{"id":424239,"date":"2026-10-10T15:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/424239\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T15:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T15:00:33","slug":"scare-actor-trades-ice-sales-for-halloween-mayhem-at-jungle-islands-horrorland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/424239\/","title":{"rendered":"Scare actor trades ice sales for Halloween mayhem at Jungle Island’s Horrorland"},"content":{"rendered":"

By day, Marcos Morillon sells ice wholesale. By night during Halloween season, he transforms into one of the sinister characters frightening visitors at Horrorland<\/a>, the annual scream park at Jungle Island.<\/p>\n

Morillon is a scare actor at Horrorland, which has returned to South Florida for its seventh year. He plays “The Mayhem,” a character he has developed with his own appearance, personality and backstory.<\/p>\n

“It does not look like I’m in Jungle Island,” Morillon said. “It looks like I’m in another dimension.”<\/p>\n

The transformation takes more than putting on a costume. Morillon said colored contact lenses help him make the switch from his day job to his Halloween alter ego.<\/p>\n

“It’s the contacts,” he said. “That’s the switch. I get one kind of like a white and a red eye.”<\/p>\n

Morillon’s fascination with horror goes back to his childhood. He said his mother was also a horror fan who would decorate their home for occasions such as Friday the 13th.<\/p>\n

Now, Morillon has turned that passion into a second job, joining other scare actors who spend the Halloween season entertaining, \u00a0and terrifying, Horrorland visitors. But balancing the seasonal gig with a full-time job can be challenging.<\/p>\n

“You have to learn how to manage your time,” Morillon said. “It’s not easy. There’s only 24 hours in a day and it’s not enough.”<\/p>\n

From his day job to a Halloween alter ego<\/p>\n

Horrorland Creative Director Luna Santos said Morillon has become one of the attraction’s signature performers.<\/p>\n

“Marcos is not only just an important character here, he’s an icon character of the Horrorland with his Mayhem,” Santos said.<\/p>\n

Santos said many of the performers see Horrorland as more than a seasonal paycheck. The attraction gives scare actors a chance to step away from their everyday lives and become someone, or something, completely different.<\/p>\n

“It’s like a little vacation in your brain because you’re hanging out, but you’re still working,” Santos said. “So you’re still getting paid, but you’re still having a good time.”<\/p>\n

Halloween has also become big business. Americans are expected to spend more than $13 billion this year on costumes, candy, haunted attractions and other Halloween expenses, with haunted house ticket sales generating about $1 billion nationwide.<\/p>\n

For Morillon, however, the paycheck is secondary to the chance to scare people.<\/p>\n

“I don’t do it for the money,” he said. “If I were to do it for free, I would do it for free.”<\/p>\n

Horrorland at Jungle Island is open on select nights through Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By day, Marcos Morillon sells ice wholesale. By night during Halloween season, he transforms into one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[503,163194,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-424239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-halloween","tag-hustle-amp-heart","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}