Month: October 2021 (Page 3 of 13)

* (Halloween Countdown post #14)

 

‘The disquieting advertisements appeared in magazines like Time and Billboard: “The producers of the film MACABRE undertake to pay the sum of ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in the event of the death by fright of any member of the audience during the performance.”

‘A ploy to lure viewers to movie theaters, the ads were also 100 percent genuine: movie-goers around the country were required to sign life insurance policies from Lloyd’s of London upon entering the theater. Nurses stood by in case of death by fright, and hearses lined the streets outside. As for the director who orchestrated the entire hoopla (and underwrote the insurance policies), he made spectacular entrances of his own as Macabre premiered in cities like Milwaukee, Chicago and New York, either in a hearse or in a coffin. It was 1958, and William Castle was determined to “scare the pants off” his audience.

‘“Reportedly he was pissed no one bothered to die, because it would’ve been great press,” says film historian Catherine Clepper. “He was kind of a genius when it came to promotion, anticipating what would delight audiences or differentiate his product, which in many ways was an average, low budget horror-family film of that period.”

‘Castle’s trajectory to Hollywood began with a stunt of a very different nature. While working at a playhouse in Connecticut in the late 1930s, a coworker received notice that she should return to Germany for a Nazi drama festival, which she had no intention of attending. “So Mr. Castle fired off a cable to Hitler telling him, in effect, to go climb a tree,” reported the New York Times. That stunt caught the attention of Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, and soon enough Castle was producing and directing movies.

‘But it wasn’t until he departed from Columbia and formed his own film company with writer Robb White that Castle solidified his reputation for zany gimmicks, earning the reputation for being the “Abominable Showman”. The first three films the company produced were especially popular: Macabre, House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler.

‘The first, of course, came with the life insurance policies against dying of fright—a tie in with the actual plot of the movie, which features an insurance scam and death by fear. The 1959 cult classic House on Haunted Hill featured an in-theater gimmick called “Emergo.” At the end of the movie, in another plot tie-in, as a skeleton rises out of a vat of acid, another skeleton hidden in a box above the screen dropped down on a zip line and glided above the audience. At one showing the skeleton broke free of its moorings and landed on an audience member, causing more fear than intended, and a slight injury.

‘“There’s this amazing text—it’s not even subtext—that you’re coming to the theater, [Castle’s film] is going to kill you [from fear], and then the villain of [his] movies is fear,” Clepper says. “It’s really clever and suggests [the promotional stunts] weren’t just random, crass commercialism.”

‘And finally, with The Tingler—a movie about a lobster-like creature that causes death by fear and can only be banished by screaming—Castle had theater owners rig several chairs with electric buzzers. He placed a female “plant” in the audience to collapse into hysterics at the climax of the film, just as audiences were told by the on-screen narrator, breaking the fourth wall, that the tingler had escaped into their theater. The movie also used “the ingenious but simply executed mixture of color and black and white” in a final scene, where everything was colorless except the bath tub filled with bright red blood, writes Kevin Heffernan in Ghouls, Gimmicks, and Gold: Horror Films and the American Movie Business.

‘While Castle’s work was unique for the way his gimmicks tied in with the narrative plot of his films—and for their enormous financial success—he was only one in a long line of directors trying to manipulate senses beyond sight and sound.

‘“You see a much more expanded version of experimentation and willingness to play with form around 1950 when television really begins to crack the film market,” Clepper says. “[Castle] is such a fun person to study and write about because he is inadvertently touching on longstanding utopian visions of what cinema can be, that it can touch you, both emotionally and physically.”

‘Castle wasn’t the only one experimenting with gimmicks and different ways of affecting audiences. Screenings of the classic 1931 version of Dracula included nurses in the theater and a dose of ‘nerve tonic’ (sugar pills) before the film, Clepper writes in a paper for Film History. Promotional events for 1958’s The Fly included an enormous plastic fly bathed in green light, and the 1965 film The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies included a spinning hypnotic wheel and men in masks running down the aisles.

‘But Castle’s forays into horror seemed to secure a special place in the pantheon of cult classics. As Mikita Brottman writes in Film Quarterly, “A whole spectrum of established film critics have recalled a childhood experience of The Tingler as their archetypal horror movie-going experience.”

‘Kids were especially drawn to the silliness of the stunts, Clepper says. “The kids were the ones who brought repeated tickets [to House on Haunted Hill]. It was more of a carnivalesque atmosphere than a spooky, goosebumps atmosphere. You buy your ticket, you wait for that moment [when the skeleton appears], then everybody pulls out their slingshots”—and tries to shoot the ghoul.

‘Castle’s career continued beyond his “shock” productions, with perhaps his most famous producer credit coming from Rosemary’s Baby, which Castle purchased the rights to after reading the story upon which it was based. But today most remember him for the enjoyable spoofs he incorporated into his shows. Director John Waters is one particularly vocal fan: “William Castle is my idol,” Waters once said. “His films made me want to make films. I’m even jealous of his work.”

