Fast Facts
Name: Ghosts and Legends of the Grand Strand
Location: 4818 Hwy. 17 S. (at Barefoot Landing)
North Myrtle Beach, SC 29582
Phone: 843-361-2700
Website: www.GhostShows.com
Show length: 20 minutes
Capacity: 55 seats
Admission: $8/Adults; $4/Youth ages 4-12; under 4 free.
Hours: Open daily (except Christmas) year ’round from 10am. Closing times vary with Barefoot Landing’s hours.
Other shows available: 90-minute séance show; a special guest storyteller series, and a treasure hunt.

Haunt aficionados frequently bemoan the fact that there are precious few dark attractions open year-round. For a haunting fix, most will pay a visit to Disney’s Haunted Mansion or the Tower of Terror, counting hitchhiking ghosts and dropping from terrifying heights. While the theme park classics are very entertaining, Haunters long to experience something new that will engage and inspire their imaginations. Such a place can now be found along the coastline of South Carolina, in the city of North Myrtle Beach where the new year-round Haunt Ghosts and Legends Theatre opened in the summer of 2003. Celebrating the haunted southern heritage of South Carolina’s “Grand Strand,” this attraction amazes and mystifies audiences on a daily basis 364 days a year.

South Carolina’s Grand Strand is a sixty-mile stretch of sandy white beach that has become one of the top vacation destinations in the United States. Second only to Orlando, Florida, in drive-in tourist traffic, the moderate climate and abundance of recreational opportunities of the Grand Strand draw over 13.5 million visitors a year. Ranked one of the country’s fastest growing metropolitan statistical areas, the Grand Strand has over 100 golf courses, 1500 restaurants, and numerous large theatres offering international recording artists and Broadway shows.

It is also the ideal location to experiment with a new style of Haunt; a ghosts and legends theatre where the ghosts tell their own stories.

Oliver Holler came up with the concept for the attraction after moving to North Myrtle Beach in 1993 with his wife Terry Holler. The couple has worked in technical theatre for a combined forty years of their young lives; at best estimates, they have personally helped to put on over 9,000 performances over the past four decades in locations from New York to Hawaii and Chicago to Texas. They have spent the last ten years applying their skills locally at just about every theatre along the Grand Strand.

After searching for years for a suitable location for the attraction, Oliver found a 900 square foot former Planet Hollywood T-shirt shop in the Barefoot Landing, an open air shopping complex in North Myrtle Beach. Finally, after ten years of incubating the concept, the lease was signed on March 3rd, 2003 (3/3/03) and the world premiere was held on Friday the 13th of June.

The set design for Ghosts and Legends was a classic plantation sitting room, complete with antiques and relics from the 1700’s, giving the audience a glimpse into the historic past of the Grand Strand. “I want visitors to feel as if they are surrounded by the experience, rather than separated by that invisible fourth wall of a traditional theatre,” says Oliver. The production showcases coastal ghosts who tell their own tales, then invite the audience to become a part of the age-old southern storytelling tradition by passing the stories on to future generations. The deceased speakers include Alice Flagg, who recalls her days of plantation life and untimely death as she searches the theatre for her lost engagement ring; Blackbeard, the most famous pirate to ever sail the Strand, who gives clues to hidden treasure; a former plantation slave who shares recollections of a low country monster known as The Boo Hag; and a specter known locally as the Gray Man of Pawley’s Island, a local harbinger of hurricanes. As the Gray Man warns visitors of an approaching storm, his appearance in the show is accompanied by a Category Four storm in the small theatre!

Terry Holler took on the job of Project Manager, scheduling and trying to stick to a schedule and budget. In order to create the thrilling effects, the Hollers called in Mark W. Spivey of Spivey Designs from Gastonia, North Carolina, to be the show’s technical director and effects designer. Mark’s animation skills earned him a position with the attractions division of Universal Studios, and even Disneyland has called upon his talents for several projects, including the Broadway version of The Lion King. “The three of us struggled, persuaded, coordinated, and dreamed the show into existence, with the help of family and friends, including the Editor and the Business Manager of a certain premier dark amusement magazine!” recalls Oliver, who took the thankless job title of Creative Nuisance. “Looking back on the names of these wonderful people [a complete list can be found in its entirety on the liner notes of the Ghosts and Legends musical CD slated for a May release], you’ll find that it is a relatively small group who accomplished the near-impossible in an unheard of amount of time.” In little over three months, they transformed a former retail store into a 55-seat theater themed as a beautiful southern plantation parlor filled with antiques and packed with special effects. Perfect for storytelling, the capacity provides an intimate experience with the ghostly action no more than a few feet from the seats.

