HALLOWEEN HAUNTS: A Nightmare on Russell Street
by Robia Tiemstra
Horror Fanatics love talking about their own personal ‘Gateway Horror’. i.e. What was the first nugget of spooky that grew into a lifelong interest in terror? Goosebumps is a popular one. Coraline, Scooby-Doo, Over the Garden Wall, Tales from the Crypt, Are You Afraid of the Dark? Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride, maybe a Halloween special from any number of kids TV shows… The list is endless.
I learned very recently that my gateway to the world of horror was a literal gateway.
It was the late-90s, a decade that I barely remember. I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. My mother was taking myself and my brother Matt Trick-or-Treating on Russell Street in Berkeley, California.
For those who have never lived in the East Bay, some background: Russell Street is a Halloween Haven. The homeowners that live along this stretch of Berkeley create the most elaborate handcrafted haunted houses and front porches you’ve ever seen in your life. Every house on the street has their own theme, with the only guideline being to spare no expense (I’m pretty sure it’s baked into the contract you sign when you buy property there).
My mom was apprehensive — she had two twins, both around 4, who have never gone to such a huge event before. How would we cope with the crowds? The noise? The scares?
The first house we approached had a long walk up into a dark entryway, shrouded in decorations, with fake smoke billowing out. We’d have to go into the unknown to come back with candy. Our mom decided to hang back, letting the two of us walk toward this ominous entrance and vanish into the dark. To this day, she doesn’t know what exactly we saw in there, what sort of scares or chilling set decoration the homeowners had in store.
But when we emerged from the dark, I was beaming. “That was great!” the four year old future horror writer exclaims, before merrily approaching the rest of the haunted houses along the block.
In hindsight, I went in as just another kid, and I came out as a horror fan.
The funny thing is, I have no memory of this haunt. The play-by-play was relayed to me by my mother many years later. If this was my first experience with the joy of horror, it took a number of years for my conscious mind to catch up. A few years later, I came back from Russell Street to a sleepover, where the other kids inadvertently traumatized me with a screening of Carrie (now one of my favorite films). For most of my life I thought I was a late bloomer into horror — only really falling in love with the genre when I watched Psycho in high school.
But it turns out this whole time there was a part of me that knew I’d be really into the world of ghosts, goblins, vampires and the macabre. It was the part of me that fell in love with the holiday first.
Robia Tiemstra is a writer, filmmaker, one-time scareactor and professional Dracula obsessive currently living in Los Angeles. A prolific podcast writer, they’ve written for studios including Spotify, Wondery, The NoSleep Podcast and iHeartRadio. They currently contribute to Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities, Heart Starts Pounding and Last Trace with Kaelyn Moore on Netflix. Short films directed by Robia have played at over 50 film festivals worldwide.
Their most recent creation is Silent Key, a horror audio drama from ARC Productions. It will premiere October 29, 2026 on all major podcast platforms.
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