‘“Castle has had legs that he never anticipated having,” Clepper says. The director normally moved quickly from one movie to the next, discarding old gimmicks to come up with new ones. But even today, people want to remember them as they were seen originally: complete with dangling skeletons and buzzing chairs—an experience that an audience viewer, as Castle said, just couldn’t have at home in front of the television.’ — Lorraine Boissoneault

 

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Stills

 

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Further

The William Castle Blog
William Castle @ IMDb
Where to begin with William Castle
The Hair-Raising Gimmicks of the Abominable Showman
ReFocus: The Films of William Castle
Spine tingling came of age with William Castle
In praise of William Castle – undisputed king of cinema gimmickry
William Castle @ Letterboxd
WILLIAM CASTLE: MASTER SHOWMAN OF THE MACABRE
Showmanship: The Cinema of William Castle
William Castle: Grandmaster of Exploitation Cinema
William Castle, creep show king and Hollywood’s last great promoter
THE SEATS ARE BUZZING: THE FILMS OF WILLIAM CASTLE
The Horror World of William Castle
WILLIAM CASTLE – Mad As Hell Movie Showman
Emergo! Percepto! Illusion-o! The William Castle Circus Comes to Town
Collective Screams: William Castle and the Gimmick Film
The Branding of an Author: William Castle and the Auteur Theory
The Social Relevance of William Castle

 

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Extras

William Castle Gimmicks

William Castle, Hollywood Barnum

William Castle Discussion

 

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John Waters on Becoming William Castle and His Love of Great Gimmicks
by Liz Shannon Miller

 

A dream came true for John Waters in “Hagsploitation,” Episode 6 of FX’s “Feud: Bette and Joan.” For decades, the iconic director has been a vocal fan of William Castle, the B-movie king of showmanship whose promotional stunts remain legendary. In fact, “I wish I were William Castle,” Waters wrote in the 1986 collection “Crackpot.”

And thus, Ryan Murphy asked Waters to appear in “Hagsploitation,” which opens with Waters as Castle, introducing an axe-wielding Joan Crawford (played by Jessica Lange) during a promotional tour for the 1964 film “Straight-Jacket.”

“It was an honor to be asked to do it, because I’m such a fan of William Castle,” Waters said about the unannounced cameo. “I had to keep the secret for so long because we shot it a long time ago. And the secret kept. I was surprised, because there were 100 extras there.”

While playing Castle on screen, Waters is still very recognizably Waters, which was by design. “When they asked me to do it, I was like, ‘Well, I’m not fat, should I wear a fat suit?’ and they were like, no, we just like the conceptual idea of you playing him,” he said.

But the reverse was true when it came to his co-star. Waters hadn’t met Lange before, but said he thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with her, “because she was dressed like Joan Crawford and so we’d be having a normal conversation — but she’d look like Joan Crawford.”

This wasn’t the first time Waters was approached to be in a Ryan Murphy series — according to the director, he was asked to appear in “American Horror Story,” but the schedule didn’t work out.

Waters doesn’t necessarily plan to do more acting work in the future. “Every once in a while when they ask me, I just do it because I like the whole project. I was in the ‘Alvin and the Chipmunk’ movie, which was a real bucket list item.”

The one acting job he really wants? “I want to be in a ‘Final Destination’ movie.” (He’s a fan of the franchise.)

He’s also a fan of what Murphy’s been doing lately on television: “The O.J. thing [‘The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story’] was great. I mean, he’s the hardest working man. I don’t understand how he doesn’t just drop dead.”

Beyond working with Murphy, playing Castle was also an opportunity to celebrate the classic theater gimmicks that Waters loved as a kid. “When I first saw ‘House on Haunted Hill’ as a kid in Baltimore and the skeleton went out on the wire and the thousand kids in the audience went crazy … My whole life, I’ve tried to at least equal that cinema anarchy,” he said. “I came close with the end of ‘Pink Flamingos,’ but I didn’t tie with it. He still beat me.”

Waters likes to incorporate gimmicks into his performances, remembering how “Divine and I used to go around to the theaters — we used to come out and Divine would rip a phone book in half.” In fact, at his recent Christmas show, he distributed eyebrow pencils and little packets of anal bleach.

To Waters, “there’s always gimmicks and I’ll go to every one of them. I was the last person watching ‘Piranha 3-D’ in 3-D glasses by myself, the last time it played in a suburban theater in Baltimore. I still will go for the gimmick.”

There’s one gimmick that doesn’t work for Waters — the way some theaters have begun to upgrade to luxury seating. “They have seats now that are like first class airline seats, which make you go to sleep,” he said. “If I’m seeing a three-hour foreign film, I don’t want to watch it in a bed.”

Waters’ favorite gimmick remains Castle’s invention of the Percepto, which attached buzzers to theater seats during screenings of 1959’s “The Tingler.” (The instructions for how to wire the seats for the Percepto is just one item in Waters’ collection of Castle memorabilia.)

But he also fondly remembers the distribution of vomit bags for certain films, a trend which remains common. “I read that ‘Raw’ is giving out vomit bags — which is hardly an original idea and ‘Raw’ is a good movie. So I don’t even think it needed that. But the vomit bag gets revived every decade at least.”

After all, a good gimmick can often enhance a film or TV show. A gimmick, for example, like making sure that a iconic director gets played on screen by his biggest fan.

