“The Founder”
Donnie Hoover juggles a full-time job and a growing family, yet still finds the time to build his own businesses where he expresses his true passions… Horror and Wrestling!
On the surface, Donnie seems like your typical middle-aged Midwest American dad/family man – married father of 4 daughters and grandfather of 3. By day, he works for the city of Columbus, attends his daughters’ school events, and leads a (sort of) normal existence.
For most of us, that would be more than enough to keep us busy… but Donnie is a uniquely talented guy.
In addition to his full-time job and family responsibilities, he somehow finds the time to promote two businesses of his own: He’s a wrestling promoter and founder of New Ohio Wrestling, and now for the last two years, he’s been one of the masterminds behind central Ohio’s premiere outdoor haunted attraction – The Trail of Tormented Terror!
Donnie has been a horror fanatic from way back. He remembers exactly when it all started – when his dad took the kids, who were expecting a family-friendly evening at the movies, to see One Dark Night (1982). Once he realized it was a horror film, going into the movie he was “terrified… but leaving the theater after it was over… I was fascinated, excited, and hooked,” he says. “The adrenaline rush I got from that movie was amazing and I wanted more.”
Like most kids his age, Donnie was also fascinated by pro wrestling with all its showmanship and spectacle as well as the phenomenal skill of the athletes. One day in 1997, he saw a commercial for a local school that trained aspiring pro wrestlers. He contacted the school, and as he put it, “I went for a tryout and never looked back.”
He wrestled professionally for several years all over the Midwest region and Canada, making valuable contacts along the way. Unfortunately, after five years as a wrestler, he had to take a step back from active participation in the sport. With mounting injuries, not to mention the responsibilities and expenses of his growing family, he realized that what he needed at that time in his life was a garden-variety Job.
Nonetheless, Donnie stayed involved in the pro wrestling world and leveraged his contacts and experience to make the transition from athlete to promoter. Since 2015, he’s been the force behind New Ohio Wrestling, which promotes regional live wrestling events.
Meanwhile, his love for the horror genre grew over the years. In addition to being a slasher film enthusiast (he says, “There’s nothing scarier… than the (evil) thoughts and actions of an actual human being”), Donnie was a big fan of haunted attractions. He even dabbled at bit here and there in the haunt industry, occasionally working at the ScareAtorium or various home haunts as a volunteer just for the fun of it. But the idea of creating a professional outdoor haunt hadn’t occurred to him until the day he was negotiating with a venue about a wrestling event.
While discussing an upcoming event with Kickmaster Footgolf, the owner mentioned that he thought it might be fun to put some Halloween theming out on the course… perhaps some scarecrows or werewolves… maybe even put some real people in costume out there to give the customer an unexpected scare.
They all laughed at the idea, but after a little further brainstorming, the owner thought it might be cool if he could figure out a way to put a type of haunted trail or something out along the wood line of the course.
That was when, as Donnie says, “the lightbulb went off in my head.” He told the owner that if they were serious about the idea, he would be happy to reach out to a friend who was one of the best and most respected haunters in the region.
In fact, Donnie had been kicking around the idea of doing a haunted attraction with that longtime friend, Keith Newsome, for a few years. Keith is a veteran of the HA industry with over 15 years as manager of The ScareAtorium and has been involved with the Midwest Haunters Convention for many years.
Donnie contacted Keith that very night to pitch the idea. As it turns out, the timing was impeccable, as Keith had recently resigned from managing The ScareAtorium.
Donnie sold him on the concept of an outdoor haunted trail, created completely from scratch, “going back to the old days of building a haunt family and not a haunt business… to make it fun and passionate again” and not “just another job.”
They began to get excited about the project, about bringing together a team of family and old friends to help build a new and original outdoor haunt like in the good old days. With Keith’s extensive experience, he took on the role of manager to lead the team and provide direction, while Donnie and the rest of the crew would handle the heavy lifting and building.
All that was needed now was a name and a concept. Thus, The Trail of Tormented Terror was born.
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The determined troupe of haunters got a late start on the Trail in mid-August 2017. At that time, there was no trail… no concept… no plan of action. With a planned launch in the second week of October, they had six weeks to build a professional haunted attraction out of nothing. As Donnie put it, “we put together our initial team and pretty much just grabbed some clippers and rakes and dug into the woods headfirst and just started creating.”
