By David Litin
Murphy News Service
Deep in the thick fog, twisting roadings, and darkness, the Haunting Experience on Highway 61 offers horror worth remembering. With Halloween slowly creeping up on everyone, people lined up to go through two haunted houses and a hayride to get into the Halloween spirit.
This is one full of people jumping out in strange costumes…
Like a legit one full of people wearing make-up and minds that makes you question whether they should be admitted into a mental institution.
To retell the specifics of my night in manufactured hell, I need to divide the night up into four stages: Driving and the Tunnel of Darkness, Scummo’s 3-D Nightmare, Manor Haunt, and the Hayride.
Stage 1: Driving and the Tunnel of Darkness
I don’t think there could’ve been a better night to visit the Haunted Experience on Highway 61 with my friends.
The sky was clear but something about it made it eerie. It was almost ………. TOO QUIET!
A dense fog blanketed the Saint Paul metro and the number of drivers around was low for a Friday night
I almost backed out, being easily scared of anything. It may not be the best idea. But I was committed.
It was time.
My friends Arbresha and Peter and I were at the front, waiting to go in. We were greeted by a short, hefty old man with terrible make-up. The white face paint didn’t blend in with the complexion of his skin. It was hard to take him seriously. But his acting, well, that was pretty good. Like a creepy old man giving out candy to children, he walked backward grinning while handing us 3-D glasses and pointing us into the tunnel.
We edged in and he slammed the door behind us.
BOOM!
The tunnel was dark. The walls were covered in black fabric with the wind from outside blowing against it. There was no light.
We inched forward. We stopped and saw a witch sitting at a table. Completely still.
“Nothing creepy at all,” I muttered.
We continued until we saw that there was a corner. We all stopped. We were fighting for who would go first.
“Screw it!” I said, “I’ll go!”
I peeked around the corner and didn’t see anything. I let out a sigh of relief until I turned around and the witch was standing right there. She gave out a manic laugh.
I screamed and ran to the light at the end of the tunnel.
Stage 2: Scummo’s 3-D Nightmare
I was hoping for a break between the tunnel and the 3-D thrills. No such luck. We were greeted by someone portraying a possessed school girl wearing a white torn dress covered in blood. Her eyes were bright red circles with big black diamonds drawn on her cheeks. Her face was painted white, her hair arranged with two large ponytails. She was carrying a doll with a decapitated head with the stuffing was pouring out.
But before we went in, she gave us a little show.
The girl was a contortionist. She was bending and flexing backward and through her legs; twisting and bending from side to side. She screamed in my ear and stomped on a metal plate to amplify the sound. I just remember letting out a “Hail Mary” at her.
“I’m not even religious but even I think you need Jesus in your life,” I screamed at her, pushing my friends into Scummo’s 3-D Nightmare.
I had had enough of the pretzel girl who I called “She-Demon.” She chased after us forcing us into the haunted house.
Full disclosure, the 3-D haunt was kind of a blur for me. I couldn’t get the She-Demon out of my head, and frankly, I had zipped through the 3-D haunt in just a few minutes. It was too dark and twisted for me to stop and investigate.
Clown people were jumping out and stalking me, making me rethink why I’d even agreed to come.
I’m going to run now, I told myself multiple times.
Mimes stood in many corners, positioned to reflect their images on mirrors as we walked through. There were evil children laughing. It was a nightmare. All I know was that while those children were laughing, I was screaming like a child.
Was there a way out?
I ran and shoved and forced my way into the cold October evening.
Stage 3: The Manor Haunt
The She-Demon greeted us again at the exit, continuing to scream in our faces and stomp on the metal plate below her.
We ran and were greeted by a vampire at the Manor Haunt.
A group of high schoolers wearing blue letterman jackets was in front of us. The man portraying the vampire divided up the groups. My friends and I were stuck with two high schoolers. Both freshmen and both scared. All five of us entered holding onto one another’s shoulders. When I say shoulder, the high schoolers thought I said my hood. They grabbed onto my coat jacket hood while I focused on my main goal of trying to remain in the middle. My rationale? The person in the middle is the least likely to be screamed at.