 

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Macabre (1958)
‘William Castle was just figuring out his gimmicky horror-suspense style when he made the boring “Macabre”. He’d get it right next time, with “The Tingler”–a person couldn’t GET more right than “The Tingler,” in fact. But “Macabre” is kind of a swing-and-miss, with its story of a missing little girl, possibly buried alive, and silly cemetery hijinks.’ — Mark Rinker

Trailer

the entirety

 

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House on Haunted Hill (1959)
‘Frederick Loren has invited five strangers to a party of a lifetime. He is offering each of them $10,000 if they can stay the night in a house. But the house is no ordinary house. This house has a reputation for murder. Frederick offers them each a gun for protection. They all arrived in a hearse and will either leave in it $10,000 richer or leave in it dead!’ — Letterboxd

Trailer

the entirety

 

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The Tingler (1959)
‘A cultish chiller that acquired some fame on its original US release when Castle wired up the cinema seats with electrical buzzers to give his audiences a little extra shock value. The plot is ingeniously ludicrous: a doctor (Price) discovers that fear breeds a centipede-like organism in the base of the spine. The organism can kill if its grip is not released, and only a scream can do that. So the good doctor experiments on a deaf-mute, the wife of a cinema-owner who only shows silent movies. Castle was a real Hollywood showman, a downmarket Hitchcock whose work shows considerable flair. The scenes in the movie theatre are very striking, and the way the doctor torments his victim – by providing her with visual shocks (a kind of acid trip) and by causing running water from a tap to turn into blood (black-and-white gave way to colour here) – is clearly the work of a sick mind. Castle recalled, ‘I was asked by somebody at Yale whether The Tingler was my statement against the establishment and whether it was my plea against war and poverty. I said, Who knows?” — Time Out (London)

Introduction to “The Tingler”

the entirety

 

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13 Ghosts (1960)
‘William Castle’s masterpiece – a gimmick (illusion-o, in which red and blue filters were placed separately and on a horizontal axis to either emphasize or hide the spooky haunts, otherwise known as Ghost-Viewers) that actively yearns for participation within the exhibition space, constantly switching back and forth from different combinations of viewing, resulting in a varied experience of individualized image making. You make your own movie! Proto-Scooby-Doo in that it utilizes ghosts as a cover-up for earthly criminality. Even ends with the young boy putting on the villain’s dollar-store Halloween mask to scare the family as they chuckle heartily! I love this movie as much as I love cobwebs and secret passages…so a whole fucking lot!’ — Silent Dawn

Trailer

the entirety

 

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Homicidal (1961)
‘Needless to say, the film has a somewhat campy feel to it now. No more so than when Emily goes on the rampage in the wedding shop, snapping the head off a nearby statue of a groom. However, at least the film does achieve one unexpected chill, when Emily describes to Helga how the justice of the peace suffered with surprising ferocity. Typical of the showman that Castle was, the film came complete with a couple of gimmicks. The first was a ‘fright break’ a 45 second timer ahead of the film’s climax as the ‘final girl’ approaches the house where the killer lurks. If movie-going patrons couldn’t stand the suspense, then Castle had fashioned a ‘coward’s corner’ in the lobby! Whilst certainly entertaining, HOMICIDAL is, despite the gimmicks, more restrained than some of Castle’s more celebrated movies.’ — Justin Kerswell

Trailer

the entirety

 

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Mr Sardonicus (1961)
‘Mr. Sardonicus is a 1961 melodrama directed by William Castle. When it was originally released to cinemas, it was allegedly distributed with two alternate endings. Which ending was shown at any given screening supposedly depended upon the results of an instant poll of audience members. Only one ending is available in existing versions, however, and the existence of the second is unconfirmed.’ — Lost Media Archive

Trailer

the entirety

 

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13 Frightened Girls (1963)
‘While attending a Swiss school for diplomats’ daughters, the teenage daughter of the American ambassador uses her access to various embassies to engage in espionage.’ — Letterboxd

Trailer #1

Trailer #2

 

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The Old Dark House (1963)
‘This film originally came about due to the fact that both Hammer and Castle were in pre-production on their own separate versions of The Old Dark House, and thought it would be silly to release them at the same time. Why not produce one together? So Hammer convinced William Castle to venture out to England and work on their film as a co-production, and Castle agreed.

‘The film itself had some censorship problems in the UK. The BBFC (British Board of Film Certification) did not release it in England until 1966 and it was significantly cut down. While the US got the film at 86 minutes in 1963, the UK had to remove all close-ups of corpses in order to achieve an “A” rating, leaving the film at a total running time of 77 minutes. Additionally, while the film was shot in Eastman Color, due to financial restraints, the original US distribution of the film was all black and white prints. It was much cheaper to print black and white 35mm prints from a color negative than to release the film in color.’ — New Beverly

Trailer

 

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Strait-Jacket (1964)
‘In 1964, William Castle would employ the biggest gimmick of his moviemaking career – Joan Crawford as an ax murderer in Strait-Jacket. Working at Columbia Pictures, Strait-Jacket would turn out to be William Castle’s most respectable movie to date, with a screen legend front and center and Psycho author Robert Bloch penning the screenplay. Of course, Strait-Jacket is now hailed as a camp classic, which it is no doubt, but it’s also a throwback melodrama that is punctuated by its moments of violent ax murders.’ — Fan Boy Nation

Trailer

Joan Crawford Wardrobe/Makeup Test for Strait-Jacket

Excerpt

 

