Poll of the Day > Do you like haunted house attractions that pop up around halloween time?

(+) Yeah! (+)

do you?
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Not really

Im sure some are good but pretty much everyone Ive ever been to is a bunch of strobe lights and corridors with people that jump out and try to startle you
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I volunteer at a homemade one every year, so yeah, I have fun with it.

Mead posted...

Im sure some are good but pretty much everyone Ive ever been to is a bunch of strobe lights and corridors with people that jump out and try to startle you

I hate ones like that. Jump scares are the cheapest form of scares - I was asked to do that one year and afterwards I told the organizers I was not going to do it again. I don't want to startle you - any idiot can do that; I want you to see me coming and still be terrified.
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Never been but don't see why I'd dislike them.

I worked in one back in college.



Mead posted...

Im sure some are good but pretty much everyone Ive ever been to is a bunch of strobe lights and corridors with people that jump out and try to startle you

In the one I was in, we all mostly thought that was kind of boring, so we tried to be clever/amusing more than scary. Almost every "room" you went through had at least one thing that would make you laugh and not just try and startle you.

We catered to the crowd, though. Most people working there were from my college, and most people coming through were other people from my college, so we were less serious with the drunken college students, but we'd play it a bit more straight if a group came through where it was a family with their kids or something.

We got a lot of compliments, so we figured we were doing something right.



darkknight109 posted...

I want you to see me coming and still be terrified.

In ours, what we figured out pretty quickly was that the absolutely most terrifying thing was the guy with the chainsaw.

Mainly because it was a real chainsaw. Granted, we'd taken the actual chain off so it couldn't cut anything, but it looked more or less the same (especially in the dark), and it sounded exactly the same, so most people assumed it was a working chainsaw. At which point, they assumed the person with it would just be careful and not actually hit anyone... except they were never entirely sure he was 100% trustworthy and not going to crack at any moment and actually hurt someone, or that he might not accidentally trip or something and wind up hitting someone with it for real (especially since he was wearing a mask which obviously obscured his vision), so people were REALLY scared of him. Because everything else in the place they KNEW was fake and safe, but they weren't entirely sure about this.


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I've been to 2, and both were boring as fuck. Not scary, or even startling at all.
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lihlih posted...

I've been to 2, and both were boring as fuck. Not scary, or even startling at all.

I don't think you CAN make one legitimately scary (as opposed to just startling). Because you know for a fake going in that literally everything is fake and no one inside is going to hurt you (and for the most part can't even touch you for fear of lawsuits), so there's absolutely no weight to it.

It's why I think the best haunted houses are the ones that try to engage on a different level. Not necessarily trying to be terrifying as much as sort of combining creepy ambiance with some level of performance art. Or like an interactive play where they're essentially telling you a story as you go through the rooms. Because in that sort of scenario you can at least get SOMETHING out of the place even if you're not realistically going to be scared.

The only other way I think they're enjoyable is if you go through a haunted house with a family that have relatively young kids, and you play up the horror to scare the piss out of the kids. Like how I was in a haunted house once with some friends, and we were in a room that was gimmicked up to seem like the walls were closing in, and my friends and I were pantomiming like we were trying to hold the walls back but couldn't do it, which absolutely terrified the younger kids that were in the room with us, because us playing it up like that basically told them "Holy shit, maybe this IS real!"

This is something a truly clever haunted house can actually use to its advantage - if you put a plant or two into every in-going group, you can have them act scared and react to things as if they're real... or, say, have one of the actors straight-up jump them and drag them off kicking and screaming, thus putting the rest of the group on edge, because now you've just abused them of the notion that none of the actors are going to be allowed to touch them or harm them in any way. Though admittedly the logistics of that are kind of complex to work out.


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I had a friend who worked at busch gardens, so he got us in cheap to howl o'scream a few times. I had fun.
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I'd rather go to a real haunted house.
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my house is haunted, i think, so whatever. the ghost(s) seems pretty chill so it's all good.
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Rad_Chad posted...

my house is haunted, i think, so whatever. the ghost(s) seems pretty chill so it's all good.

It's a trick.
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Revelation34 posted...

I'd rather go to a real haunted house.

Sadly, there's no such thing, because ghosts aren't real.


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I don't have any problems with them popping up, but I have zero interest in going to one
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Sadly, there's no such thing, because ghosts aren't real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M" data-time="
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Revelation34 posted...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Sadly, there's no such thing, because ghosts aren't real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M" data-time="

You believe in ghosts and you're using a video from Futurama of all things? Lololol
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lihlih posted...

You believe in ghosts and you're using a video from Futurama of all things? Lololol

Would this one have been better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIgfiSzCy1o" data-time="
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Revelation34 posted...

lihlih posted...

You believe in ghosts and you're using a video from Futurama of all things? Lololol

Would this one have been better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIgfiSzCy1o" data-time="

I mean, it's pretty funny that someone who believes in something so silly can be condescending. I guess that one at least isn't from a source material that's based on science.
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lihlih posted...

I mean, it's pretty funny that someone who believes in something so silly can be condescending. I guess that one at least isn't from a source material that's based on science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H47ow4_Cmk0" data-time="
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Not really. I'm epileptic so I don't like strobe lights. And honestly I don't like surprises of any kind in general, so the whole thing gets me on edge.
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Yep
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I'd never been to one and didn't think I'd like it but I figured I might as well see what it's like.. so last weekend I finally went to my first one.

It was more jump scare than anything but I still found it to be pretty fun. I'll probably check one out every year or so now.
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DoubleOSnake posted...

do you?

I love Haunted houses but haven't been to one in years. The last time I went Tick or Treating a few years ago with my Niece(6) and Nephew(9) this middle aged woman really went all out with her house and came to the door dressed like a Vampire. She was hot AF too and talked to me briefly and I'd have talked a lot more too if it wasn't for those pesky kids!
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