Halloween Haunt Tour

[haunterx]

Hey Jack, Glad to hear you are considering Arx Mortis. We have just completed the new haunt and look forward to showing it off. I think you will be impressed. Just shoot me an e-mail and we will be sure to give you the VIP treatment. It's gonna be a great season, look forward to meeting you.

Vinny
www.ArxMortis.com
Vinny@arxmortis.com

[jack]

Oh definately hitting Arx Mortis--Shane's one of the first to respond(though, truth be told, Arx Mortis, Disturbia and Atrox were places we were thinking of before I posted anything.

[danglin]

Definately stop by Folklore!

Jack,
Sorry I haven't posted until now, somehow I have missed this thread. Definitely stop by Folklore on your way to or from Netherworld. We are about an hour West of Netherworld, between them and Disturbia and Arx Mortis. We would love to have you visit us in our inaugeral season, provided we haven' t dropped dead of a heart attack by then! Send me a pm to let me know when you are coming, and we will hook you up. Check out our website for directions.

We did small trips every weekend last year to Alabama and North Carolina, and we had a ball visiting the other haunts. We learned a lot, and made some great friends ( Shane, Paul, and Tony to name a few).

Have fun on your trip, and be safe.

[jack]

The way things are going, I'm going to have an actual itinerary, instead of just doing the route and hitting things at random.

[jack]

Well, we are open. Last night was our first night, and a pretty good one at that--busier than last year, and people happy to be terrified.

It got me psyched to think of all the haunts that loom in our future--a little over a month to go.

We can't wait.

[jack]

Hope everyone's having a good season--we had cold drizzle last night and the lot was full within 20 minutes of opening. That was nice--wondering if word of the changes is getting around.

Well, I said I'd have an itinerary, and damned if we don't. Here's all the definates

Oct 22-- The Darkness, and other St Louis haunts
Oct 23-- Ultimate Fear, Shreveport, LA
Oct 24-- House of Shock, NOLA
Oct 25-- 13th Gate, Baton Rouge, LA
Oct 27-- Atrox, Leeds, AL
Oct 28-- Netherworld, Atlanta, GA
Oct 29-- Disturbia and Arx Mortis, Killen and Huntsville, AL

And a leisurely trip home on the 30th

The biggest frustration here is that everyone's open at the same time--to get in depth at any haunt means sleighting another. But, time permitting, this list will grow.

I'm pulling the last of the trip appliances from the molds today. There are three different ones. Two are torn eyesockets, one fresh, one more decayed. The third is the one I talked about before(a torn eye again--sense a theme?--with reptilian/fishy skin showing through). Generally I paint the centers, the bone, muscle, torn flesh, and underlying skin and leave the edges unpainted so they can be more easily used on your actors. If you want yours left unpainted, let me know and I'll set it aside. Right now, it looks like I'll be able to hand out two per haunt.

The two torn eyesockets were for a progressive makeup. The character rotted as each week went on until he was full-on zombified by Saturday night...and then we'd start him fresh on Sunday.

Can't wait to see you all.

[jack]

countdown....

4 days until we start out! The anticipation is killing us. Preliminary thanks to everyone who's welcoming us in--even before we get there, I just want to say you guys are great.

As we say on the USS Nightmare, I hope we get the ship scared out of us

[jack]

Well, we leave tomorrow, it's crazy time here.

If all goes well, and the wireless works, I'll post updates as we go. If not, the next time a lot of you hear from us, it'll be in person.

We should be at The Darkness by ten-ish tomorrow.

See y'all real soon!

[brad]

Jack, it was great having you and your wife stop by for a few hours.

It sounds like you really enjoyed yourselves here, and I hope that we gave you a great show.

And thanks a lot for the appliances!! It fits great and the patrons loved the detail work on it!!

I hope you guys have fun on the rest of the trip, and have safe travels back home.

[jack]

update

Brad, you beat me to it!

Finally got the wireless working, and we can now say where we've been and what we've seen

Darkness was great. Detailed, scary. LOVED the mirror maze. Very creepy. Loved the mummies. My biggest regret is that we got in way too late to talk with anyone--I think we might've been one of the last groups through. But your guys were dead on.

Ultimate Fear was intense. The story is really great and held to tightly. Loved the victims--who acted like victims, pleading for help, fleeing. The Father was creepy--he's everywhere in the house, always watching and waiting to pounce. The detail was incredible. There was a couch I wanted to take home. And the finale, which is NOT a chainsaw(thank you) comes screaming at your face. Great. God backstage here, and we'll have pictures. The crew was great, motivated, scary. Brad and Zack, keep it up, we can't wait to see what you guys do.

