At long last, What aWitch and the Ghost have made our annual visit to “Frightworld: America’sScreampark,” voted the 3rd best haunted attraction in the nation byBuzzFeed. This year, Frightworld again delivered on the scares,atmosphere and jumps, even though there were few new or redone haunts.
This year, the “Condemned” house featured a swamp, and expanded on the outdoor setting. We at ghostuponthefloor love the realistic and eerie atmosphere that a few dead leaves and branches can create in a haunted house. It is amazing what some realistic trees can do, stepping out of the house and into an outdoor woods, a cemetery with leaves fallen on the ground, and walking through fields of corn stalks—there are few things we love more than being scared in this environment.
New this year in “Condemned” was a series of hissing raccoons. In retrospect they seem a bit predictable, yet we fell for every single one of them! And literally found ourselves clapping in approval. Other standing ovations were given to a dead end in the last room of Eerie Asylum—we won’t spoil it for you, but we will say it was genius.
Celebrating their 15th year, Frightworld seems to have stepped up the makeup effects. This was especially—and epically-- noticeable in the “Night Stalkers” house, an attraction where you only have a flashlight to guide your way through. At turns, we found ourselves truly frightened and then wanting to see more of some of the actors We glimpsed in the halls- their makeup work was so detailed and haunting, their faces stayed with us long after we stepped out of the door and into the light. The Ghost, who counts “Night Stalkers” as one of his favorite fright experiences, was impressed yet again by how the most perfect fear can be given by the house’s controlled flashlight, some hooded figures, good actors and darkness.
We must admit that we did not go through "Insanity,” as we are not afraid to say that we are labored by mazes with strobe lights. While the opening for this style haunt at Frightworld has given us some of the biggest jumps in our haunted history, when it comes to the mazes, we don't put them in the same fear category as the other houses, especially after a half hour of walking into the same walls, and the same people. Frankly, this is a theme we hope haunt makers everywhere start to move away from.
As haunted house technology evolves, we look forward to seeing how Frightworld continues to evolve and make use of higher and higher technology. Some of Frightworld’s greatest assets, though, are the way they employ subtle low tech but effective scares in their haunts- a curtain blowing in the breeze, a row of what looks like people real humans—living or dead?—covered by sheets—this is what gets this Ghost and Witch’s heart racing.
As always, Frightworld’s staff were a friendly, passionate and genuinely excited to be working there. And we can’t blame them. How it must be to go to work every night, ready to go bump in the night and scare Frightworld’s attendees—we can only imagine.
Oh and one last thing. Chainsaws never get old.
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