I was wrong.
I screamed so much, I lost my voice.
The haunted house was filled with fog and black sheeted walls making it difficult to see which way was the correct way to go. You could touch the walls, you might grab a possessed clown or a zombie 13-year-old might chase you.
Every room had a theme. All related to death.
The kitchen had blood and decapitated body parts such as hands, heads, feet or intestines spread out on the kitchen table, counter and stove.
“What are you doing here?!” A woman screamed at us. “Get OUTTA HERE!!”
An everyday-looking male photographer snapped photos of us laughing as we screamed.
“You’re normal!” I screamed at him. “Thank you for being nice.”
He laughed.
The next room was a morgue full of “dead bodies” caged, begging to get out. A woman was made up to appear as if she were rotting away, her skin green and toenails turned to a murky shade of brown, her stomach completely torn apart.
A zombie ran at us driving us into a room where the walls were completely mirrored. Bright, strobe colors of pink, blue and yellow bounced off the walls. A bloody clown in a tattered green shirt, his make-up washed from his face, limped about carrying a chainsaw.
“Oh god no!” Screamed one of my friends as we ran forward.
Nothing is going to stop me now, I said to myself.
Towards the end of the manor, the high schoolers made a wrong turn and were cornered by zombies, leaving me and my friends to clear out a path without being cornered.
Stage 4: The Hayride
The hayride took the group into a pitch-black cornfield.
There was nothing to be afraid of for the first six minutes. Just a tractor trailer full of thrill-seekers and corn, and a hefty, demonic-looking man with blood running down his face. He ran out of the cornfield laughing, carrying a chainsaw. We were hooting as he at him as he struggled to get onto the trailer. He fired up the chainsaw and clanging it against the trailer, freaking out the crowd as he laughed.
He gave up as quickly as he appeared and the crowd grew worrisome as they whispered.
A banner held up by rusty, deteriorating metal bore the word “Salvage.”
We were greeted by rusty brown cars, deflated tires, bonfires as we stopped at a saloon. A zombie bride wearing a ragged, blood-stained dress burst through the front door, scaring us all. “Salvage” was a place to die, she said.
A herd of killer clowns wearing black and some redneck zombies jumped on the hayride as we started moving again. A zombie jumped right behind one of my friend Arbresha causing her to jump to the middle of the trailer. The zombie bride came up behind me and I fell off my seat.
“We’ve got plenty of sausages here,” she said while inspecting my face.
It was hard to stay on the seat. There were too many people jumping out getting right up in people’s face resulting in people falling off their seats. But I turned around and saw a clown just inches away from me.
The bride slid towards another person while grasping onto the wooden beam on the trailer.
The crowd cleared as we progressed through the unknown. Now we knew what to expect. Toward the end of the hayride, the fright level intensified.
The tractor had entered an area deep in the cornfield. It was too quiet. Everyone stopped talking. My friend Peter offered up a hypothesis.
“I bet there’s going to be a scarecrow that’ll jump out at us,” he said.
He was right. Not even 15 seconds after saying that, a group of scarecrows jumped onto the trailer.
“We demand a sacrifice,” they chanted.
Before they could be “rewarded,” the tractor picked up speed as we were being chased by a zombie driving a corn plow.
By then, it was time for the grand finale of The Haunting Experience.
We entered a large metal shed barely held up by 2-by-4. Nothing happened for the first 10 feet. Then all hell broke loose.
Fire raged above us as men with chainsaws revved them against the trailer. Clowns jumped on to the trailer scaring people. The zombies above were snapping whips loudly.
So much screaming.
So much fire and rage.
So many chainsaws.
This was the end. The crowd fixed themselves up as they were carefully escorted off of the trailer.
Reporter David Litin is studying Journalism at the University of Minnesota.