Donnie describes his devoted core group as friends and family who are willing to devote many hours of their time for construction and building out scenes, decorating and bringing the scenes to life… people who run the lights, sounds, and fog machines… and then there are the people who come in just to be the ones who do the scaring and “release their inner monsters.”
Most people who work on the Trail have a particular skill set, so whatever they’re good at is where they’re usually put to work. But everyone’s always learning, and the Trail also offers “on-the-job” training for those who want to branch out. “If we have someone who wants to help build but isn’t experienced with it, we have them jump in with us, and we show them.”
For aspiring haunt actors, training classes are offered throughout the year, and Donnie organizes get-togethers throughout the year where professional haunters come in and train the staff on different aspects of the scare business.
“I really enjoy these meetings myself,” says Donnie, “and even though I’m a co-owner of The Trail, I still sit there with my mouth shut and my ears open trying to learn and soak in as much of the information being offered as I can.”
Many of the staff, in fact, work in some or all of the different jobs it takes to do the Trail. Donnie says, “I couldn’t be more proud and thankful for the family we are building here.”
What kind of frights can you expect to see on the Trail of Tormented Terror? Donnie describes the Trail as “…more of your ‘old-school’ style haunt… We don’t grab you, cuss at you, act perverse, or terrorize you… we want to scare you with our acting and our presentation and not resort to abusing and humiliating you to get there.”
Among the scares that haunt the Trail are creepy creatures like scarecrows, werewolves, zombies, cannibal hillbillies, clowns and vampires. There are jump scares and loud noises as well as dark quiet paths and an actual outdoor UV 3D clown scene complete with 3D glasses.
Still, Donnie claims his favorite part of The Trail is the off-season work: the training meetings and the designing, building, and creating with his extended Haunt Family.
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The Trail’s first season saw nearly 600 visitors – not bad, considering that the idea was conceived and executed in only two months, and the haunt was open for just six days in its first season.
Encouraged by the enthusiasm of the previous season’s visitors and staff, for the Trail’s second season, the haunters got to work starting in late spring as soon as the weather broke. A few more key players joined the team, and working as much as possible throughout the week and on weekends, the Trail of Tormented Terror opened for its current season on September 21st and is expecting the number of visitors to far surpass last year’s total.
For the time being, The Trail is still mostly a labor of love and passion for Donnie, Keith, and the many people who have personally invested their own money and time in the project, but they fully expect the haunt to be profitable in the coming seasons. Reviews have been very positive, and Donnie has big plans to grow and improve the Trail with each Halloween season.
“So far, these first two seasons, we’ve gotten so many compliments on how great our haunt is and that they can’t believe how much we’ve done with so little. People are actually surprised at how scary it really is.
We’ve also had parents come to us thanking us for creating a haunt that they can actually bring their kids too. The kids have a blast and we’ve even had cases where the parents were more scared then the kids.
…We wanted to go back to how we remembered it, and the family atmosphere and the camaraderie that is being built here is priceless.”
What direction does Donnie see for the future of the Trail of Tormented Terror and New Ohio Wrestling?
In addition to new and fun ideas involving his partnerships with local and regional venues, Donnie is excited about his unique concept of WrestleHorror, a real niche that he believes is just waiting to be filled. He reports that he’s getting a lot of positive feedback.
Perhaps it was inevitable that his two passions would someday collide, and Donnie would find a way to merge them into an exciting new genre…
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Basically, Donnie’s just a responsible adult member of society… a devoted dad and grandfather and working guy who just happens to manage wrestlers and operate a fabulous haunted attraction.
In other words, Donnie is one of those rare individuals who gets to live out his childhood dreams in his “spare time!”
The Trail of Tormented Terror is located at 1710 Dyer Rd in Grove City, OH. This is the final weekend of the 2018 season. You can walk the trail – if you dare! – on Friday and Saturday (October 26 and 27) from 8 pm to midnight. Admission is $15 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and under. Click here to visit the website!
New Ohio Wrestling has an upcoming event (NOW 10: Fields vs Taylor) on November 10th at the Kickmaster Footgolf facility in Grove City, OH. Visit the website!