Haunted Houses (the manufactured kind) You Love

In My Humble Opinion
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Especially those outside the US, as I’ve never had any experience in that department and I’m not really sure how I’d Google for some. Do you put in “haunted houses” ) + whatever country to find specific results? Or how?? Help!

Regardless, I’ll throw out the one I’ve always been most intrigued by, but have unfortunately missed. I lived there in between, apparently, production years. It is none other than the Britannia Manor in Austin, Texas owned by Richard Garriott. It lasted from '88 to '94 or '95 and should resume (if one of those videos is to be believed) this year. It was completely interactive, with possible full-body contact, free, plenty of secret passage ways and tasks to perform / ‘keys’ to find to proceed and a waiting line to get in that would pretty much constitute a two week or so camp out.

I swear what I wouldn’t give to be able to go… :smiley:

So, apart from my favorite fantasy, how about a defunct penitentiary, like the one in Eastern State? Or perhaps on a ship like I’ve read about in Vegas (I think)? Of course, there’s plenty to be found in so-called abandoned morgues or asylums, but I want to hear what you think are THE BEST.

Happy early Halloween and Boo!!

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I was just on this site today browsing the spooky offerings that are local this year.

The haunted prison in Mansfield, Ohio caught my eye. It is inside the old abandoned Mansfield reformatory where the Shawshank Redemption was filmed. Sounds pretty freaky to me!

I also found a good one in Michigan that I am thinking of visiting this year.

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Thanks for the links! I’m so glad to have the internet at my disposal versus what little there was available when I was growing up. In other words, just the stuff I could catch at the appropriate time in the Dallas Morning News or Times Herald.

Man, all you’ve got to do is type ‘halloween’ into a search engine and you’d remain occupied indefinitely. Or until it was time to go scare up some fun. :wink: I’m goin’ go look at more information on your prison and the last one you’ve linked to, I’ve seen listed in some Top 10 list as, obviously, very good. Maybe you can go and then report back in.

Please. < insert corny witch joke here >
Anyway, since my thread isn’t garnering much attention, I figured what the hell and I’d amuse myself. So for anyone playing along that likes to get a benign chuckle outta me prattling on, then feel free to come long for the ride and enjoy. Now, let me just see what else I’ve got to show y’all…
First, I’m absolutely besotted with The London Dungeons and how awesome the concept is. Makes me want to travel across the pond even so more than I have already. Like leave NOW type. Regardless of my enthusiasm, it doesn’t seem that many natives care for the attraction(s) and that we’d probably even find it hokey, but I care not one whit what this heretics say. I. WANNA. GO. and I. WANT. SOME. FIGGY. PUDDING. TOO.

There.

In other knews when I’m not being quite so goofy (I did say ‘quite’), I think I have found the contradiction to the urban legend of the if you can go all the way through, money back guarantee and it is, in all places, Kentucky. Now there are stipulations that must be met, such as:

[Cut and pasted directly from site.]

Wear Old Clothes, whatever you have on will be ruined, there will be (3) Three Requirements to make it All The Way Through the Panic Room

  1. Eat Something (app 6 bites of different items)

  2. Drink Something

  3. Do Something

IF YOU FAIL TO DO ANY ONE OF THE (3) YOU WILL BE ESCORTED OUT OF THE PANIC ROOM.

IF YOU THROW UP,

(before you exit the panic room)

YOU ARE DISQUALIFIED

…all for which you get the chance to regain your $15 and put your mug up on the Wall of Fame (it says there physically, but it must mean virtually as well – there’s already plenty up) or if you end up facing Shame (with the same outcome as above, just sans your hard earned dollars).
If anyone wants to try to navigate the “Panic Room,” I"d love to find out what it was like and gloat that a Doper undoubtedly kicked fake ghost ass. No matter though, you guys got to have stories about these kinds of activities. If you all aren’t forthcoming, it’s gonna be a long hall until November 1st.

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Well, not my sort of thing (I don’t even like the dark rides at the fair), but did anybody else think the little bible verse at the bottom of the “you puke you forfeit!” haunted house was hilarious?

