Scorch turns up the heat at Halloween attraction

The deadpan gaze of Scorch the clown fixates on an unsuspecting person in the dirt lot of the Freakling Bros. Trilogy of Terror haunted houses.

With gravel crunching beneath his feet, he lurks toward the man until he stands right behind him.

Feeling Scorch’s presence, the man breathes with anxiety, slowly trying to walk away only to find he is still being followed and each step is now synchronized with the honk of a bicycle horn.

Scorch, a fire-breathing, demented clown for Freakling Bros. Trilogy of Terror at 4245 S. Grand Canyon Drive, along with another ghoulish character spend each night circling outside the three houses scaring all who are waiting.

“We own the parking lot,” he says. “We wanna see you miserable.”

When not tormenting guests, Scorch is mild-mannered, 47-year-old Warren Ross, the single father of two teenagers who works for the Clark County School District and volunteers for his church.

“I really like the quiet,” he says. “I got saved a few years ago. My church is so supportive of me. They love to have an evil clown in their congregation. They can separate fiction from reality and know it’s just for entertainment.”

Ross developed an infatuation for clowns when he was a kid listening to the rock band Kiss.

Around 12, he started to learn the art of fire-breathing against his parents’ wishes.

“I’ve done it for about 34 years,” he says.

From there, the idea of Scorch was born.

Ross had been to Freakling Bros. haunted houses in the past.

In 2008, he decided to audition for them in hopes of becoming an actor.

Duke Mollner, who created the Freakling Bros., says each year nearly 200 people come to audition to be an actor at one of their three houses.

“People think it’s all fun, which it is,” Mollner says. “They don’t realize this is back-breaking work. You have to sit, confined to an area for hours each night.”

They hire about 40 or 50 actors each year.

“We hire about 20 to 25 new actors,” he says. “More than half are returning actors. It’s a strong cast.”

In an actor, Mollner is looking for three things.

“The most important thing is they must love to scare the hell out of people,” he says.

People must commit to all 23 nights.

“If they miss one night, it just throws everything off,” he adds.

He says they also must have enthusiasm.

Each year, sometime in August or early September, Mollner and his son JT sit in one of the banquet rooms of Joe’s Crab Shack, bringing actor after actor into the room.

Within a one- to two-minute conversation, they know who will be a good fit for the company.

In 2008, a plain-clothed Ross strolled into the dining room and handed the Mollners his resume listing skills such as fire-breathing and the ability to do magic tricks.

“We thought he was way overqualified for us,” Mollner says. “We didn’t think he would enjoy working for peanuts. So, we didn’t give him a call back.”

But when it was time for callbacks the next day, Mollner saw Ross amble in wearing his full clown makeup and gear.

Mollner went through all 87 callbacks before talking to Ross.

“I figure no one would wait through this,” he says.

But Ross did.

“He said, ‘I really want to work for you guys,’ ” Mollner recalls.

Then Ross asked if Mollner wanted to see him blow fire.

Walking to the parking lot, Ross took a swig of oil from a bottle, tilted his head up and blew a 25-foot fireball, according to Mollner.

“Scorch was hired right there,” Mollner says.

On one of his first nights, Ross says he was told he needed to be scarier.

“I said, ‘I tell you what, I’ll go all out, and you tell me if I need to scale it back,’ ” Ross says.

Later that night, with the Mollners watching, Ross went up to a family with a child.

“I said, ‘Do you know what an Amber Alert is?’ ” Ross recalls.

The parents were mortified and the child was terrified, but the Mollners were amused.

“If I don’t get a complaint by my second night, I’m not doing my job,” Ross says. “This isn’t Disneyland you’re going to.”

Ross’ favorite scare was a family with multiple children.

When they got out of their car and spotted Scorch creeping toward them, they got back in.

The mother was amused watching the clown toy with her children, who locked themselves in the car.

“So, I went up to her and asked if I could have the keys,” Ross says.

She obliged and handed over the keys.

Scorch opened the door and climbed into the driver-side door, starting the car.

“I started it and put it in drive,” he says. “The kids all jumped out and ran away. I’m assuming they ran home. The mother was just watching, laughing.”

Aside from the haunted house, the clown costume comes out for other events such as Freakshow Wrestling.

“I’m in the costume at least once a month throughout the year,” he says.

But during October, Ross gets to embrace his inner tormentor with Freakling Bros.

Each day after work, he rushes across town from Henderson to the Trilogy of Terror setup.

He says the frustration of being rushed and dealing with afternoon traffic is good for his character.

Sitting in the back trailer behind one of the houses, Ross begins the process of applying his makeup for the opening night of Trilogy of Terror.

“I can do it in as little as 45 minutes,” he says. “I like to take about an hour and 20 minutes to do it right.”

After his face is covered with a base of white makeup, he applies the giant red smile and then starts working on the eyes.

Already clad in a shirt with cut-off sleeves — there is a clown face on the front of the shirt — Ross adds a few more accents to his costume.

First a spiked collar followed by spiked arm cuffs that cover from wrist to elbow.

He finishes getting ready as his fellow actors start dressing for the evening.

“We wanna hear more screams from this house than any other house,” Markus Christiansen, one of the workers, says to the actors working the clown house.

The sun is just about to set on a Friday night, and Scorch is ready for an evening of screams.

He already has scary lines in his mind to spook the crowds.

“I have about a half-hour worth of lines I use on the crowd,” he says. “It takes them about that long to make their way through the lines. Then I just cycle through the lines again for a new crowd.”

Some of his go-to lines: “That noise you’ll hear outside your house tonight will be me.”

While talking to patrons, he spots another person who oozes with discomfort.

Inching toward a girl who wears her fright on her face as prominent as Scorch’s clown makeup, she shrieks in terror while trying to back away.

But alas, Scorch corners her as her boyfriend — maybe ex-boyfriend now — laughs in encouragement.

And that cycle repeats throughout the night.

About once every hour, he will take out his oil and spend five minutes blowing flames in the dirt lot as passers-by watch in admiration and applaud.

“I used to do it every 15 minutes,” he says. “But it got old after a while.”

This is his last year as a fire-breathing clown for Freakling Bros.

“Breathing fire for more than 30 years comes with its health problems,” he says referring to the potential of chemical pneumonia and dental and gum problems. “I figure since this is the last year for the clown house feature, I’ll retire with it.”

But Scorch will live on.

Ross says he has been approached by networks to appear on various reality television shows.

“There is one about people you wouldn’t think were Christians,” he says. “There is also a movie in the works being filmed at the clown motel in Tonopah.”

He is still waiting to see what gets picked up.

“So I’m still gonna be Scorch,” he says. “Scorch was always a Freakling Bros. character first.”

Contact reporter Michael Lyle at mlyle@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5201. Follow @mjlyle on Twitter.