When you hear the phrase haunted house, you often remember back to being a child, visiting Scream in the Dark, or some other fun place like that.
You’d scream halfway fearful, and halfway laughing as you raced through the rooms dodging the spooky clowns, masked teenagers, and pop culture icons with a humorous horror-twist. When you left, you had a good laugh, a good scare, and a good time. It was one of the best parts of being a kid.
This place isn’t for kids.
Fear Factory, the funhouse from the Clear Channel Radio Company is definitely going to scare some people, but not the way Campus Life’s Scream in the Dark, or D.A.R.E.’s Fright Night, would.
This place seems to be more directed at the older horror fan than the preadolescent thrill-seeker. It contains images and scenes that seem more at home in the one realm more frightening than any ever placed into a horror movie; the realm of reality.
“It was really scary when the lady was screaming in the bathtub all covered with blood,” says Susan Perkins, an 8-year-old Castle Elementary School student who braved the house of horrors.
When you enter, you are greeted by a dark figure in a dark hallway who warns you to get out, and if you are under the age of 10, it might be good to do just that.
What follows is a series of adventures, like running through a living room with a man wearing a gas mask. So we are left to assume the bomb was dropped.
You also get to see a room with a killer in a corner, smiling maniacally, after decorating the room with drawings in his victim’s blood. Why don’t they just add a sniper room?
It seems the days when we’re scared and tickled by Dracula and the Wolf-Man are over. Now we must live in a time of fear. In a few years we’ll be chased through these houses by people in bin Laden masks.
Now this fun house was enjoyable, but a parent might think twice before bringing the kids along. For those ready to brave the Fear Factory, tickets are $6 at the old Lumberjack building on White Lane.