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The Night Walker (1964)
‘Don’t watch The Night Walker at night, or you will run to hide beneath your covers with all the lights on! Solid Castle flick with an abundance of spooks, ghouls, and frights! Barbara Stanwyck has to put up with a bunch of old dudes fucking around with trying to get their hands on some money, that’s the only bad part. How William Castle continued to nab famous Hollywood women for shit like this is beyond me. As far as I know, this film didn’t have a gimmick… but it didn’t need one! That wedding scene plus some of the stuff at the end was enough to make me want to poop my pants!’ — Scare-ik

Trailer

Opening scene

 

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I Saw What You Did (1965)
‘Following Joan’s termination from the film “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” in August 1964, “I Saw What You Did” was her first appearance in a film. Upon signing her contract for the film on September 29th, 1964, Joan supplied producer William Castle with paperwork from her doctors documenting her complete recovery from her ailment. For her services, Joan received $50,000.00 and top billing on promotional material. Grayson Hall was reportedly promised the role of “Amy Nelson” before Joan accepted it. The film’s original title was “In Case Of Murder.” “I Saw What You Did” was the first of a new five-film contract William Castle made with Universal. Pre-production arraignments began in July 1964 upon Castle’s completion of “The Night Walker.”‘ — The Concluding Chapter

Trailer

Excerpt

 

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Kill Uncle (1966)
‘The great Nigel Green brings a delicious patina of sardonic menace to one of his few lead roles as the cheerful would-be assassin of his newly rich nephew. One of William Castle’s later efforts, it’s gimmick-less and shot pretty much like a tv show, but its uneasy mix of fun and child murder has a pleasingly unwholesome tone.’ — Trailers from Hell

Trailer

 

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Shanks (1974)
‘Malcolm Shanks is a sad and lonely man, deaf, mute and living with his cruel sister and her husband, who delight in making him miserable. His only pleasure, it seems, is in making and controlling puppets. Thanks to his skill, he is offered a job as a lab assistant to Dr. Walker, who is working on ways to re-animate dead bodies by inserting electrodes at key nerve points and manipulating the bodies as if they were on strings. When the professor suddenly dies one night, Shanks gets the idea to apply their experimental results to a human body, and then to start exacting some revenge.’ — Letterboxd

Trailer

Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David, Oh, thanks. Does anything do more than just sort of work when you really think about it? Okay, Jon is a total newbie to me. I’ll, you know, google. My friends/collaborators Zac and Sabrina both felt sick yesterday, so something’s in the air. For Halloween night itself? This week is insane on my end, so I might just be ready to chill by then, we’ll see. Anything Halloweeny on the coast? ** _Black_Acrylic, That is one very good looking spooky house there. Of course the photo flatters its spooky side, but still. It would make a nice …well, pretty much anything. ** Bill, Thanks, we’re going to need the luck for absolutely sure. Did I forget to post the Bernard/Crying day to my FB blog page? Oh, shit, you’re right. Weird. I’m not sure why that happened. I’m usually pretty automatic/diligent. Good potential news about the gig video. I think the only horror movies I’ve seen this month are ones I watched partly re: making blog posts like the one today. Hm. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Cool, I would like to see Budapest. I’ll put on my thinking cap and see how that could happen. Fun! Thanks, yeah, I don’t think there’s much to be done about the anxiety. The builders still haven’t finished the Haunt/game, and the version we have is incomplete and full of glitches, and today is our long tech rehearsal for which we’d hoped to have the finished thing, and now it looks like we may have to present the Haunt/game without having been able to see/test it beforehand, and the producer of Zac’s and my new film is bringing about five rich art world people who are maybe interested in putting money into our film, so there’s the added pressure of hoping to impress them enough to invest in the film, and, so, yeah, it’s stressful with no real solution. Generally, with me, I get anxious before things happen, but when they actually happen, I just surrender to my fate and relax and do it. I hate stress, don’t you? It’s so not fun. Yes, new additions to your town! It’s becoming a real metropolis. And I’m ever more happy to be a homeless citizen. My faves? Hm, Haunted Hoochie and Dent Schoolhouse are legendary, so them. I think maybe the carwash one, and there’s something about Psycho Path Dark Ride that charms me, so that one too. Very hard to pick. Love turning the air I breathe into a sedative, ha ha, G. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Thanks for the ‘Dune’ review. I still think I’m going to skip it, but I’m happy you were sated. Oh, fuck. I think you know how I feel about heroin. That is very grim. I think if that’s true and he doesn’t turn around very quickly, he’s in deep, deep trouble. Having had too many friends and a bf either die and have their lives destroyed by heroin, my policy is either the heroin user goes into serious rehab or uses another method to stop using it very quickly or I cut them loose. That is a very bad, very dangerous path he is on. I’m very sorry to hear that. ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. Thanks, man. I got the email/Zoom link. I think you had Zac’s email right, but I’ll make sure when I see him today. Excited! Oh, ‘Memoria’ … What he was trying to do is painfully evident, and all I saw was the effort, and I thought it failed at almost every turn. It has his mystical stuff in it, but it isn’t effective except in tiny bits because the film in general is so thin and draggy. It seemed like an exercise in ‘slow cinema’ tropes. And, like I kind of said, Swinton was a terrible choice to pin so much intended charisma on. She wanders through the film doing her usually schtick in tediously slow motion, and she radiates almost nothing. I don’t know. See it and see what you think. It’s very long and feels very long. Be prepared for that. ** Steve Erickson, Good luck finding the totality of your muse. You will. That Bonnetta documentary sounds pretty interesting. I’ll look for it. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. ** Rafe, Hi, Rafe. Cool that you came back. I’m guessing you write and make art? Is the studying feeling beneficial? I bet your français is a million times better than mine, I’m embarrassed to say. Thank you again. I hope I’ll get to see and experience your work, I’d like to. It’s cloudy and slightly chilly here today, and that’s kind of my ideal, so I’ll be fine, thanks. And the same ideal (in your terms) weather to you. ** Halloween continues unabated around here with this look into the movies of horror pioneer William Castle. Fun is there to be had. See you tomorrow.