House of Shock was everything you'd expect. Ross, I knew there were pyrotechnics, but oh my god--that blast of flame. It's like watching a building go up all at once. The detail is insane--I could talk about cemetaries and ossuarys(yes, ossuarries--and I think I'm screwing up the speeling) The church, the sewer.....smelled real....detail is intense. And the effects. I've already mentioned the flame, but the drop floor was wild, and things were wet, and the sounds--piercing, panic inducing. Great stuff. And the makeup. We got backstage here, met Ashley and watched her turn out makeup after makeup that looked truly vile. HoS has around 200 actors--I met four makeup artists. Ashley, Asia, Emily and Perry--Perry has a makeup kit bigger than many apartments--and there's everything in it. He supervises something I didn't know about, a lot of HoS actors do their own makeup. And HoS makeup artists have trained them well.

Now we have a few days in New Orleans, to sample the city's natural haunts before heading out again.

I'll update soon

jack

[VSneader2]

Jack, if you have the time i would recommend taking one of the Haunted History tours, I did one earlier in the year and enjoyed it.

[graystone]

Jack

Enjoyed meeting and talking to you and your wife! I hope you guys had a great time and that you arrived home safely! Shane and it's your welcome anytime! Shane this time!

[jack]

Got home safe about midnight last night. Had a great time, thanks to everyone. I'll update tomorrow, it is Halloween, after all, hope everyone has a great night, busy, profitable, and, above all, scary.

Happy Halloween everybody, I'll talk to you tomorrow

[jack]

Shane, if that's a four week build, wow. And I know it was, so.....wow.
But more in a sec--

After HoS, we headed towards Baton Rouge the next night. While yahoo maps
tried to keep us from the 13th Gate, we managed to get there about 45
minutes before opening. Met Dwayne and headed back to his amazing
makeup/movie area. For the millionth time--with more to come--on this trip,
I wished our makeup room wasn't limited by the size of the boat. Beautiful
space. Blaine, the makeup head, was working on a mid-transition werewolf
when we got there--great stuff(there are some pics coming) And then we
headed in...

The detail is astounding--it looked disneyesque(in the good way) from the
line area onward. Loved the elevator--and all the bottomless pits. The
hospital ward was a masterpiece. And the nurses(Silent Hill-style) scared
Jett to the point where she didn't want to move. The swamp and the forest-wow.
The 20,000 Leagues sequence--tentacles and giant eyes. The actors were on
point the whole way through--from being disgusting to being deeply in
character. And I loved the brick vortex. Amazing.

From there it was a few days relaxing in NO. I could go on about this part,
but that's probably not what anyone's here for. We love New Orleans, and it
didn't disappoint. Did some house hunting....the bubble has not burst in NO
....sigh.

Then it was off to Netherworld

Again yahoo maps tried to vex us. Fortunately Netherworld is pretty obvious.
We got there and were whisked back to Roy, in the makeup room. Sigh. Big
gorgeous space. We got some video here--Roy zipping through some nice pieces
The boily- face that....someone....didn't get a name...was working on behind him
Ace and his deranged puppet. Loved the statue makeup--thought it was going to
be a 'weeping angel' a la Dr Who, but no--better--extremely animate funerary
statuary.

Inside, Netherworld is a bit overwhelming for a haunter. Your eyes want to
take everything in, and you can't. Things come at you from all sides--including
above. There is detail layered on detail. And then, there was the second haunt
Dead Salvage. I've been on Hauntworld for years, and in this business even
longer, and I didn't know there was a second haunt. The thing that I gotta
say I loved here was the hanging skins. Hanging heads, bodies, body
parts--I'd seen that(I'd done that) but I'd never seen hanging skins before--
superb!

Outside, Netherworld has some really great line entertainment, sliders of
all types, zombies, demons, some kind of pig-thing--you could have a good time
just seeking out the line scares.

Netherworld was a blast.

And then Disturbia

This time we got there with time to spare--and that was great. Shane's new
place is huge. He said it's about 1/3 done(and done well) and gave us a
rundown on the expansion. Disturbia was great as it was this year--the
finished(expanded?) version is going to be overwhelming. Makeup was top notch,
some truly vile things walked Disturbia. I loved the doll. Burned, abandoned.
Eerie. The gargoyles--live and animated. Wow. And that skinned horse.
Damn you, Shane, there's so much. There's the house band, Cornstalkers, that
plays for the line with a scarecrow lead and bubbles of fog. The chainsaw has
room to really chase--inside and out. And that graveyard...

Disturbia was four weeks old when we visited, and in those four weeks it
became an amazing haunt. Shane, and it's OMFG Shane this time, we loved it.

On our trip we missed two haunts, Atrox and Arx Mortis, and we're sorry
about that--but there's always next year.

Thanks again to everyone.
Jack and Jett

Oh, I'll probably update and detail this more, add the pictures and whatnot.

[graystone]

Jack

Coming from one haunter to another you made my day! I am so glad you enjoyed the place. I always get nervous when other haunters came by but everyone seemed to have loved it! Just wait and see whats next! I might add when your back in Bama visit Atrox you will love it! If you get the chance we want to see pictures of all the haunts! Shane and it's thanks for the kind words! Shane this time!