11-Year-Old Doesn't Let a Little Thing Like Getting Stabbed With an Actual Knife by a Haunted House Worker Ruin His Experience

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Ah, autumn. Late September turns into October and people across the nation take part in those uniquely American institutions like corn mazes, Spirit Halloween pop-up stores, and unused buildings filled with black lights, cotton cobwebs and minimum wage seasonal employees running around in masks with cheap horror movie props designed to scare families and teenagers on dates. 

I think we can all agree that Haunted House "actor" is the lowest rung on the show business ladder. The bottom feeder in the live performance ecosystem. It is to acting what appearing on a Spirt Halloween costume back dressed as "Dr. Seymour Butt, Proctologist" or "Mullet Man" is to modeling. 

But not to everyone of these thespians. At least one is - was - so dedicated to the craft that he went more Method than Daniel Day-Lewis:

Source -  An actor working at haunted house in Ohio has been fired after he accidentally stabbed an 11-year-old boy with a real 'Bowie-style' knife that he was carrying as a prop. 

The incident happened at the 7 Floors of Hell Haunted House at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds in Berea, Ohio on September 18 at 8pm.  

According to police, Christopher Pogozelski, 22, was among several haunted house employees working at the attraction that night, attempting to scare people walking in. 

When Frank Bednarski approached the haunted house with his sister and a friend, Pogozelski 'scraped the knife on the ground in front of them and began to stab at the ground' near the boy's feet.

The knife reportedly went through Bednarski's red Croc-style shoe and cut his left toe.   

His toe was bleeding slightly when police arrived. Staff applied first aid to Bednarski, and his mother, Karen, was called. …

'He walked up to my son, and he was holding the knife, and his intentions were to scare him, but my son responded to him by saying, 'That's fake. I'm not scared,' said Bednarski. 

Karen told reporters she was also upset and how staff responded afterward the incident.  

'They just kept saying accidents happen, accidents happen,' said Bednarski.  …

Police say the man admitted to officers that it 'was not a good idea' after they confiscated the knife

He also said he 'had no intention of hurting anyone with it.' 

When asked if she wanted to take her son to the hospital, Karen declined because her son wanted to continue going through the haunted house. 

'I didn't want to make a scene, of course. I wanted to go about it the appropriate way,' said Bednarski. 

While you can maybe appreciate Christopher Pogozelski's commitment to the bit and his desire for pure authenticity in his performance, did he ever find the wrong 11-year-old to fuck with or what? It's got to be really tough on a Haunted House actor to try to scare a preteen and not be able to pull off the desired response. As hard as it is for a comic to not get laughs or a stripper not to get erections from sad loners. I mean, he's really putting himself out there. Trying to embody the character. He probably wrote a whole back story as to why the person he's portraying went bad and started threatening children with Bowie knives. And Frank Bednarski just totally big timed him. Broke the fourth wall and took him out of the moment. And Pogozelski is, like most great artists, a little temperamental about his art. So he cut the lad. In the same way that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton actually punched each other in the ear in "Fight Club." For that sense of gritty realism that just cannot be faked. 

Then again, maybe he didn't mess with the wrong kid. Maybe he lucked out and chose the absolutely right kid. And mother. Probably 999 out of 1,000 families would have freaked out, demanded the place be padlocked and everyone associated with the place be held without bail on charges of dangerousness. Frank here just wanted to get to the next room to see the mad scientist's torture chamber or whatever. His mom barely sounds put out about the fact her child got stabbed in the toe and is out a perfectly good pair of Crocs. (If that's not a contradiction in terms.) And she is literally a Karen. 

I hope they at least got their money back. Because when you're dealing with an 11-year-old and his mom who can shake off a thing like a hunting knife in the toe, there's no way the rest of the attraction is going to scare them. They are both Roadside Haunted House ruined for the rest of their lives.