Ringler's House on Haunted Hill scares up 25 years of terror

It might surprise you to learn that Jeremy Ringler has never watched a horror film all the way though.

But that hasn't stopped Ringler, one of the proprietors of Ringler's House on Haunted Hill, from finding ways to strike fear into the hearts of east-central Minnesotans for the last 25 years.

In an interview earlier this month, Ringler sat down to talk about the quarter-century milestone, from the haunted trail's origins to an intergenerational family effort.

Scaring the scouts

The prototype for the haunted trail was sparked by an "out-of-the-blue" phone call from Ringler's wife, Jennie, while he was at a job site with one of his crews in 2000.

Her goal was to set up a haunted trail for their oldest daughter Jessyca's Girl Scout troop, with just eight hour's notice.

"I was like, 'how the heck do we do this? There's no way to do it.' And she said, 'there's a way to do it, just get it done." Ringler recalled with a laugh. "She's an optimist."

Ringler said he left the job site with some of his guys, who he scattered out in different directions with a handful of money in a desperate search for Halloween decorations.

Their efforts culminated in a 100-yard, L-shaped four-wheeler trail on a small five-acre property, rigged with props primed for single-use frights — like a dummy tied to fishing line, shaking in a tree.

Ringler and a friend dressed up, hid in the woods, and scared the Girl Scout troop.

"At first they were a little scared, but they loved it," Ringler said. "We didn't want to traumatize them, just kind of give them a little startle-scare and send them on their way, and follow them down the trail."

The Girl Scouts asked to go again after their first trek down the trail, so while they enjoyed treats back at the house, Ringler and his skeleton crew spent half an hour setting back up what they could.

Some of the trail's first repeat visitors eventually took on roles with Ringler's House on Haunted Hill as volunteers.

Others from the Girl Scout troop still bring their families and kids to enjoy a second generation of scares.

"Quite a few of those Girl Scouts are still part of the haunted trail today," Ringler said.

Back by popular demand

After a hastily-assembled first go-round, Ringler said the trail was brought back by popular demand for the next few years.

"It was a lot of fun, it was quick to put up, and the second year, there were more people that got involved," Ringler said.

The 100-yard trail was used through 2003, with everything torn down and packed away each year.

By then, the haunted trail was swiftly starting to outgrow its modest space, especially when parking needed to accommodate "friends of friends, and friends of friends' friends" who'd started to come to the one-night-only attraction.

Ringler's parents let the trail move to their 80-acre farm "right around the corner," where it ran from 2004 through 2008.

"It was just getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger," Ringler said. "Doing one night, we were still getting 500 or 600 people coming."

There, they'd have to trailer visitors out to the entrance, since it was too far to walk.

Ringler fondly remembers a Headless Horseman-inspired scene orchestrated when the trail was still located at the family farm, where the horse would chase the wagon of guests.

A massive, jet-black horse named Duke played the part of the Sleepy Hollow steed; he had his own bespoke costume, and would have his hooves painted with broken-open glowsticks to glow in the dark through a field fogged by Coast Guard smoke flares.

"My old man was the one in the costume, carrying a lit pumpkin," Ringler recalled.

The agreement was that the trail had to be packed up each year, which Ringler said would take weeks to set up and weeks to be torn down before the snowflakes started falling.

"It just got to be so much work putting it together, that you couldn't expand," he said.

Building up in Brook Park

In 2009, the haunted trail found its fixed address off Highway 23 in Brook Park.

"When we moved here, that was one of our first things: 'We're not packing away, we're building, and we're going to use it on a seven-year rotation, and then remodel it out and leave it up,'" Ringler said.

Ringler also said he was excited to incorporate bigger buildings for visitors to walk through as part of the trail.

"What we thought was a big building in 2009, is now a small building on the property," he laughed.

Conjuring new frights is a community effort: Ringler said cousins, friends, and volunteers have all shared inspiration for new builds.

"It's really stuff that would scare us that we try to build," he said.

Ringler also readily admits that he's thinking about additions to the trail "all the time."

