For most of us spooky season comes around once a year – for Dusty Salas it’s a lifestyle lived year-round

When it comes to making a monster, Dusty Salas has all the right pieces and knows just how to put them together.

“I love being spooky,” Salas said. 

Walking through dark corridors and cobweb-filled alleys covered in blood and guts is just another day at the office for Salas, who is a performance manager at 13th Floor Haunted House in Denver.

For 12 seasons Salas has been returning to act as one of the monsters behind the mask at 13th Floor and is part of a team that helps create the scenes and stories that make Denverites feel true fear – all while continuing to terrorize willing customers.

After graduating from high school, Salas was looking for a way to continue performing when he found the ‘haunt’ at 13th Floor. It was the closest thing to the theater that he enjoyed so much in high school, so he took a chance and auditioned.

“My first time ‘scare acting’ I was a little nervous, I didn’t know exactly how to ‘scare act,’ but once I got into scene and into character, something inside of me just knew what to do,” said Salas.

The sinister pull of the haunted house kept luring him back in, and he returned the following season to continue scare acting. Amidst the rows of costumes, the seemingly endless bottles of face paint and fake blood, Salas became enchanted. 

“What made me want to keep coming back was the community that the haunted house creates,” Salas said as he was getting his monster makeup prepped. “But also, being able to express myself and break out of reality and get into another character’s persona.” 

Getting into character for Salas is transformative — both in appearance and with his personality — and allows him to escape the monotonous reality of the daily grind and routine that claims the lives of ordinary souls.   

“It makes me feel free,” said Salas. “Because I get to break out of that reality – even though my reality is spooky – to break out of that normal day-to-day life and be who I want to be.” 

A day ‘at the office’ for Salas includes building storylines, creating dialogue and getting into the mind of a monster by thinking about movement and how to embody a new character.  

“I really like playing zombies because it makes me feel more ‘creature’ — as in ‘not human’ — but I also like portraying clowns or an asylum patient,” Salas said with a smirk.   

Salas found his dwelling within the scare community, a place where he could express his creativity by working meticulously on writing new narratives for characters and breathing life into the atmospheric elements like a Frankenstein doctor.  

Creating a haunted house takes more than just good acting according to Salas, but also a variety of theatrical elements that help make scenes convincing such as set structures and props which aid the scenes in being more realistic.   

“I learned how to do some special effects like makeup and sculpting and molding and masks and prosthetics and helping with the set pieces,” said Salas, who is employed by 13^th Floors Haunted House year-round as his full-time “desk job.” 

Stitching together new attractions involves creating original storylines, innovative costume and makeup designs as well as cutting-edge scenic elements to keep guests coming back each year for more.  

Like ‘The Butcher’ with his body parts in a shed, Salas has collected all the skills needed to create fresh monstrosities.  

From foam work on large-scale set pieces, to the creation of new masks and even audio work using skills that he’s gained studying for his music degree, Salas has embedded himself into the identity of the 13^th Floor haunt.  

“One thing I wish more people were aware of is that this is really physical demanding role and job,” according to Salas. “Most people don’t think we go 100% and get into our characters and our scenes and try to make the experience very entertaining for all guests.” 

In the mix of everything Salas does, there is a theatrical performer at the core.

“It’s exciting to get that adrenaline rush,” Salas said. “I feed off of their energy and I feel like they can feel my energy that I put out to, and it makes me want to keep amping it up more and more.”

There are still parts of the job that you wouldn’t expect, even while working in a haunted house though, and Salas will attest to the oddities that happen nearly every week.

“Guests like to lose their stuff, especially their shoes. We collect a lot of shoes here.”