The Dent Schoolhouse: Cincinnati, OH (Dent) 2012 Frightmaster Award honorable mention! ** Descriptions May Contain Spoilers ** Bang for the buck For a haunt of this caliber, we feel 20$ is totally worth it, however some may feel that this is a bit pricey. Discount tickets are available at local Arby’s, Dominos, or by bringing a Crush product to the ticket booth. Tickets can also be ordered and printed at home to skip the ticket line. Come early to avoid the lines, the house is blacked out enough to provide a great experience even with a little daylight left. I know some places offer corn mazes, hay rides, petting zoos or whatever with admission, but this place is a haunted house, and a good one. You can make an evening of it, watch the videos showing on the big screens while you wait in line (or skip the line), hang out and listen to WEBN-provided music while wandering haunt actors scare the crowd, and even catch special guests (as we did with the Ecto-1). So if a haunted house is what you want, this one is worth the price of admission. Especially if you take advantage of the discount days. Rating: 10 – Excellent Curb Appeal Just waiting in line is enough to get the heart going. The windows are boarded up looking spooking, the rough wooden fence is menacing and Charlie can be seen peering out in the attic window. Ghouls wander through the queues preying on patrons that are not paying attention. A video of “history” of Charlie the groundskeeper and the Dent Schoolhouse plays on loop in the lines, which is very professional and really helps to amp up the audience. This theme carries throughout the haunt and helps the whole experience feel consistent. It doesn’t get much better than a legit old building decked out...

Land of Illusion Haunted Scream Park: Middletown, OH 2012 Frightmaster Award Winner! Opening Comments – Todd C – Haunt Reviewer: When we were asked to visit Land of Illusion, I immediately expected Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt part 2. With the combination of little marketing and distant location, Land of Illusion was never really on my radar. Therefore, my expectations were low. I figured it would be okay but not great. I expected subpar actors with consumer-grade props. I estimated we’d see everything within an hour. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Paranormal Party / Club Zombie These are not what I would call haunted attractions, but rather just help the atmosphere of Land of Illusion. As you enter the Scream Park, you’ll be greeted with a towering bonfire 12 feet wide with plenty of seating. Club Zombie is a stage located off to the right where a healthy dose of techno and pop music were being blasted. Through the night these spots were hotbeds of activity where people were gathered, munching on snacks from the snack bar, dancing or singing along to the music from Club Zombie, or just fighting off the night’s chill around the bonfire. This makes the night feel like a party, someplace to hang out, rather than just a trip through a haunted house. Dr. Psycho’s Haunted Estate This was the most traditional “haunted house” style haunt, including both indoor and outdoor areas. Both were great. Outside, lighting is minimal . in the good way. There’s just enough light to know where you’re going and see what you need to see, but not enough to foresee what’s lurking ahead. Inside, you find yourself in a two story building full of grotesque detail and excellent actors. There were a number of knee-level nooks that the actors could approach you from that were very effective. This attraction...

Sandyland Acres: Petersburg, KY (NKY) The Haunted Hayride This hayride in the country just keeps getting better and better every year! This year Gene and Brenda Webb have outdone themselves and completely remastered the entire haunt with new scenes, scares and surprises. A very intimidating Mortimer Sneed greets you as you get on the hayride and explains the rules to you before your trip. “Tonight you will face the fears that will send shivers up your spine which may be your very last time. Before I usher this tractor to drag you off into the night there are a few things you must remember. No smoking, there’s hay on this wagon, no drunken liquids not even a thimble full. Stay seated at all times even if the dead is coming to get you. No cursing, the only cursing that should be going on is that performed by witches and the last thing is the dead line. Only the dead can walk upon the line. Do not let your feet walk across the line. Keep them tucked against the hay at all times and if you don’t touch the dead, they won’t touch you.” This set the mood for the trip. The large silo sprouted flames into the night every few minutes, startling even The Frightmaster. As Freddy greets you in the line and ushers you to the large wagon of hay bales you know you’re in for a treat. Then the trip begins. As you pass a creepy looking abandoned motel, a girl runs out at you holding a knife screaming to save her. The ride takes a turn and before you know it, you’re in the cornfield. They added additional actors to the trip through the cornfield this year, popping up out of nowhere and in any direction making it a 10 on the scare factor! Once you...

