Haunt Review: House of Shock
The House of Shock is something of a legend in the New Orleans area. It is a haunted attraction that has earned itself a reputation the likes of most haunts can only dream of. If the rumors are true, both the city of New Orleans and neighboring Jefferson Parish have tried repeatedly to shut the haunt down, using every legal trick to do so. Some even think God himself is out to get the haunt, Hurricane Katrina having flooded it (along with most of the city), forcing them to close for the 2005 season. However, they reopened in 2006 and haven’t missed a year since, despite the obstacles, alleged and confirmed.
The HoS is known mostly for two things. First is its elaborate and eyebrow-singing stage show with pyrotechnics, the second is its use of satanic imagery and “shock” value to scare customers.
It too makes repeated appearances in “top ten” lists of U.S. haunts and it has a nation-wide reputation that is known across the country among haunt lovers. But is the notoriety of the haunt deserved? Read on to find out.
Haunt Review: The 13th Gate
Whenever you read a top ten list for haunted houses in the U.S., there is approximately a 95% chance that the 13th Gate will be on that list and a better than 50% chance it will be number 1.
It is for a very damn good reason.
The 13th Gate is the quintessential event haunt. It’s the top tier of haunted attractions, a large, expensive production that everyone feels they have to go to at least once. It’s a haunted house known by those who don’t even care about haunted houses and one such people regularly attend. It’s the kind of place that always has a long line out the door and draws people from all over the country, if not the world.
However, this is not an unearned reputation. Midnight Productions, the makers of the 13th Gate, have turned Baton Rouge in the haunt capital of southeast Louisiana, if not the entire country, and it does everything to ensure that it keeps that reputation intact, making it the best haunted attraction possible.
But how good is it? Read on to find out. Read more
Haunt Review: Terror in the Park (Buhlow Fun Park)
I feel bad for haunted house lovers in central Louisiana. Southern Louisiana is one of the most blessed regions for haunt fans with the 13th Gate, House of Shock and The Mortuary all within about 90 minutes of each other. However, once you go north of Lafayette, things become rather dead until you make it to Shreveport or Monroe (and even then it seems to be dicey).
Louisiana Nightmares was a solid haunt in Alexandria operated by Midnight Productions, the same people who do the 13th Gate, but they closed it down to focus on the larger Baton Rouge attraction. Sadly, nothing has risen to fill its void, though the Buhlow Fun Park (do NOT click that link, may cause cancer of the eyes) seems to have made a play to capture its customers.
For those who don’t know, which I imagine to be most of the people reading this, the Buhlow Fun Park is a basic fun park on Buhlow lake outside of Alexandria, Louisiana. It has go-carts, an arcade, mini golf and a place to get your picture taken with The Simpsons among other attractions. However, every October it also opens up its “Terror in the Park” haunted house, which the signs assure us it is a “A Real Haunted House”.
I visited the Buhlow Fun Park haunt two years ago and came away with a mixed impression. Though it was short and low-budget, I had to respect their creativity and imagination. They did a lot of great work with what they had. My review, if I had written one, would have been a 5 out of 10 with a tag line “A less-than-average haunt displays some above-average ingenuity to become a mediocre attraction that’s still respectable.”
However, in the two years since something has changed. The creativity is gone and what is left is a disappointing haunt experience that no longer redeems itself in any significant way. Read more
Haunt Review: Chamber of Horrors (2009)
Last year I reviewed the Chamber of Horrors and gave it an 8/10. This is the reason I am usually loathe to give numeric scores. Though it was a great haunt in 2008, I’m realizing in 2009 that it wasn’t quite an 8. I was too excited to find that kind of haunt in the New Orleans area again and didn’t grade fairly. It should have been a strong six, maybe a weak seven.
But where the Chamber of Horrors, last year, was a good haunt with some minor flaws, this year it is just a flat out good haunt without any caveats or precautions. Though it is not an event haunt, like House of Shock or 13th Gate, both of which I am reviewing later (I’m doing them in the order I visited them), it is a solid haunt that fills the niche of a smaller, more casual haunted attraction nicely. It is a perfect example of what a good mid-range haunt should be like and it deserves more recognition than what it gets.
This isn’t to say that the CoH is flawless, every haunt has room to grow, but it is a well-rounded attraction that has addressed its weaknesses and emerged stronger and better for it. Read more
Review: My Bloody Valentine 3D
As a tech geek and a horror buff, I have two separate interest in My Bloody Valentine 3D (MBV3D).
First, it supposedly features a (relatively) new, ultra-advanced 3D technology that works better than the old red/blue glasses kind. Second, it is the first slasher film to make it into the theaters in some time (even if it is a remake).
Sure, we’ve had our dose of thrillers, chillers and torture porn, but we’ve lacked a good old fashioned slasher and the latest releases of the major slasher franchises have only reminded us how low the genre can go.
