Owners Jim and Ed Terebus – The dream begins back in 1981, with popsicle sticks and coins, as a mock up of the first attraction, the Haunted Gallery, is born. A small, 1200 sqft. haunted house opens in Metro Detroit with an admission of $1.50. Little did the public know, the Terebus brothers were just getting started. Over the next two decades, the Haunted Gallery became the terrifying Halloween tradition for Detroiters. Operating until the year 2000, with a whopping 15 mobile home trailers and 9800 sqft of pure fear, the brothers decided their passion and their dreams were outgrowing their current circumstance.
Having found success in haunting peoples’ nightmares… Jim and Ed decided to take the leap to a permanent and much larger location. The purchase of the 125,000 sqft empire now known as Erebus 4-Story Haunted Attraction, is where the future begins. Erebus, in Greek Mythology, is the son of Chaos and brother of Nyx (Night), the darkness beneath the earth through which the dead must pass to reach Hades. Also, as fate would have it, Erebus is shockingly their last name without the “T”! Erebus Haunted Attraction opened its doors to the public in 2000 and quickly gained traction as one of the nations scariest Halloween destinations. From 2005-2009, Erebus was awarded with the Guinness Book of World Records: World’s Largest Walk-Through Haunted Attraction! The 4-story, ever-winding path of phobias is over a half-mile walk indoors.
Erebus prides itself in being highly interactive and innovative. From state of the art special effects like “the swamp” and “the bottomless pit”, to bringing creatures to life, everything you see inside Erebus was built in-house. Seeing it may be scary, but feeling it, is absolutely terrifying! With this being the Erebus mantra, come and see the mind-bending creatures that bite you, monsters that grab you, and animals that fall on top of you… nothing can escape the full-on assault of all 5 of your senses.
The Theme: The Erebus Time Machine
Dr. Colber, a mad scientist obsessed with time travel, actually figured out how to make it work! But in doing this, every time he got one of his subjects into another time period, that time period itself looked at them as a virus and wiped them out! Obsessed with trying to make this work, he sent more and more of his employees into the time machine until he ran out of time, money, and human subjects… Which brought him to a brilliant idea! Disguise his time machine as a haunted house! Now, he has an endless supply of human guinea pigs to use in his experiment, and better yet… they unknowingly fund the program.
Erebus taunts a new time period and theme constructed every year, which means there is always new demented ways of making you scream! From human cannibals, to aliens, clowns and undead animals: pick your poison, Erebus has something that’s dying to scare you! Speaking of the dead, check out My Ghost Story: Episode 63 and see the real spirits and ghosts that haunt the halls of the haunted house. Also featured on Travel Channel, Jimmy Kimmel, Nothing But Haunts, and recently named as USA Today’s #1 Scariest Haunt in America, Erebus will be waiting for you in Downtown Pontiac, MI. “I am Erebus, the best 4-story haunted attraction in the nation, and I show no mercy!”
-Zac Terebus
Operations Manager