* (Halloween countdown post #13)

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Arx Mortis (Killen, AL)
‘Covington Clinic is the haunted house. It is a 40-50,000 square foot building. It is so scary they have built in 23 escape exits for those who can not complete the tour. The fright is based on darkness, claustrophobia, gore and horror. The theme is a clinic that has created zombies. The locals are tricked and experimented on while fighting a bio-hazard. The building has a funeral parlor, coffins, embalming area, morgue, experimentation labs and some of the best animatronics and movie quality sound and light experience you will find anywhere in the country. Expect long wait lines.’

 

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The Dark House (Garrison, NY)
‘In the Dark House haunted attraction You will be enveloped in darkness right from the beginning and will have to depend on your other 4 senses as well as your own horrifying imagination to get you to the end. As the story goes, you and a team of your “friends” aim to disprove emphatically that there is no such thing as ghosts by spending the night in a long rumoured haunted house. The story is told to you through your audio headset as you navigate the space by following the “umbillicals.” You will hear, taste, smell and touch the world around you as your “guides” activate tactile elements at key inflection points in the audio to make it all come to horrifying life.’

 

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The Slaughterhouse (Tuscon, AZ)
‘Are haunted houses real, or are they just meant to scare the living There’s one haunted house in Tucson that begs the question, and it’s the subject of this week’s Paranormal Pueblo — The Slaughterhouse. The Slaughterhouse is filled with murderous clowns, cannibal butchers and other creatures that go bump in the night — but they’re only actors in costumes. The real haunts begins when the lights go out. KGUN 9 went on a paranormal investigation with two members of The Tucson Ghost Company, using tools to hear and see what lurks in the dark. Becky and Will Gydesen have been to the Slaughterhouse a few times to hunt for ghosts, and they say they’ve had experiences every time. During business hours, several employees told us about their own experiences with the paranormal, including doors slamming, rotten smells and sounds of footsteps — something we experienced for ourselves. So is the Slaughterhouse the only truly haunted house in Tucson? Becky and the employees say yes.’

 

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Nightterrors Haunted House (Little Rock, AK)
‘Take a journey through the dark, twisted, and demented mind of an insane funeral home owner who murders at night to bring more and more business to his family owned funeral parlor. Barely keeping the doors open he enlists the help of his psychotic family to help him. When you start your tour into the all new 2017

‘Night Terrors 13 Haunted Attractions, you will be engulfed in special Fx and props and sets never seen before . You will start down the long dark corridor of the funeral home and be trusted into an actual funeral that will leave you wondering is this real or just my imagination.

‘We will take you from the front of the funeral home and reception area to back into the embalming room. Then the morgue. Then the Mausoleum where maddening and evil spirits of the night will Torment your every turn. Embrace your loved one, You may never see them again if you are separated from your group. EXFearience the madness and macabre of this Extreme Haunted house that will challenge your senses and your bravery and be careful because YOUR SANITY MAY NOT SURVIVE!!!!’

 

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Darkrose Manor (Aurora, CO)
‘For the fourth year in a row, Rose and her family have transformed their home for the Halloween holiday, turning their yard and house into a free haunted house for trick or treaters of any age. The Darkrose Manor is an eerie tableau that includes a meticulously constructed witch’s shack, a gallery of nightmarish creatures and a towering fence that surrounds the entire property.’

 

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Haunted Hoochie (Pataskala, OH)
‘Haunted Hoochie is one of the world’s most controversial haunts. People come far and wide to experience its unique brand of extreme scares. It truly has a cult following and some of the largest lines of any haunt you’ll tour. Flames can be seen on top of silos as a demon guards the haunt.

‘Haunted Hoochie is a sensory overload taken to the next level. It’s a horror movie that develops right in front of your eyes. Watch a lunatic stick a shotgun in his mouth and then pull the trigger. Blood runs down the wall behind him as the crowd cheers for more. Haunted Hoochie is well known for its horrific scenes that are grotesque in nature and quite original.

‘Some haunts have tried to replicate these scenes, but Haunted Hoochie does them best. They’re the innovators of these graphic skits and they’re a big part of what makes Haunted Hoochie so badass. No subject matter is off limits. One scene features a mad doctor who hits the stomach of a pregnant woman with a sledgehammer to help free a demon baby. Watch the baby go air born as the crowd reacts in horror. The cursed church is full of scantily clad nuns with their breasts hanging out and there’s an evil priest with a handful of snakes. A pentagram bursts into flames as all hell breaks loose.

‘This is a highly detailed haunt with high startle props everywhere you turn. Some serious money has been invested into this place. I was amazed by the amount of animatronics in some of the rooms. You’ll see a Headless Horseman, 13 foot Impaler Monster, a roaring T-Rex, killer spiders and so much more. No corner is cut when it comes to scenes.’

