{"id":27637,"date":"2014-10-02T12:46:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-02T04:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=27637"},"modified":"2014-10-02T10:29:31","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T02:29:31","slug":"hoods-guns-and-blood-are-halloween-attractions-getting-scarier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/02\/hoods-guns-and-blood-are-halloween-attractions-getting-scarier\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoods, guns and blood: Are Halloween attractions getting scarier?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At Halloween, yards and public spaces may be decorated with traditionally macabre symbols including witches, skeletons, cobwebs, and headstones. Anthony22 \/ Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK\u2014Halloween seems to be getting scarier, with attractions going ever-more interactive and in-your-face.<\/p>\n

At Knott\u2019s Scary Farm in Buena Park, California, guests are outfitted with neon-green laser guns and ordered to shoot actors portraying zombies by aiming at their heads. At the Dent Schoolhouse in Cincinnati, a butcher appears to demonstrate how to slaughter a pig. And at The Basement, part of the ScareHouse near Pittsburgh, hoods are placed over visitors\u2019 faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put a hood over the customer and it\u2019s remarkable how much a difference that makes,\u201d said Scott Simmons, ScareHouse creative director. \u201cYou\u2019re taking away sight, a core thing, and it\u2019s such a nerve-racking experience. You see these terrible, horrifying demons and clowns, and they put a hood on you, and you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen next. You feel terrible things touching you and whispering in your ear. But as extreme as it is, it\u2019s still fun. People come out shaking, but they\u2019re smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visitors to The Basement sign a waiver and must be 18, and are given a \u201csafe word\u201d that they can say to stop activities if it\u2019s too much.<\/p>\n

But why have Halloween attractions become so intense?<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 20 years of haunted houses with people stepping out and saying \u2018boo,\u2019 these days if you\u2019re really trying to scare people you\u2019ve got to be edgy and out of their comfort zone,\u201d said Simmons. \u201cWhat scared people in the \u201870s and the \u201880s isn\u2019t what\u2019s going to scare them now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt Halloween attractions are getting scarier and more extreme,\u201d said Larry Kirchner of HauntWorld.com, a website devoted to haunted attractions. With high-tech special effects, including video, animation and Hollywood-quality sets, \u201cthey are more sophisticated. They have gone to another level.\u201d<\/p>\n

When done well, Kirchner says, a great haunted house is \u201c100 times better than a Broadway show because it\u2019s interactive entertainment that puts you right in the middle of the action and makes you the star.\u201d But Kirchner thinks some attractions cross a line into poor taste\u2014he\u2019s not a fan of story lines based on real serial killers for example, or activities where participants are humiliated in some way.<\/p>\n

Here are a few Halloween events and attractions taking place around the country this season\u2014most of them offering experiences way less intense than being hooded. Expect long lines and check schedules. Some events are weekends only, some run through early November, some sell out.<\/p>\n

Universal Halloween Horror Nights<\/h6>\n

The horror film \u201cThe Purge: Anarchy,\u201d which is the sequel to a movie about an annual night of unfettered crime and violence, is just one of the inspirations for Halloween Horror Nights at Universal theme parks in Orlando, Florida, and in Los Angeles. The events feature hundreds of elaborately costumed actors and Hollywood-quality sets, special effects and mazes inspired by pop culture influences ranging from El Rey Network\u2019s \u201cFrom Dusk Till Dawn,\u201d to AMC\u2019s \u201cThe Walking Dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

HauntWorld\u2019s Top 13<\/h6>\n

Pennhurst Asylum, in Spring City, Pennsylvania, got the No. 1 slot on HauntWorld.com\u2019s top 13 haunted attractions, while Dent Schoolhouse took seventh. Also on the list: 13th Gate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Netherworld, Atlanta; House of Torment, Austin, Texas; The Darkness, St. Louis; Erebus, Pontiac, Michigan; Kersey Valley Spookywoods, Greensboro, North Carolina; Headless Horseman, Ulster Park, New York; Cutting Edge Haunted House, Fort Worth, Texas; Bates Motel, Philadelphia; Bennett\u2019s Curse, Baltimore; and 13th floor, Chicago.<\/p>\n

Attractions by region<\/h6>\n

New York City\u2019s annual Village Halloween Parade kicks off Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. with thousands of participants in costume and hundreds of enormous puppets.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania offers Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia and Shocktoberfest in Reading. In the Northeast, there\u2019s Nightmare New England in Litchfield, New Hampshire, while Salem, Massachusetts, hosts parades, ghost tours, performances and more in the town where real witch trials took place in the 1600s.<\/p>\n

In the Midwest, check out Wisconsin FearGrounds in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Fear Fest, Flint, Michigan.<\/p>\n

In Florida, Tampa\u2019s Busch Gardens offers Howl-O-Scream. New Orleans, has The House of Shock; Houston has the Terror Dome.<\/p>\n

Family-friendly<\/h6>\n

By night, attractions at Six Flags Over Georgia in Austell, Georgia, include ZX-1, a haunted zone where a \u201cdeadly infection\u201d is \u201cwiping out mankind\u201d (as if real-world Ebola isn\u2019t scary enough). But by day the park offers family activities like a corn maze, harvest festival, pumpkin painting and spooky stories, with children 12 and under invited to dress up for a costume contest.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere for kids, SeaWorld San Diego has a Halloween-themed sea lion and otter show called \u201cClyde & Seamore\u2019s Spooky Adventure.\u201d And of course, Disney World\u2019s Magic Kingdom in Florida offers Mickey\u2019s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and trick-or-treating.<\/p>\n

AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang contributed to this report from California.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK\u2014Halloween seems to be getting scarier, with attractions going ever-more interactive and in-your-face. At Knott\u2019s Scary Farm in Buena …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":27638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-travel","mauthors-beth-j-harpaz","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}