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How did I overlook that??? :eek: :eek: < ------ Halloween scary smilie

Now, is everyone else telling me that they’re not interested in this sort of thing? Or is it simply too early for anyone to be excited but me and, appropriately enough, devilsknew?
:smiley:

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My husband has told me of a very cool haunted dealie outside of Chicago and I never believed him about it’s coolness - it’s the Trails of Terror in Peterson Park (Skokie). DUDE - this was AWESOME! I have to recommend EVERY Chi-Town Doper do this - and bring the kids. Older kids, that is. I keep telling him we HAVE to go back this year!!

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This is cool. I’d love to have enough money when I retire to be able to build a haunted mansion on haunted grounds. I’m fascinated with the mechanics and technology of scaring people out of their wits :smiley:

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Man, Trails of Terror needs a website of its own! I searched for it, but the best I could come up with looked like an independent with a dinky little message board. :frowning: I want cool pictures! Scary music! Lots and lots of comments about it making me shit myself! ::: hands in pockets ::: Or you know, sumpin’.

And Patty, if one of us ever hits the lotto, we should combine forces for the betterment of all things eeeeeeeeeeeevil. :smiley:

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I’ve never been, but the former lead singer of Pantera Phil Anselmo operates one outside of New Orleans called the House of Shock that’s supposed to be unreal.

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Yeah! See, I saw that one, but had no idea who owned it. Yes, even though I looked at the pictures with Pantera playing there. :smack: For some reason, I wondered if maybe it belonged to Alice Cooper. Probably just wishful thinking on my part, since I’ve got a big ol’ monster crush on him.

Anyway, in the days since I first posted this, I found two (together if I remember correctly – I’ll look again for the link) that might even be too much for my all-things-horror self… one you get locked inside (at least, if I was reading that right) and must solve a puzzle TO GET OUT and the other is in complete pitch darkness the entire way/time. Um, hell no. I don’t think so.

Oh and I did find it. Here is some more information. It’s also in Austin. They get all the good stuff.

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These places sound great. Much better than the haunted house being put on in Kalamazoo, MI called “Phobia House”. This year is the 5th year that Phobia has been put on and every year it’s the same tired thing:

Tour guide takes group of 12 or so into a room, somone jumps out and scares them.
Tour guide takes group into the next room, somone jumps out and scares them.
Repeat ad nauseum until the end of the tour.

They never do anything cool like the places referred to here and in 5 years, they have never done anything different. Oh, they SAY that they have a different theme every year, but the rooms end up being all the same year after year.

So I’m going to warn everyone, please do NOT go to Phobia House in Kalamazoo, MI. It will be totally underwhelming.

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For those in the greater Chicagoland area, here’s a list of all of the major haunted attractions for this year. I don’t see the haunted prison in Joliet this year, which has been one of the better one in years past, and some of them are bound to be the lame ass run-by-the-park-district-apple-cider-and-hay-rides variety, but we’ve had some good ones in years past.

The key is to watch the exits. If groups of junior high kids are coming out the back just as goofy and boisterous as when they went in, then forget it. If they come out looking a bit shaken, that’s a good sign. If you see a mom come marching back out the front door less than a minute after going in, dragging one or more sobbing children out with them, then that’s a great sign.

God I love halloween.

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There’s supposed to be a good one near Poolesville, MD. I’ve never been because everyone I know has been a chicken. I think maybe we should get together and go. Unless someone knows of one elsewhere in the mid-atlantic area.

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A little anecdote:

The first year that Fright Fest was involved in the Six Flags closest to Chicago, I got a job there because I was having some drama with the theater group I was involved in, and while they looked for work elsewhere, they made it pretty plain they didn’t want me along.
They didn’t get the job they were looking for, and I managed to snag some work for a couple of friends from said group. I worked in the haunted house (there was only one at the time) doing voice-and-technical work for the little demon puppet that explained the rules of the house in the first room. I’ll tell ya- the place looked pretty cool from the watcher’s side, but from the performers? We were in a cramped little space, I was sitting for 8+ hours a day on a folding metal chair with my arms at very uncomfortable angles.
But as for the OP… I’d never actually -been- in a haunted house before. So, the final day, I got a replacement for my position, and walked through. I knew what was coming, of course. None of it -shocked- or scared me, really, but… For whatever reason, I was just really, really turned off by it. Due to this, it’s the only haunted house I’ve ever been in, and I’ve never really felt the want to go into another one.

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On a not completely unrelated topic, I recently saw a good documentary about the church that started those “Christian-themed” haunted houses: Hell House.