 

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Trail of Terror (Wallingford, CT)
‘Hiding in the woods at the end of a lonesome road is a world of fright and fantasy that will test one’s mettle, temper one’s cavalier courage, torment one’s sanity, and taint one’s soul. This vortex of dark entertainment is the Trail of Terror. The Trail resides on four appalling acres of forsaken forest. The haunt scenes take up fully half of that area. . After entering the front gate, guests walk along the outdoor trail through 30 different scenes. Unsuspecting patrons must venture through crawl spaces, squeeze walls, across a rope bridge, aboard a boat, under a spinning carousel, and through a vortex tunnel on their march of mayhem. Over the summer, the staff changes approximately 75% of the Trail’s scenes so customers are confronted with novel new frights each season.’

 

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Murder House (Tampa, FL)
‘Murder House is located in the heart of “Thrill Kill” Tampa, FL. “Thrill Kill’s” streets are populated by criminals, killers, psychopaths, and the corrupted. This area of Tampa is isolated from the rest of the city and is known to be dangerous and uninhabitable. People unfortunate enough to cross into this wasteland end up mangled in one of the various killing grounds. There are no rules in this sector; it is total anarchy. In the center of the chaos, a vacant house boarded up and condemned, spawns pure evil. This evil dwelling has become known as: “Murder House“.

‘The “Thrill Kill“ zone is lost to the influence of criminal manslaughter. All authority has lost control and the killers have enslaved this world. The corrupted leaders have torched the constitution in flames instead favoring power, money, and sex. This is a perversion of society, where taboo and criminal justice has infested into all the establishments in the area. “America’s Greatest Killers“ stalk these killing fields in personal quests of villainous behavior. They are drenched with the blood of the “Helpless Victims” that were not able to get out before this area of the city fell under the murderous hand of the “Thrill Kill.”’

 

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Paranoia (Canton, GA)
‘Quantum cryonics, or “Facility Q” as it’s employees referred to it, was a state of the art research facility which specialized in preserving human life. Under the guise of an abandoned supermarket in canton Georgia, it was a place one could have their body cryogenically frozen upon death to be reanimated in the future when technology allowed. It was also staffed with the most skilled scientists and researchers available, until it was discovered that one of their scientists, Dr. Tobias Warner was stealing medical supplies and organs from cadavers and secretly performing unspeakable experiments on them. One of his most damning creations was two human torsos sewn together inside of a makeshift incubator suspended between life and death. Dr. Warner was promptly fired and arrested. Five months later Dr. Warner supposedly died in prison; however, there was no corpse and no death certificate. It was almost as if he had just vanished. All those who dared to look further into the case either disappeared under mysterious circumstances or were found dead. As Facility Q resumed operations, more supplies, biological samples, and employees began to go missing. The company tried to cover it up as best they could, but what they couldn’t cover up was the smell. One day during some “routine maintenance” they found the truth. Deep below the building was a makeshift series of laboratories and tunnels using the facility’s vast sewer and septic systems. They found the missing employees. Some dead, some… not. The ones they found alive were highly volatile and extremely sensitive to light. They would try to bite and scratch with what little teeth and fingernails remained. Normal sedatives wouldn’t work, and only one was successfully apprehended. What they didn’t find was Dr. Warner, but they did find his notebook describing a “project Seraphim” with detailed drawings and diagrams of sewn together creatures similar to the ones found prior to his arrest, along with photographs from Evan Travers’ infamous “body farm” case from 2013. They also found stolen cryogenic pods. Some of them had human samples and some had what appeared to be extra terrestrial samples. Some of them, however, were broken as if something had escaped. The facility has been abandoned for several years now, but many claim to still hear noises coming from it. You and your team will crouch through a secret access door and descend into the bowels of the facility. Discover Dr. Warner’s handiwork as you trudge through human filth and remains. Take a shortcut through the rundown maintenance area and uncover the disgusting truth. Will you come out with your life and limbs intact? Or will the good doctor and his team of followers find better use for them? Find out this October as you descend into THE VOID.’

 

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Haunted Plantation (Waipahu, HI)
‘For a couple of nights every year for Halloween, the Hawai‘i Plantation Village becomes a haunted house attraction called the Haunted Plantation. It’s not a typical haunted house. “I didn’t want to build sets to make it look scary,” says Noa Laporga, the Haunted Plantation creator. Instead, Laporga relies on the village’s creepiness at night. Throw in some fog, spooky music and at least 50 costumed actors hiding in the dark corners of the houses—BOOM—you’ve got yourself one of the scariest haunted houses in town.’

 

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A Haunting in Hollis (Hollis, NY)
‘The ONLY official In-Home Haunt with (2) 40 ft exterior double mazes & live actors. A three level in-home walk through with two 40 foot pitch black outdoor mazes Scary scary scary! Real haunted house. The other places aren’t houses they are warehouses. This one gives you the creepiest feeling while walking thru it. They have 3 mazes and u even go in their basementttt! Creepy! And it’s unbelievably cheap.’

 

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The Dent Schoolhouse (Cincinnati, OH)
‘The Dent Schoolhouse takes place in a schoolhouse that was built back in 1896 and contains a gruesome legend… The Janitor of the school, Charlie McFree is said to have killed a large number of the student body over a period of 10-20 years. Hiding their bodies within the basement, the smell became to much and alerted the town of Dent… discovery of the hellish scene has made a permanent residence in the basement.’