Throughput is always a design criterion for Haunters, and the Ghosts and Legends Theatre is no exception. In order to handle a maximum number of patrons per show, bench style seating was chosen over other alternatives. To keep with the plantation room feel, eight individual handcrafted wooden bench sections were sanded, stained, and stenciled with a decorative pattern on the face to give them more of a furniture look. Oliver’s mother Susan Holler spent days of meticulous staining and detailing to make each and every leaf-and-skull pattern perfect. (Yes, when inspected closely you'll discover a skull every few feet, hidden within the design.) A clear varnish finished the appearance and the benches have a warm and homey feel.

One of the design challenges for this new style of Haunt was to surround the audience with the show, yet hide the source of the illusions. When the sound design called for a large subwoofer cabinet to be placed in the right rear of the theatre in clear view, the problem was solved by decorating the housing to look like an old trunk, complete with worn leather handles and antique hardware (removed from an actual period container.) There is a full range speaker hidden within the wall behind a portrait, and for a speaker that had to be placed in a bookcase, the staff took digital images of existing books on that same shelf, reproduced them on fabric, and created a false front to hide the speaker behind, blending with the actual books almost flawlessly!

Sound is a key element for the attraction. The voices of the ghosts tell their own story though speakers hidden throughout the theater. A Mackey 24 track/24 bit digital audio recorder plays the voices and sound effects through 2 Ultralink Pro mixers to engulf the audience in Dolby 5.1 Digital Surround. Thunder claps are aided in intensity by 2 custom-designed subwoofers, and the whole package is brought to full volume with 8 Sampson Studio amplifiers.

The custom sound effects and musical score were created by John Kilik. “The bulk of the sound effects for the Ghosts and Legends shows were recorded in and out of the field between February and May of 2003,” explains John. “Many of the recordings were made in my home studio with ordinary everyday items, many of which one would never think capable of being so befitting certain scenes.” Using a sensitive stereo microphone for most of the recorded outdoor sounds, it was important that there be as little extraneous noise as possible. Most people seldom notice all the interfering background noise around them until the sound is scrutinized up close. Air conditioners, cars, school buses, trucks of all sorts, motorcycles, and screaming kids can all make recording in the real world a challenge. Consequently, John chose to do a lot of the recordings at night. “I laugh when I think of what my neighbors must have been thinking,” recalls John. “I was trudging around through the marsh in my backyard with a flashlight and microphone, tossing spare tires or mason blocks into huge puddles at midnight, or jumping out of the holly bushes along my neighbor’s fence at two a.m., wielding a broom handle at invisible enemies and screaming attack cries. It was great fun.”

Musically, John often finds that he can compose a better melody by making it lyric based. Most of the music used in the Ghosts and Legends shows has words, though they are not on the soundtrack. “I would often write one verse and a little bit of a bridge just to have something to anchor the melody to, like the main theme, Ghosts and Legends of the Grand Strand or the Francis Marion (Swamp Fox) theme, and the underscore from the Alice segment,” says John.

Together, Oliver and John spent many, many hours mixing and sequencing the entire production in the actual theater. “Often we worked tirelessly well into the night, subsidizing consciousness with an endless supply of candy, caffeinated drinks and other sugar-laden foods,” recalls John. “The end result is a wonderful 3 dimensional, fully kinetic experience unlike any other on the Carolina Coast. It is the only show that so charmingly entertains with the rich local culture of the Carolinas.”

Over 70 miniature [Par Cans?] lighting instruments orchestrate the light show controlled by 10 dimmer packs and 15 relay packs, all programmed on a Macintosh PowerBook G3 laptop running LCedit software. Lights dim up and dim down on specific items in the room to draw attention to the action, and one Martin Intelligent Light is programmed to flicker patterns that simulate a ghostly presence moving around the room. Just like the sound equipment, the lighting fixtures are hidden from view. Lighting for the stage is recessed behind a coffered ceiling beam that runs the full width of the room, and the intelligent fixture is hidden above the ceiling and protrudes through a hole near the chandelier.