So how was the movie? Well, I’m going to break it apart into its two elements and discuss them individually before I try and bring it all together. Hopefully, by the end of it all, we’ll have some idea where the movie stands and whether anyone else should bother seeing it. Read more
Haunt Review: The Mortuary
The Mortuary is the anti-thesis to the previously-reviewed Camber of Horrors. Where the CoH is a low-budget, high-heart affair, The Mortuary is a high-budget, low-heart one.
You can tell from the second you drive by the two-story buildings with its large columns and lighted facade that you entering into a haunt that has spent a great deal of money on their setup. As you tour through their winding corridors and narrow hallways, that belief is reaffirmed with their high-end animatronics and decorations.
This haunt cost a lot of money and it shows. However, money can not buy a great haunted house experience, only the toys to build it with. The question for The Mortuary isn’t whether they have neat stuff, but what they did with it.
It’s a tough question with a rather complicated answer. Read more
7 Tips for Enjoying a Haunted House
  photo credit: darkpatator |
For many, it is a tradition to head to a haunted attraction sometime near Halloween. For us, the scare of going the a haunt is just part of the spooky season much the same as looking at lights is part of the Christmas one.
But haunts can be expensive. High-end attractions charge $20 or more per ticket and even “budget” haunts routinely charge $10 or more. This prices them higher than a trip to the movies and most nightclubs in terms of entertainment expense.
Yet, the way some people go through a haunt, they seem to sabotage their own chances of actually having a good time. They essentially throw away their ticket price and some then complain that the haunt was a waste of money.
If you don’t know how to go through a haunt, even the best attraction will be a waste of cash. As a serial haunt attendee, haunt actor and haunt operator, here are my tips for getting your money’s worth. Read more
Review: Chamber of Horrors
For better or worse, the New Orleans haunt scene is dominated by the House of Shock. Though it is great to have an internationally-recognized haunt in the city, it brought with it the high ticket prices and conga-line style walkthrough that sours many on the haunt experience.
With no Chinchuba’s, Blaine Kern’s or Scream Factory this year, The House of Shock and The Mortuary are the only two professional haunts in the metro area with House of Shock being by far the best known. This has left a strange void of inexpensive and creative haunts that span the gap between home haunters and high-end professional establishments.
Fortunately, just outside the city in LaPlace, there is a smaller, lesser-known haunt called the Chamber of Horrors that sits in that gap nicely. Though clearly a professional haunt, it is not the big-budget movie set style you see elsewhere in the city. It is a middle of the road haunt that is half the price of its competitors.
But is the Chamber of Horrors worth the trip? It really depends on the type of haunt that you want. Read more
Saving Money at Halloween
I was in Wal-Mart the other day (please don’t ask) and decided to take a look at their Halloween section. Though I usually don’t have high expectations of these “big box” retailers when it comes to Halloween, I feel obligated to check and, sometimes at least, they do have some interesting stuff.
My wife and I began to look through the costume section. As we get closer in to opening our haunt (we open Halloween night), we are realizing we need some outfits to go with our Asylum theme and a few sets of scrubs are high on the list.
In the Halloween section we saw a set of costume scrubs for sixteen dollars. While that may not sound like a bad deal and is actually very cheap for a Halloween costume, the problem is that just 100 feet away Wal-Mart had a collection of real scrubs for just ten dollars.
The problem didn’t end there. You could buy a fake plastic broom for eight dollars or go to the cleaning section and get a real one for three or four. Likewise, you could by a “costume” sword for about six dollars but “toy” ones in the toy section were just two or three.
Everything in the Halloween section is marked up to insane amounts just because the the price tag is in orange and black. This is a huge headache for parents, who are buying something their kids will wear exactly once, home haunters, who have tight budgets, and even professional haunted houses.
So if you want to survive Halloween without breaking the bank, here are a few ways to cut corners and avoid getting gouged this haunting season. Read more
Top 5 Haunted House Cliches
As someone who enjoys going to and building haunted houses, I’ll be the first to say that the creative capital of the industry is running extremely low.
Currently, there seems to be just two kinds of haunted houses. The first are over-capitalized ones that have a budget that rivals a Hollywood movie. They spend all of their money on sets and animatronics and seem to forget about the scares. Coupled with high admission prices and long lines, they seem to disappoint every time.
The other kind is the low-budget haunt, usually done for charity. These tend to be more laser-focused on getting the scares. Staffed by volunteers, they spend every hour and every precious dollar on making the haunt scarier. Sometimes they’re great, the best being one I went to at a county fair many years ago, but usually the lack of experience or thought shows through. Though these haunts try hard, they quickly give into cliches as the lack of great planning takes over.
As someone who’s haunt budget barely breaks four digits, I can’t afford misses. In a small haunt with tight dollars, if a scare misses you might not get another good chance. Thus, I have to avoid cliches and expired ideas.
What are the worst of the worst? Well, that list is below. Read more