 

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The Basement (Pittsburgh, PA)
‘Since 2013 The Basement has featured a series of intense, intimate and R-rated horrors that challenge the limits of fear for anyone 18 years or older and willing to sign our waiver. While we encourage Pittsburgh fright fans to visit ScareHouse this year, The Basement will not return until 2022. Those of you who have experienced The Basement in previous seasons know that it is a highly tactile and intimate experience involving close physical encounters with intense performers and situations – none of which is advisable during this unprecedented and still ongoing pandemic.’

 

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Dead Man’s Farm (Philadelphia, TN)
‘Experience a haunted attraction that has it all! Do you dare try our haunted house with the murderous Bludgeon Family, the haunted corn maze where you can actually get lost, a horror escape room for you and your friends to die in, a 2-person coffin simulation to get buried alive in, or a virtual reality world to face your deepest fears in! Experience the event that THOUSANDS have been SCREAMING about for 13 YEARS!’

 

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Castle of Chaos (Midvale, UT)
‘This is the most extreme experience in Utah. Can you survive the night without chickening out or using the safe word? The Ghosts in the building will try their best to make you run away screaming. This is a very intense experience which will include portions of the haunt, “special” rooms, and is definitely an extreme horror experience. Must sign the Waiver and be 18 or older.’

 

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Cutting Edge Haunted House (Fort Worth, TX)
‘Located in a 100-year-old abandoned meat packing plant in a section of Fort Worth historically dubbed as “Hell’s Half Acre,” the Cutting Edge Haunted House is built upon a foundation of fear. The meat packing equipment from the Old West is still in use, but now it is a two-story human processing area. Realistic looking human mannequins are hoisted up to the second level and brought through the entire meat packing process until the conveyor system brings the butchered corpses back to the first level. The old meat-packing plant in downtown Fort Worth is a great home for the fantastic special effects that our loyal customers have come to expect. It takes visitors an average 55 minutes to explore Cutting Edge Haunted House. This walk-through haunted house is frighteningly realistic.’

 

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Terror Vault (San Francisco, CA)
‘A dark and stormy figure looms from the shadows — San Francisco drag queen Peaches Christ, dressed to kill with a raven-black wig tall enough to rival the Millennium Tower, but clearly built on a more solid foundation. We’re in a room full of medical mechanisms and rusty prison-cell doors, ancient and decaying, with a foreboding darkness pushing through the corroded bars. Someone’s pounding on a rear wall. What the devil did I just bump into, a body bag? OK, I’m officially creeped out, even with the house lights on, and I really want my mama.

‘This is Terror Vault, a new and delightfully haunted experience to spook the city this Halloween season, opening Wednesday and running through Nov. 3. We got a preview earlier this week, and while there are plenty of scares, spooks and startles, this is not your run-of-the-shopping-mall haunted-house maze with ghouls around every corner. No, this is a show. A 45-minute show to be exact, that gives you your 60 bucks worth. It’s immersive theater, performance art gone to the dark side, with local actors of evil, who had to pass scream tryouts to get the job.’

 

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The 13th Gate (Baton Rouge, LA)
‘The 13th Gate, located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the Ultimate Haunted House! Journey through 13 very frightening themed indoor and outdoor areas where your worst nightmares come true and anything can happen. From crawling though a crematory oven and an old hearse to being lost in dark underground tunnels or even finding yourself standing on a rickety bridge overlooking hundreds of live snakes, this 40,000 square foot haunted house is definitely not recommended for the faint of heart (nor is it recommended for anyone who is pregnant, has a pre-existing heart condition, is very young, or has a weak bladder)!’

 

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The Freakling Bros: The Return (Las Vegas, NV)
‘Unveiled in 2011, the Gates of Hell is one of the most provocative, boundary-pushing, adult-oriented haunted attractions in the United States. The first and only R-rated haunted attraction in Nevada, the eternally-wicked Gates of Hell is an experiment in serious, unrelenting, interactive horror. Freakling Bros. Horror Shows will be even scarier for the 2021 Halloween season, with the addition of a haunting new experience inside the award-winning Gates of Hell, Nevada’s first and only R-rated haunt. The Men’s Room, a provocative, grotesque, and immersive new experience, will make its haunting debut Friday, Oct. 1, 2021. Located in the IKEA parking lot at 6555 S. Riley St. in Southwest Las Vegas, Freakling Bros. Horror Shows’ dates of operation will be Oct. 1 – 3, Oct. 7 – 10, and Oct. 14 – 31.’

 

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Johnnie’s Car Wash: Tunnel of Terror (Long Island, NY)
‘Johnnie’s Car Wash on Oak is reprising its haunted car washes from last year, so get ready for a Nightmare on Oak Street!’

 

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The Haunting Experience (Cottage Grove, MN)
‘I am new to haunted houses and I along with my girlfriend visited this place. As beginners, we were full of anxiety and very nervous. But, staff was very friendly and told us everything and clarified all our queries. It lasted for 45 minutes and it was full of terrors and threating acts performed by actors and actress. My girlfriend never stopped screaming.’

