But with a passion and talent for terrifying willing participants, he quickly climbed the scaremaster ranks, and is now the creative director and mastermind behind one of New York's hottest and most horrifying haunted houses. Killers is not your standard strip-mall haunt with fake electrocutions and pop-up surprises that make you jump, although those are there too. So how does he do it?

"My haunted house is more theatrical than most. All haunted houses need an element of startle," he says. "But they also need to be unnerving, they need to be disturbing, they need to be creepy, and they need to be haunting."

For Haskell, psychology reigns supreme. Killers is populated by just that — historical, real life serial killers, portrayed by actors. There's a story throughout. Each scene is designed to produce a different emotion in the viewers, creating empathy for the victims and families before twisting it around.

"I do that a lot, where I will take someone out of a group," Haskell says. "Because no matter what, no matter how cynical of a person you are, and how much you know that all this is fake and that you're going to be safe, the one thing that is real is if I take your girlfriend away from you."