The Chambers of Horror: Middletown, OH Rating the Middletown Chambers of Horror is a bit like trying to rate a small town fair against a large multimillion dollar amusement park. It simply cannot compete when it comes to the flashy attractions, yet it carries a charm about it that the big parks lack in their money-driven atmosphere. If I were to judge on heart alone, this haunt would get aces across the board. You can tell that everyone on board has a passion for haunted houses and enjoys what they do. Having been converted from restaurant, the Haunted Chambers is much longer than the exterior advertises. I felt there were two strengths to this haunt – the actors and the maze. The Chambers of Horror excels at the confusion haunt. You get completely turned around while they zig and zag you through every square inch of the relatively small building, making it feel longer. Several key rooms make you decide your fate by selecting a door, only to end up in the same room several times. Trick dead ends and moving walls are great effects, but it is diminished a bit by having to be guided through by an actor. To me, it takes away from the experience some when you are given instructions like keep your back against this wall and look up when you hear a sound. The effects are great, but it would be nice if you didn’t need a tour guide telling you where to go at every room. Some areas are too dark and while that helps add to the confusion, it also means that you stumble around in the dark until an actor tells you go left then straight. If some of these areas were a little brighter or had scenery to tie the rooms together the actors could have more time to...

iSqFt Haunt – Catacombs of the Pumpkin God: Blue Ash, OH This year’s Catacombs of the Pumpkin God haunt was the best yet and over the top scary as far as low budget haunts go. Gus and Todd are skilled haunt designers by anyone’s estimation and have created one hell of a haunt in just a couple of days time. With the use of mostly home-made props and a few store bought animatronics and a large dose of creativity, the Catacombs of the Pumpkin God shaped into a great haunt with more scares and surprises than ever before and a quality of haunt that few home made haunts have dreamed of. The haunt takes approx 8 minutes from start to finish and each twist and turn brings new shocks, from the animated clown animatronic from “IT” to the bigger than life talking Pumpkin God, through the graveyard scene with it’s ghouls and skeletons, past the mad doctor and his sexy nurse/victim and even a very imaginative ghost hologram, the screams and the fun never stops until you’re out the door. The use of different levels of lighting and back backdrops gave the rooms an almost surreal feel and the music kept the mood and added to the creepy atmosphere. There was even a grill cooking a human leg that actually threw off heat like a real grill. The rooms were well done, the haunt long enough with enough twists and turns to disorient, and the actors frightful to the max! This haunt was well done and then some. It’s a shame that it’s limited to just the employees of iSqFt because it would make a really fun neighborhood haunt. Bang for the buck – Free! Rating: 10 – Excellent Curb Appeal Rating: 9 – Excellent Scare Factor Rating: 10 – Excellent Actors/Professionalism Rating: 10.5 – Frightmaster Candidate! Audio Effect...

Cedar Point Halloweekends: Sandusky, OH 2011 Frightmaster Award Winner! (Best indoor haunt) Indoor Haunts GA Boecklings Eerie Estate This award winning haunt only gets better every year with the addition of some new rooms, more creepy characters and more screams. As a matter of fact, we think that the Eerie Estate has more screams per square foot of haunt than any other haunted attraction in the tri-state! Just try keeping your cool in here. The rooms are meticulously decorated in late 1800’s decor, dimly lit and very quiet until BAM! The actors literally make you want to run through the rooms! But don’t run, you’ll miss the best that they saved for last… Rating: 11 – FRIGHTMASTER Happy Jack’s Toy Factory Ever wonder why there are no toys left in the entire city of Sandusky, OH? They have all turned into evil little predators and now reside in Happy Jack’s Toy Factory! Seriously, the demented-looking Barbie’s alone would fill a warehouse. Nicely spaced scares, good creativity (loved the GI Joe room!) and other unexpected surprises throughout give this haunt excellent fun value while keeping it high on the scare meter. Not your mother’s Toys-R-Us for sure!!!! Rating: 10.5 – FRIGHTMASTER Club Blood This is a dance club you may want to have second thoughts about going to after dark. The interior is a mix of loud dance music, strobe lights, creepy vampires and barrel mazes that keep you confused and yet terrified at the same time. The haunt is one of the shorter haunts but does manage to stay in theme throughout, maximizing the vampire cult idea. I did feel it needed something more out of the ordinary to give it a little variety but it was a good solid haunt and a lot of fun to go through. Rating: 8.5 – Very Good Outdoor Haunts Blood on the...