The show is closer to an actual Haunted House than to their Halloween counterparts. In the typical October or year-round Haunted walk-through attraction, actors dressed as creatures pop out to scare and interact with patrons trying to get away. In the Ghosts and Legends Theatre, the ghosts themselves are seldom seen, but their presence is made known through cold movements of air, wisps of fog, and the physical interaction with their surroundings. Cobwebs are sprayed throughout the parlor and help to animate the room when they blow in the moving air currents. “Imagine being caught in the middle of a Category Four hurricane and having the legendary Gray Man appear right in front of you to warn of the coming disaster,” says Terry Holler.

In addition to the Gray Man’s storm, the show utilizes numerous special effects to further the storytelling experience. Objects in the room move by themselves, ghosts travel across the room, thunder rumbles, books are disturbed, curtains blow from unseen winds, the chandelier swings, drawers fly open, a complicated armature of the Gray Man ghost flies into the room, a spritz or two of water (chilled of course), and doors fling open with no human intervention. Air for the animations is provided silently by two Craftsman 25-gallon air compressors.

One of the Oliver’s favorite effects is also one of the most subtle. As one of the ghosts sits down in an easy chair to chat with the audience, a pillow on the chair compresses under his ethereal weight. The movement is ever so slight, but when combined with the lighting, sound effects, and a ghostly sigh much like the utterance an old man might make when “taking a load off,” the total effect rewards those who are paying attention with a sly bit of magic.

The attraction that you see today has gone through some changes from its grand opening. In the first few days of operation, Oliver watched and polled his audience for what they liked and did not like and how it could be better. He noticed that the audience started to get restless when there were no animations taking place. Originally the theatre was to perform two different shows, alternating each half hour in a sort of multi-element approach. This proved to be too confusing to patrons who wanted to know which show was the better of the two. Not long after opening, Oliver made some adjustments to address what he had learned from his patrons. He took the best, most animated ghost stories from the two scripts and compiled them into one show.

The biggest hurdle for the attraction to overcome has been trying to explain to the passerby what exactly the Ghosts and Legends experience is. It is not your typical Haunted House, or a live play or movie, or a 4D motion simulator ride, although it has aspects of each. Originally named Ghosts and Legends of the Grand Strand, the name of the attraction was altered to Ghosts and Legends Theatre to help people understand the advertising.

The next experiment will be a late night theatrical séance for Ghosts and Legends. Half the room benches in the theatre can be removed, allowing enough open area for a table and ten chairs to accommodate brave souls willing to attempt communication with the dead. “We’re continually adding and adjusting effects in the show, not to mention maintaining the existing elements,” says Oliver. The authentic set dressing continues to evolve as antiques are discovered at local estate sales and incorporated into the interior’s decor. Many of the items found within the sitting room are relics from the Holler family past; the black bear rug which hangs on the rear wall and the wild boar mount next to the fireplace were once owned by Oliver’s grandfather, and the chandelier hanging in the exit alcove once hung in the home of “Amaw” Holler, Oliver’s grandmother.

Unexpected success in the Ghosts and Legends gift shop has prompted Oliver and Terry to search for themed items at gift shows around the country. Ghost story books and pirate paraphernalia are big sellers, along with several souvenir items branded with the attraction’s name or logo.

So far the experiment is a success. In its present version, Ghosts and Legends Theatre is a twenty minute interactive show in which animations and special effects portraying regional ghosts tell their stories to the audience members. The entire theatre comes to life around them, offering a unique view of the 300 years of history and legend that have earned this region of South Carolina the reputation of being the “Most Haunted Place in the World.” The Ghosts and Legends Theatre is a first and one of a kind year-round Haunted experience, covering southern lore specifically related to the Grand Strand area. “Guests have the opportunity for a genuine Myrtle Beach experience, learning something about our area while being entertained,” explains Oliver. Visitors are not only educated and enlightened during the experience; they may even be moved by some of the spirits’ incredible tales. At the end of the show, the ghosts ask only that you keep them alive by becoming a part of the southern heritage of storytelling and share the incredible Haunted tales with others.Leonard Pickel is the editor of Haunted Attraction Magazine and thanks to Ghosts and Legends Theatre now knows how to miter cut crown molding! He can be reached at 704-366-0857 or by email at info@hauntcon.com.