The Haunted House Associations presents a Triple Treat of Terror!
Haunted attraction owners rarely have the freedom to visit and study other haunts during the busy October season, but now Transworld attendees will have the rare opportunity to tour three outstanding haunted attractions nearly six months in advance of the 2009 haunting season!
The Haunted House Association is proudly sponsoring three historic and unprecedented tours of three very unique attractions during the convention, all of which are opening their doors to both the public and their fellow haunters. The attraction owners have devoted thousands of dollars and hours to create all-new experiences just for the March tours, and now offer Hauntworld magazine an exclusive preview.
The Darkness (www.thedarkness.com)
The Darkness has been regularly featured on national television newscasts, publications, and programs. Ranked as “one of the Top 13 haunts in the country” by Hauntworld magazine, and as one of “America’s Scariest Halloween Attractions,” by Travel Channel, this world famous haunted attraction will present an extensive behind-the scenes tour on Thursday March 26th complete with food, drinks, and full access to all aspects of the attraction. A second tour, held on Saturday March 28, will present the attraction at “full impact” with cast, crew, and all effects in operation.
The Darkness President, Larry Kirchner, is reportedly spending over $150,000 to create and install several new scenes and special effects in time for the upcoming tours.
So why do you think The Darkness received so much attention and acclaim?
Attention to detail! Our company also builds attractions for amusement parks across the world and we now have many tools that come in handy such as hard coating machines, sophisticated animations, different types of sculpting tools, and a lot of foam hard coated scenery. As the haunted house business has grown over the past few years, more and more professional amusement facilities and theme parks are entering the industry. The Darkness has been a source of inspiration, and that puts a lot of pressure on us to outdo ourselves each year.
When did you first start planning the new ideas for this upcoming tour?
We always plan the new Darkness during our operating season. We draw more inspiration for the following seasons while looking at the same old stuff night after night. You get sick of things and you say to yourself almost nightly “we need to do this or that or replace this or that.” The day after we closed we were already ripping stuff out. However we’ve never worked so hard to do so much in such a small window. It is a challenge.
We have had 10 high skilled workers from our company working everyday on the Darkness since December, and it will take every single second of four months to re-build The Darkness into one of the best haunts anyone has ever seen. The first step is to design everything, then you must destroy and remove old sets, then you take a long time to rebuild the structures … and then carving foam, to hard coating, to painting and finally all the detail.
Over 50% of the attraction will have been totally re-themed with some very amazing sets. All I can tell you is this will be one of the best haunts anyone has ever seen!!!! EVER!!!!
Are you at all nervous about opening your doors to so many haunters?
No, because I know we will amaze them. The pressure is really on due to our companies and my own personal reputation within the industry. People will be expecting to see the best of the best, and maybe in some people’s minds more than we are capable of…so the pressure was really on to outdo ourselves from any year prior.
What do you personally look for when you’re visiting someone else’s haunt? DETAIL! ORIGINALALITY! I don’t want to see the typical, I want to see something I’ve never seen before. I want to see someone thinking outside the box. The more creative and more original you are the more accolades you will receive.
Is there a benefit to taking both the Thursday and Saturday night tours?
I would say the people who do the behind the scenes tour will get the most benefits from touring the attraction because they can walk at their own pace and explore the attraction. It’s like a really good movie, and you must see it twice to catch everything, same thing here unless you do the lights on tour you won’t catch all the detail. But Saturday night’s live tour definitely shows the scares in action. Your ticket to Thursday night’s tour also includes admission on Saturday night.
What do you hope that haunters will take away from this tour?
INSPIRATION! I want all haunters to walk out INSPIRED to do great things. Let me tell you my goal is always to be the best haunted house in the WORLD! I know that is a hard goal to achieve but if you don’t aspire to be the best then why are you doing what you do? When I visit another haunted house, one I feel is one of the best I’ve ever seen, I sometimes walk out actually feeling kind of depressed! I think “Wow, they did something that is so much cooler than what we do” … but then I shake my head a couple of times, the blood starts flowing, and I can’t wait to get back to our haunt to push the envelope.
Other haunts inspire me to get better at what I do and they push me to attempt to achieve those lofty goals even if you never actually achieve them. So I hope people will leave the attraction inspired to go back to their haunt and work like MAD!
Only limited tickets will be sold for both tours of The Darkness, and Thursday’s “Lights On” tour will likely sell-out. Visit www.thedarkness.com for more information, media, and to buy tickets.
The Columbia Haunt Tour (www.columbiahaunttour.com )
Friday night, March 27, features a double feature of fright, with tours of two attractions in Columbia, St. Louis: FearFest and Necropolis. For just one price, guests will experience two haunted attractions with two decidedly different approaches towards content and operation. Guests can choose to drive directly to the attractions, or to take advantage of bus service directly from Transworld.
Your journey through FearFest starts in a century-old farmhouse, and includes everything from swamps to slasher asylums — while the actors at Necropolis do their best to terrify, and touch, anyone brave enough to take a trip through this former meat packing factory. We asked the owners to tell us a little more about their attractions and the upcoming tour:
Greg Allen, Owner of FearFest (www.fearfesthauntedhouse.com)
So why did you decide to open your doors to other haunters this March?