One time, at a friend's cabin on a lake weekend, Ringler woke up at 5 a.m., found a marker and a sheet of paper, and sketched out what eventually became the Belly of the Beast feature.

"When everybody woke up, I went, 'what do you think of this?'" Ringler said. "'That's cool.' 'Okay, let's build it!'"

Only the trail's three-story castle has stuck to blueprints — other concepts change and morph as they're built out. Not everything requires a level or a square, Ringler said.

"For a haunted, rundown building, it shouldn't look symmetrical," he said. "So you're looking for weird."

The barn section of the trail was built as a sturdy structure with a hard lean to keep visitors feeling off-kilter. Some tunnels are tight, but safe — Ringler designed one so even he is uncomfortable walking through.

"After 25 years, you kind of know what works and doesn't work," Ringler said. "Our most elaborate areas don't get as many scares as a little kid jumping out of the grass. If you mix that kind of stuff in with the big stuff, then it becomes something people remember."

Ringler recalls thinking the attraction's indoor maze would only run for a couple of years, but it has since been expanded three times and is routinely listed as a favorite by visitors.

"I've wanted to delete it for quite a few years," Ringler said. "But we keep coming back to, 'we can't, everybody loves the maze.'"

For the 25th anniversary, Ringler said the plan is to bring back some "simple scares" that hearken back to the early days of the haunted trail.

"I might go out and man those areas," Ringler said.

Some of Ringler's favorite scares came when he'd dress in black and take the back paths through the woods to make sure things were running smoothly.

"It would be as simple as shaking a tree and not saying anything," Ringler said. "And then just following the group, shaking small trees. It would freak them out enough that when an actor came out to scare them, it was perfect cross-direction."

'Quite the volunteer army'

Ringler's House on Haunted Hill averages between 35 and 60 actors per night. Ringler said 35 is the bare minimum to run just costumed characters in the woods, and allocate one actor for each section.

The attraction also takes about four or five volunteers working the parking lot, and about 10 people near the ticketing area to keep operations running smoothly.

"It's quite the volunteer army," Ringler said.

Meeting people has been Ringler's favorite part of operating the trail over a quarter of a decade.

"They start as acquaintances, they become friends, and it's almost like they're family," he said. "Our volunteers are just an extension of our family."

Ringler said the haunted trail enlisted paid actors for one weekend in 2024, but said it wasn't as special as turning the volunteers loose to haunt the grounds.

"The volunteer nights are really when the trail comes alive," he said.

Ringler said his kids have taken over the organizational side of operations over the years. He delegated himself to a role in the parking lot and gave up control in the woods to his daughters, who take care of the actors and costumes.

"It's really come full-circle, to where now they're taking over, and it's a lot of their ideas coming into it," Ringler said. "They were raised helping to build, helping run it, helping organize it."

In October, Jeremy and Jennie Ringler will miss opening weekend for the first time in 25 years; they'll be in San Diego for their son's graduation from the Marines.

He admitted that he'll miss it, but knows the haunted trail will be in capable hands.

"It'll be the first time in 25 years that the second generation has total control," Ringler said.

'The 80-year plan'

Ringler said the haunted trail will slowly be transitioned to more of an indoor attraction.

A plot of land is slated to become a 512-foot-long building with two outside areas, and will be more of a sustainable build for future generations.

"We're kind of calling it the 80-year plan," Ringler said.

The inner workings of the plan are being kept close to the chest, but Ringler teased that "when it opens, we can say we're doing what other people aren't."

The timeline is to build out the project over the next four years, and open it on the haunted trail's 30th anniversary.

"We're pretty busy with the rodeo and everything else in the summertime, so it'll be nice to hand off to the next generations and let them go hog-wild with it,'" Ringler laughed.

Ringler promised that even with a plan in place to move the attraction, they'll continue building on the existing trail right up until the last year.

The Ringlers are also tentatively planning to open a corn maze and petting zoo in 2026, so when the trail moves to the new building, the attractions can operate in tandem.

"It's great to see the next generation taking such a hands-on approach to it, and having the love for it," Ringler said. "Because you really do have to be obsessed with an event to keep it running. It has to be year-round."