By Aves Tedeschi
With five horrifying haunted house attractions, America’s Frightworld is one of the best indoor scream parks in the country. This Halloween-themed experience is the home for haunted attractions such as “Night Stalkers,” “Carnival Boneyard,” “Insanity,” “Eerie State Asylum,” and “Grind House.” Each “house” has its very own theme. “Night Stalkers,” “Grind House,” and “Carnival Boneyard” take a more mysterious and paranormal approach to scary. “Insanity” and “Eerie State Asylum” resort to general hysteria. Most visitors agree that “Grind House” and “Insanity” are the scariest houses.
“Grind House” portrays an old, rustic cottage rotting abandoned in the mud. Haunted souls wandering the grounds tell you it’s home to the most brutal and gory murders imaginable. “Insanity” takes on a completely different perspective. Its interactive maze is filled with a thick fog, blocking out the view in front of you.
Scare actors walk around inside the themed houses, but Frightworld also has actors walking around the Scream Park grounds dedicated to scaring you. Each actor has a different theme and personality that you can capture with a picture. A fan favorite, Tiny the Clown, uses an air horn to startle guests. Another creepy clown in neon green hair and an outfit like Michael Keaton’s Betelgeuse skates around the center area on his knees.
Frightworld also features special events, such as “Lights Out,” where you carry nothing but a single glow stick to provide a light source on your way through the haunted rooms. “Little Frights with Lights” is a kid-friendly event with trick-or-treating, games, basket raffles, and more.
Frightworld is available for a limited time only, from September to November, which means that horror fans from all over visit the attraction, located on Hertel Ave. These terrifying events are extremely popular, and you may find it worthwhile to purchase the VIP passes for an extra $15 per ticket. This allows you to skip the long lines that can take up to thirty to forty minutes for each of the haunted houses. If you don’t opt for the passes, expect the lines for the haunted attractions to take up more of the night than the attractions themselves.
Freshman Zero Rosner visited in mid-October and said, “I liked the clown actor who slid around on his knees using roller skates to sneak up on guests. ‘Asylum’ was fun, although it was a little cliched with the fake gore and stereotypical psych ward patients. It wasn’t as scary as I expected, but because of the guy who skated on his knees, it was fun!”
Frightworld isn’t for the faint of heart, but if your idea of a good time is screaming your head off while having the wits scared out of you, we recommend giving it a try!