With the haunted house convention coming to St. Louis, the opportunity for other haunt owners to see some in this area sounded like a good idea, and we wanted to be apart of that. There is such a small window to see haunted houses from around the country and we thought it would be great to open ours for a tour. When we would go to Chicago for the convention we always looked forward to the haunted house tour. Dream Reapers was always great!
Are you at all intimidated by opening up your doors for so many other owners?
There is always an intimidation factor when the best of the best are coming to see your haunt, however we eagerly await their feedback. If people say they wouldn’t be intimidated or worried they are lying.
How did you get started?
I used to do a charity event in St. Louis. I ran it for several years out of my house, and by the end I had about 600 people a night coming through my yard which was getting a little ridiculous so I had to close down. But soon afterward I moved to Columbia and found this great property, and we’re now in our 7th year. It has been a very successful venue for us, we’ve expanded every year.
Originally it was an old farm house that led out into just plywood walls with no roofing, and you were exposed to rain, sleet, and snow! Over the years we’ve expanded into multiple haunts, buildings, a corn maze, and a hayride. We sit on 46 acres of property.
I assume the corn maze and hayride won’t be open in March?
No, but both haunted houses will be fully staffed and fully operational. The first haunted house starts inside the 100 year-old farmhouse, and the attraction inside is a low-gore, high startle haunted house that’s more mysterious and atmospheric. But with “Slashmasters Asylum” you’ve got the blood, you’ve got the guts, and you’ve got the psychos in there. Once you step in there nothing is quite right.
What makes your attraction stand out?
I think one of the things unique about our haunt is that we use actors to scare more than animatronics. We do have some animatronics but our startles and scares come from our actors and the placement of them. We have some people working for us who are just nuts.
The other thing is that our barn is actually haunted. There were two kids murdered here by their father, and people hear and see things happening all the time. I’ll hear singing, I’ll hear footsteps, and sometimes when I pull onto the property I’ll hear someone say “Oh, Daddy’s home!”
Bill Schnell, owner of Necropolis ( www.enterthenecropolis.com )
Your theme and approach is almost completely opposite of FearFest isn’t it?
Personally, for my taste, I just don’t like doing the traditional kind of haunted house or haunted mansion. I enjoy attending them, that’s fine – but I want my haunted house to be more realistic, which means no vampires and no mummies or the traditional things you’d see in a haunted house.
Our back-story revolves around a serial killer, it’s a pretty gruesome and realistic style of haunt and that’s definitely the style that I like. It kind of goes with our target audience, we want to push the same over-the-top realism and themes that you see in current movies. It’s stuff that some haunters don’t want to deal with because it happens in the real world, but we like to do it in a way that’s scary and entertaining.
Does that mean that you don’t have very many animations or effects?
The realism really only goes as far as the core of the back-story, and all the crazy stuff he did. But from that, springs a little more creativity and illusion. The story goes into a more supernatural direction. He’s been executed for his crimes and now he inhabits the building as an all-powerful evil spirit. Once you go into the building you’re entering into his world and his spirit, and he can throw whatever he wants at you! That allows us to do a lot of different things within the haunted house.
So tell us about your building…
The first time we produced Necropolis we were actually located in a strip mall that didn’t really lend itself into the theme of our back-story. We knew we wanted to move after that first year so we started looking for new locations and now we’re in a building that was once part of a meat-packing complex. Part of our building was the store where customers would come in to actually purchase packages of meat, and then there were large factory floors where they did a lot of the processing with meat racks and everything … and that’s all still in there. It definitely helps the intensity.
Speaking of intensity, when and why did you make the decision to start touching customers?
I’d always thought about the supposed rule, that somehow everyone in America knows, which is that if you go through a haunted house no one is going to touch you. From the beginning I definitely wanted to do whatever it took to scare people, I didn’t want to back off to allow us to market to families or have kids coming through. We wanted the intensity.
New actors aren’t allowed to touch, they have to had worked for us for at least a year and also have received permission from us. They are trained as to what to do, when to do it, how to do it and when not to do it … and there are very clear warnings outside.
I know that a lot of haunted houses want the actors to do a scare and then go away, and I’m totally the opposite way: I want it so that almost the whole way through the haunted house you are exposed to our actors. They do the scare, and then are interacting with you until the next room … and while they’re doing that, some of our actors will slip into a little bit of comedy or that’s when you can start the creepy touching: brushing the back of the girl’s hair, touching the back of her neck, or putting your hand on top of somebody’s head … just simple things like that which take it to a whole other level.
What do you think the reaction from other haunters will be?
I had a chance to experience House of Shock with some other haunters during a tour last year, many of whom were grabbed or touched by the actors, and it was interesting to listen to their reactions because we knew that it was something that we were planning to start doing at our attraction. There were haunters saying that they didn’t like it, or that the haunt went too far, and some of them even said they were offended … and I think it’s awesome that House of Shock managed to freak out or even offend haunted house owners! We’re talking about the hardcore of the hardcore, and the owners managed to make them uncomfortable? That’s awesome! I loved it.
We’re close to downtown, our theme is very industrial and the tone is more over-the-top … and Greg is more traditional with trails and corn mazes and a country feel. It’s definitely a contrast in styles, and I’d love to hear what the haunters have to say afterward.
Guests can choose to drive directly to the attractions and buy tickets directly at the gates, or take advantage of bus service directly from Transworld. Visit www.columbiahaunttour.com for tickets and more information
Scott Simmons is the Executive Producer and co-owner of The ScareHouse haunted attraction in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