 

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Psycho Path Dark Ride (Sperry, OK)
‘This homemade Dark Ride is a combination of elements of a theme park ride where you ride from scene to scene with the high-intensity scares of the more traditional haunted houses brought together to created a totally new outdoor haunted experience. Being outside gives us the advantage of real fog, real sounds, real smells, real moonlight, and real creatures lurking just out of range of the lights. We regularly hear coyotes and owls howling just over the fence. Knowing those sounds are real only enhances the experience and besides, who isn’t afraid of being in the woods at night? Those brave enough to venture into the Dark Ride will climb into their own Scareage, a custom vehicle, Owner, Victor Marquez designed specifically for Psycho Path. While most outdoor haunts rely on noisy tractors to pull a wagon, the Psycho Path Scareages are so quiet riders will hear leaves rustling or twigs snapping in the darkness. Some of the sounds are man-made, and some are not, but they all combine to enhance the 20 minute journey through the heavily-wooded land. Along the way, you will pass through scenes filled with custom props, buildings, and oh yeah, creatures that spring out when you least suspect it. We offer this final warning: “Once you climb aboard, there’s no turning back”. Riders are not permitted to leave the vehicle after the ride starts, so you’ve got to be up to the challenge of the Psycho Path. We like to say “it may be your only way home.”’

 

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Haunt Overload (Lee, NH)
‘Haunted Overload is simply one of the most creative and unique haunted attractions in the world. Now located on the DeMeritt Hill Farm on Route 155 in Lee NH, the show has been voted one of the top 13 haunted attractions in the country multiple times. Focusing on quality, we are committed to giving the customer the ultimate Halloween experience at an affordable price. Nowhere else can you see huge monsters looming over the crowd, some as tall as 50 feet. The authentic farm location provides the perfect backdrop for the hundreds of lighted pumpkins and movie quality sets. Most of the one of a kind props are designed and created by founder Eric Lowther. The attention to detail has led to being ranked the #1 Scariest Haunted Attraction in America in 2015 by Hauntworld.com. Additionally Haunted Overload is and has been consistently ranked as one of the top haunted attractions in the world. Haunted Overload was also voted #18 of the Top 20 Most Influential Haunted Attractions of ALL TIME by HauntWorld.com.’

 

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The Tent of Terror (Valle Vista, CA)
‘Took my son to his first haunted house here. He was terrified! Once they realized how sacred he was, they completely backed off and stood off to the side so we could walk through. The rest of our family enjoyed being sacred and walked through first. Overall, was a great haunted house with great staff. They waited at the end to high five my son for making it through. Thank you for a great night out!’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** David, Hi. You travel heavy. You win the secret crying boy painting anecdote contest. Your prize is secret too. I don’t know who Jon Venables is unless he’s that guy in ‘Game of Thrones’ (?), but I laughed at what I imagined anyway. Your week ahead sounds like mine except without the dieting part. ** Dominik, Hi, D!!! I feel like I should see what Budapest is at least once. Hungary and that area of Europe is a total blank to me as I’ve never been that far east, which is weird really. Thanks, yeah, I’m pretty much a stress bunny and will be until Wednesday is history. Particular worries? That the haunt game will either (1) crash, (2) bewilder/bore the audience, (3) all that public speaking we have to do, (4) that some film people who might invest in Zac’s and my new film will be there judging us presumably, … I could go on and on. The mosquito was a nasty, evasive little monster of a thing whose death was warranted, I hate today it. I’m totally down with your sneaky, crying boy installing love. I can feel it. Love looking at himself in a mirror and thinking, ‘Seriously?’, G. ** Misanthrope, Do people still say, to people who are funny, ‘You’re a card.’? And why did they ever say that in the first place? I am definitely not the world expert on knowing the line between tough love and enabling. It’s one of those situations where you can’t even trust your gut. It’s tough. Oh, so, I guess you saw ‘Dune’? Verdict? ** Rafe, Hi, Rafe. Welcome! Thanks, and also for the cool words about my work. What’s going with you? Who are you? Please come back if you feel like it. ** Bernard, Hi, Bernard. You didn’t say hi to me, but I’ll say hi to you anyway. Hi. ** _Black_Acrylic, I really, really don’t think the curse is real, so no worries, but then … what do I know? Nah, your stuff is fine. ** David Ehrenstein, The new Wes Anderson opens here on Wednesday. Very psyched. ** Steve Erickson, I’m so sorry, Steve. That’s very shocking. Warmest hugs from me. ** T, I know, right? Awesome that you caught that. Totally understood about not being able to be there. Unless the project/event is a fiasco, we’ll do it again. My week is unfortunately stress central no matter what, but I hope that means I have successfully sucked out all the stress in Paris leaving your week dreamy. xo. ** Jeff J, Hey, Jeff. Thanks, man. Cool about the Zoom link. I forget the exact time, but you’ll tell me in the email. Zac and I will doing the Zoom from our respective pads, so he’ll need an invite too. If you don’t have his email, I’ll jet it back to you when I hear from you. No, I haven’t finished the Williams. Life is too Haunt-centric and frantic at the moment. The Wes Anderson opens here on Wednesday. Very excited. I saw ‘Memoria’ last night. I found it very disappointing. I appreciated that he was trying to do something slightly different, but I don’t think works, and Tilda Swinton is just an affect-enacting bore in it, and it feels endless. The VU doc is on my agenda. Pretty into everything I hear. Take care, pal. ** It’s Halloween week. It’s going to get very Halloween-y around here, starting with this survey of US haunted attractions. If anyone reading this is in proximity to any of the featured haunts, I strongly urge you to visit it both for your personal delectation and because I would love a review. See you tomorrow.