7 Halloween Haunted Houses for the Generally Jaded
Are you a Halloween Haunted House thrill-seeker? Are you that particularly enthusiastic Halloween lover amongst your friends because you love the adrenaline rush that comes with getting spooked? More importantly, are those basic, spooky, blood mansions not cutting it for you?
We’ve all been there. Too much of a good thing can sometimes change your tolerance level, like the chocolate chip smiley pancakes at Ihop. One just isn’t enough to capture those happy-childhood-nostalgic endorphins anymore. And have you seen a grown woman order a short stack of those? By the third smiley face, you’re left to wondering why you aren’t feeling as elated as your flat, doughy-faced plate friend.
So, if you’ve found that those rooms without escape or even those themed haunted houses — zombie themed, mental asylum themed, jump out of dark spaces themed — isn’t getting you all riled up like it used to, here are new spooky abodes that should do the trick.
Your Friend Diane’s Apartment
Your Friend Diane’s Apartment is catastrophic scary on the richter scale of fear. Consider the tableau: you enter in a high rise apartment dressed as you are. The doors open to the penthouse. You never knew Diane had a penthouse. You knew Diane was doing well since you two left high school, but you didn’t know that well. The elevator doors open and everyone is dressed casual but subtly better than you. Everyone knows the reference to a New Yorker comic posted in last week’s publication. They complain about their stable careers, talk about the places they’ve travelled on someone else’s dime, and then start to talk about their investment portfolios with authority before turning to you. Everyone. And they start to ask you about your life’s accomplishments, property you might own, where your last international vacation was, before going deeper and starting to compare you with Diane’s life path.
Didn’t you both grow up in the same town? And didn’t you both go to two separate colleges but major in the same exact thing? And now work in the same city trying to achieve the same dreams?
SEVEN
SEVEN is a sensory overload of experiences from the moment you step into the door. Through a railroad-style set of rooms, you start to experience subtle differences through your senses. The lights get slightly dimmer, you can’t see from one end to the other. The sound starts to feel muffled but everyone’s talking to you at the same decibel. You start to stoop as the heights of the room differ. You lose track of your friends, and somewhere along the way, you’re asked about your retirement plan and you realize you didn’t plan for more than 15+ years of retirement.
The final rooms are the worse. In order to escape, you have to order at a hip, loud coffee counter but the barista won’t let you through till you identify the cholesterol free, sodium low, gluten-tolerant item on the menu. And you can’t do that without asking questions.
The final room brings you to a club-pumping space that hurts your eyes, the floor is tilted, and everyone knows the song but you. You have to identify the singer before the bouncer lets you escape, finally.
The Social Shack
The Social Shack accomplishes so much in one VR room than even the scariest of haunted houses — scarier than that one in that city where they’ll give you money back if you can go through each room. Despite having the whole of imagination to work with, The Social Shack brings you into one room with a slideshow presentation. It hits you with all the posts you made online since you had a Xanga and plays Death Cab for Cutie on repeat. Look at your Top 8 from Myspace emblazoned in 8-foot glory, now look at this status you wrote right after you had your heartbroken at 18. The scariest turn is when The Social Shack speeds up and plays Good Riddance and you only see your classmates accomplishments, their children, their contrary political posts with so many likes over and over again. There’s no time limit to the experience but most people can’t take it past the opening riff of Green Day’s graduation anthem.
Doctor Doom
This WebMD sponsored thrill house is pretty good. You list out all your ailments when you get your ticket, and you get print out of all the possible diseases you could be dying from. You don’t even make it to the brick and mortar place since you’re so busy seeing specialists about your stomach ache.
Worthwhile to Meet
I’ll be honest. I didn’t make it through the entire experience of The Interview and I really don’t have a desire to go back. You start in a waiting room and are handed your resume culled from your LinkedIn. While waiting, you sit alongside very calm, suit-ly dressed compatriots, who refuse to talk to you. The clock above is oddly loud with each tick.
You hear laughter beyond the door and wonder what the in joke is. You look around and are discomfited by how calm everyone is. You have no where to look but your resumè, which you now realize has a tiny typo at the bottom. The room’s temperature gets insanely crazy. You realize that you’ve been waiting for quite a long time, and what are they laughing at in that room? You go to talk to the nice person at the desk and they treat you abrasively, rolling their eyes when they think you’re not looking but you’re totally looking.
Then finally, the office you need to get into is opened. Someone who looks like you except with nicer hair, better shoes, and an actual suit comes out, gives you a once over and turns away. The interviewer, now in view, laughs and hugs this person warmly, before turning to you coldly, distant and gets your name wrong right off the bat.
Take a Walk
Take a Walk is interesting and refreshing for being outside. You start by walking down normally, enjoying the store fronts, feeling relatively good as a Godlike voice shouts compliments about your accomplishments. But then it goes away quite suddenly. You’re left on a sidewalk by a few men on a stoop smoking. You’re not sure if you should keep walking, but you gotta finish the track. It goes well, until you’re a step right out of their sightline. You hear it. A whistle. A call for you. Mami. You keep walking but now past a coffee shop with some well-dressed men coming out of some sort of off site meeting. You have to go through them. There’s no where else to go. So you bustle through, but they all throw their hands up as if you burned their personal space. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where are you going in such a hurry? You’re gorgeous! Stop walking! These are compliments! Okay, bye bitch.
You wish that Godlike consciousness would come back. The one who identified all those things you worked on.
Blood Red Tape
This spooky hall is a slow burn but it lingers with you when you go to bed that night, if you can that is. You start by sitting in what looks like to be a governmental facility with stark fluorescent lighting. You’re given a number, like 8 for instance, and an application. You wait while 6,7,9, are called and try to flag someone down when 14 is called. A blasé employee with a clipboard full of forms comes over and asks what you need, looks at your documents, sizes you up, and tells you that you’ve filled out incorrectly. They look you over again and look through your forms. Can you prove your place of birth? Have you had sex in the past 3 months? Do you have acne issues? Do you go to church every Sunday? How do you pronounce your name again?
What are the origins of that?
Where was your mother born…
…how long has your family been in this country…
…did you know your income level doesn’t qualify you for health assistance?
…..did you know you can’t see your family again because their names sound…foreign…
Spooky right? Happy Halloween!
