If you know anything about the Haunted Mansion's developmental history, you know about the Imagineers' difficulties in finding exactly the right mix of the frightening and the funny, but no one seems to notice that there was another, equally important balance that needed to be struck: the balance between Scary A and Scary B.  After all, there is more than one kind of fear.  When our guests aren't giggling, should the Mansion slowly give rise to an overwhelming sense of horror through the use of suggestion and eerie atmospherics, or should it pop things right into your face and scare the bleeding crap out of you?  The choice is between (1) driving them slowly insane and (2) giving them heart attacks.  Between two such worthy objectives there can be no easy decision.


Choices, choices...

The tug-of-war between fear and fun has been given several clever names (Scary vs. Silly, Light vs. Fright, Kooky vs. Spooky).  What should we call this other dichotomy?  Nameless Dread vs. Severed Head?   Too long.  Chills vs. Thrills?  Better.  Hey, how about Brr vs. Boo?  All in favor of that one, raise your hand.  All opposed?  I saw only one hand, and it was a yea, so I guess that means Brr vs. Boo wins.  Isn't democracy great?


Brr and Boo

The distinction between Brr and Boo is clear enough in theory but not always obvious in practice.  There is a kind of gray scale between them. For example, you can create a tense situation with loud noises that brings the victim almost to the point of panic (Brr or Boo?), and you can have ghostly manifestations that are so distant and detached that they aren't particularly alarming (Boo or Brr?). Nevertheless, gray scales do not disprove the reality and distinguishability of black and white.  We all know the difference between the kind of fear caused by a sudden shock and the skin-crawling kind you get from a creepy environment. It's the difference between heart thumps and goose bumps, between mouths wide open in terror and eyes wide open in terror.

It is also true that the two can coexist rather cozily.  You can have a heavy atmosphere of foreboding providing the environment for a sudden scare, going from Brr to Boo in a flash.  Think of the Attic scene before Constance moved in, when it was a dark and sinister place violently punctuated by that most quintessential Boo, the screaming pop-up spook.

(Oooooo...pop-ups!  May I digress for a moment? Yes I may; I graciously grant me permission. Why, thank me very much. I'm quite welcome. The blast-up types are the best pop-ups.  DL had two in its attic from 1969 until 2005. For those who have never seen them, here's the first one:

This whole preamble (less the digression) was necessary because I think we need something like the Brr vs. Boo tool in order to facilitate discussion of an unknown chapter in the development of the Corridor of Doors.  The COD is a Brr masterpiece.*  It's intense, and yet it's all about atmosphere.  There are no visible threats.  Nothing jumps at you.  But did you know that the Imagineers at one point thought about scrapping this approach in favor of Boo?  We'll get to all that, but if we're going to delve into the development history of the Corridor, it might be helpful to take another look at the original inspiration.


Once Again, The Haunting

What, again?  Yes, again. Because believe it or not, folks, there's still a lot of juice left in that old lemon; and furthermore, we need to go past the details and get to lofty concepts and all that neat, heady stuff. Let's quickly review, and then start squeezin' anew. To begin, it is common knowledge that the bulging door gag in the COD was inspired by a scene in Robert Wise's 1963 supernatural thriller, The Haunting.