted houses and scare zones, turning the park into an immersive theatrical environment. But recently audiences have started to interact with that performance differently. They’re not just asking, “Did he scare me?”; they’re asking, “Did he notice me?”
This attention has landed on specific performers, turning some of them into personalities far beyond the park itself. Fryboy, ItzArcher, and other members of Hersheypark’s Decayed Brigade have developed significant online followings around their performances. The Daily Dot reported in 2025 that one TikTok filmed by a park guest featuring the iconic duo gained over 5 million views and received more than 4,000 comments. Such popularity has created a cycle that traditional advertising techniques cannot replicate. A guest sees a performer on their FYP, then another video… then another.
Hersheypark’s 2026 Dark Nights guide promotes a Slider Showcase featuring members of the Decayed Brigade, turning the performers into something guests can actively seek out rather than simply encounter by chance. Instead of seeing a haunted house or a group of people screaming, viewers see personalities. They see the makeup, the characters, the interactions, and the performers themselves. The actor creates attention. The audience shares the actor. The actor becomes associated with Hersheypark. Suddenly, the park becomes somewhere people want to visit to see the performer in person.
And Then SeaWorld Said: “Why Not Make a Section for Them?”
Hersheypark isn’t the only event capitalizing off the recent rise. SeaWorld’s Howl-O-Scream has begun incorporating romantic and dark romance aesthetics into its 2026 programming, including the phrase “Good Girls Go Bad for Bad Guys.”
The difference is that Howl-O-Scream is not simply allowing audiences to make connections themselves; it’s acknowledging the fantasy outright. The tagline itself sounds like it could have been pulled straight from a dark romance novel, which is precisely why it works.
where’s the line?
The fantasy only works because everyone understands, at its core, it’s just a fantasy. A scare actor can stare you down, flirt with you, or play into the mysterious “bad guy” persona, but underneath the costume is still a person doing a job.
That becomes especially important and harder to maintain once social media turns a performer into a personality.
It’s one thing to make a funny TikTok about a character or enjoy an interaction the performer initiates. But it’s another to treat the actor like the fictional character they’re playing. Something social can tend to blur the lines quickly. A performer can even become so closely associated with an attraction that the identity of the person behind the costume can quickly get lost.
Maybe the strangest part is that the monster is no longer always the main attraction. A good scare lasts a few seconds, but a memorable actor turns those few seconds into a TikTok, a fan account, and a reason to come back next weekend. That’s the strange new life of the scare actor. They’re not just performers hiding in the fog anymore. They can become characters, creators, and even the reason people buy a ticket.
The haunted house might be where you meet them. But sometimes, the thing you come hoping to fear is the very thing you end up coming back for.