The Dent Schoolhouse: Cincinnati, OH (Dent) Charlie the janitor has been a bad janitor again this year and left the bodies of the missing school children laying all around the old schoolhouse. If this place doesn’t give you the creeps from the very beginning, you better check your pulse to see if you are already dead. You start off going through the dark, 1950’ish playground with phantom children playing merrily at recess. But the mood darkens when you enter the school and are checked out by the not-so-nice school nurse (one of our favorites!). As you make your way through the dark hallways in this very old, foreboding building, you see room after detailed room of corpses, skeletons, monster animatronics and many not-so-happy school children. Your job is to find out where Charlie is lurking and avoid the same untimely demise as the children. This haunt is intense and the surprises are many and definitely NOT for the squeamish or faint of heart! The haunt is also very long so it’s worth a bit of a wait in line. Tip – watch out for Damien Reaper – one of the creepiest characters we’ve encountered in any haunt! He will send chills down your spine! Rating: 10 – Excellent Visit their web site at...

Kings Island Halloween Haunt: Mason, OH Holiday Horror: This is one of the two new haunts this year at Kings Island and was surprisingly good for a first year haunt. The rooms all kept with the holiday horror theme and were well populated with actors and grisly holiday themed scenes complete with a “rabid Easter Bunny” and a “Bad Santa”. The individual scenes were well decorated and the actors were very convincing. The only fault I could find with this haunt was it was maybe a little too well lit to really bring the fear factor into the visitor. Dim the lights and bring up the scare factor and this could be a Frightmaster contender! Watch for the Thanksgiving room – it is hilarious! Rating: 9.5 – Excellent Mysteria: This is the second of the new haunts this year at Kings Island and, in our opinion, was a total miss with both theme and scare factor. This is basically a chain link maze that is populated by actors in weird beige spandex body suits. It is too well lit, the actors are not scary or threatening. Some of them looked like they really didn’t know how to act when people walked through. I really didn’t know how to act either since it wasn’t scary, funny or interesting. This was a miss for me. Rating: 2.5 – Poor Slaughter House: This haunt is definitely not for the squeamish! Blood is counted by the gallons and body parts are numbered in the hundreds. The creepy characters within the rooms keep you moving along with a scream or just a grunt, all the while banging on pans, tables, limbs, whatever else they can get their bloody hands on. Well done haunt, if not a bit over the top with the excessive noise, still worth checking out. Rating: 10 – Excellent Urgent Scare:...

Hannah Haunted House: Indianapolis, IN I was very impressed with the Hannah House. As you entered the house you immediately went into the basement. There you met a little girl by herself holding a doll. She was extremely creepy, kept asking us things like, “Do you want to stay here?” and “Which way do you want to go?” in that chilling, child-like voice. It was very unexpected, which made it all the more scary. Standing outside the house and looking at it gives you the creeps. It is very eerie, even more so knowing that the house itself really is haunted. You definitely get the haunted feel when you’re outside of it as well as when you’re inside it. The actors were phenomenal for their first night. The vampires were very scary. Some of them were making noises mimicking the vampires of the movie 30 Days Of Night. The characters were convincing in some areas, but could use a bit more acting in others. In the first floor of the house you meet Alexander Hannah, the man who built the house. He was very convincing, but when you get up to the second story of the house and meet his wife, she is not so convincing. The vampires, the little girl and the clowns were very good. They also had different actors portraying things in the forest as you’re leaving and they chase you, which is a nice extra scare. Hannah Haunted House is a good scare and with a bit more creativity or thought (more into playing upon people’s fears of the dark and ghosts) they could potentially have a legendary haunt. All in all, they did pretty good with what they had to work with. *Review written by Stephanie, a friend of HauntedHouseTour.com Rating: 7 –...

USS Nightmare: Newport, KY The haunted boat was longer and more challenging this year than in the past. The captain has opened up two new areas of this creepy floating nightmare never before explored and it just increases the already longest haunt in the tri-state. The animatronics were excellent and the captain was there to invite you to “stop by for dinner and stay forever”. The tour takes upwards of 30 min so it’s well worth the price of admission. Everything about the boat is creepy, inside and out. We would have like to see maybe a few more actors inside and maybe a bit more dark time but still one of our tri-state favorites!!!! Beware! – this haunt will definitely give you nightmares!!!!! Rating: 9.5 – Excellent Visit their web site at...