As I wrote about in my previous post, when we went to the Haunted Catacombs a few weeks back, a brainstorming session afterward led to the idea that the perfect haunted house incorporated a simple house, being outside, with preferably a cemetery. Frightworld's "Wicked Woods" seemed to walk right out of our talks, and had us walking through complete darkness, to a forest, to a cemetery in a forest, to a house.
And several more things managed to scare me. I appreciated how well the houses relied on complete darkness. Simple, easy, but so very effective, walking through complete darkness is the perfect build up to some good scares. One of their houses also perfectly executed a claustrophobic feeling, walking through rows of hanging laundry in what appeared to be an attic. Claustrophobia was also very well used with the use of those now famous balloon walls which have, until now, pressed against you from the left and right. Tonight, I went through my first room where the wall was the ceiling, and gradually went down farther and farther- until you were on your hands and knees. Very disturbing. Very unsettling, indeed.
One last bit of note, what made these houses were the actors. They weren't all focused on simply jumping out and you and making you jump that way, but a woman dressed as a girl sitting on a bed in a room full of dolls with creepy voice and another woman singing to herself in the corner provided for more creepiness and frights than if they had simply jumped out at us. And chainsaws. How could I forget the chainsaw men.
Oh, how I love to be scared. As with so many October things, I wish these came more than once a year.
