Questionable Scene

[horrorfiend99]

All I can say is... wow.

I am somewhat of a newcomer to these forums and up until now I have found them fun, entertaining and intelligent.

The three pages of posts from Malicious Intent and Ghoulkraft have definitely shown me a different side of things - and not a good one.

I have no earthly idea why these two decided to make their lovers quarrel public, exposing their pettiness, ignorance and immaturity to the entire community, but that is exactly what they did. I mean how old are these guys? 12?

Could you two please let us know what haunt or company you work for so we can stay as far away as possible? And please save this kind of crying, bitching and acting like little girls for your own time or private emails. It gives the rest of us a bad name and really just casts a bad light on the entire industry.

Please, guys - do us all a favor and take it somewhere else! I don't know how many times both of you have said "I'm done" or "I'm finished" but it has gotten well out of hand. Obviously the two of you have a lot to work out and some seriously deep-seeded issues with one and other - they have nothing to do with this industry or this forum. Shit talking is for insecure people. Grow up or go home.

'nuff said

[floater]

questionable scenes

I haven't looked at it, just read the other reactions.
Personally, I stay away from anything that's considered "too real". My personal opinion is that haunts are a fantasy, and people who go are looking to be entertained (i.e. scared) by that fantasy.
About ten years ago, a haunt here in Minnesota featured an "alien" themed haunt in a separate building on the grounds. The set designers did a great job, then the business managers screwed it up royally. They insisted one of the scenes be a mirror of a real UFO cult that had comitted mass sucicde out west while the haunt was actually being built. Needless to say, NONE of us wanted a thing to do with such an incredibly tasteless display. It still got done, and NOBODY liked it. At this same haunt, somebody suggested that "gangs scare people - we should do that!" Luckily, that was one idea that died a quick death.
A big rule (and consideration) should always be "know your audience". If you're not having problems with it, more power to you. I like to go with more imaginative and creative scenes myself.

[MMManiac]

To each their own. Even though you may agree or not agree with what dead acres is doing it works for them and I am sure they are happy with it.

Sean

[HauntedWebby]

I liked it. We have someone getting his head cut off .. not a lot of difference.

I didn't read all 10 pages of posts, but it seems there was an objection because people do die that way. Well yes they do. They also hang themselves, but lots of haunts have hangings. Seriel killers are real, but we use them all the time. Mental illness is a real problem, but we use it. Why would this be any different? It's not.

The way they did it ... not overly gory.

[horrorfiend99]

That pretty much sums it up. Almost every haunt includes subject matter and situations that if taken in a serious way are very disturbing and mirror real horrors that plague real people in the real world.

What we must remember is that when you are in a haunt you are NOT in the real world. It is a sensationalized environment, and just as we accept these things in horror films - we must accept them in the context of haunted attractions.

Also, thanks to malicious intents for being the bigger man and erasing his posts. Good call, dude! And yea, come on out to the west coast sometime - we do have some pretty crazy haunts out here.

[woolf]

The End of my 2007 Haunt Tour

After visiting haunts in the Cleveland (7 Floors of Hell), Sandusky (Haunted Hydro & Ghostly Manor), Great Bend (Niles Haunted Scream Park) and Detroit (Erebus), My wife and I stopped in Columbus to check out Dead Acres (the Haunted Hoochie) this past Monday evening.

Actually my wife chose to stay in the car after stumbling across the Haunted Hoochie website and seeing the extreme level of gore promised inside (the suicide video sealed the deal for her not going!). Luckily for me we had picked up the 18-year-old son of friends who is attending Ohio State to come with us which meant I would have someone to help guide me through the pitch black areas in the attraction (my eyes have always taken longer than normal to adjust to the dark).

I am hoping to open a haunt of my own in the coming year and wanted to see what successful haunts are doing. I was not only checking out the inside of the haunts but also how they handled lines, concessions, crowd flow, security etc. As you can see from my list I chose a variety of Haunt styles with the Haunted Hoochie being the most extreme in the list. While this probably is a little too graphic for my personal tastes, it was a very good and scary haunt overall. And the crowd, which was almost all between 17-22 years old, seemed to really like it a lot. My 18-year-old friend was completely blown away (no pun intended). We were both extremely impressed with the level of detail that went into the sets and that it felt like we were in the middle of a film....as someone else put it, a Troma film....but with better sets!

We waited in line for maybe 30 minutes...I estimate that there were around 200-300 people in line but it seemed that it never got shorter...meaning as people were let in, others would get in line.

I entered the attraction with a group of about 6 men who, other than me, looked to be in the early 20s. The suicide room is first and there really isn't any story other than saying "Hell Yeah" a few times before the event. As I knew what was coming up from having seen the video from their website, and having experienced an immediate family member killed by a gun, I chose to look away just as the actor "pulled the trigger." [I can watch it in video form, but do not want to see it live.] When I told my wife that everyone cheered afterwards and laughed she said she thought that was a sad comment on our society. I guess I agree a little; but this is theater of the macabre. We take pleasure in things we never hope to experience in real life.

The suicide was just the beginning of the live gruesome theater. We also saw a pregnant woman get punched in the belly with a big wooden mallet, causing her fetus, a demon baby, to be ejected from her crotch....we saw one death metal skinhead-y looking actor ram a giant ice auger/drill up the anal cavity of another death metal skinhead-y looking actor....and we saw an actor get his chest and belly chainsawed-off by another actor. And these were the "comic relief" scenes between the ones that scared the s#it out of all of the grown men in my group.

And while I am personally getting tired of every haunt having the chainsaw guy at the end, the Haunted Hoochie gets the award for having the most chainsaw guys in a haunt (I think there were about 20 of them) which did keep the scare going as there was simply no way to avoid them. And, while I may be tired of this gag, the haunt-going crowds seem to love them (along with the industry-hated dot rooms).

This was a really good haunt that plays to a younger, Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV -loving crowd. It stretched the taste boundaries to their breaking point (and maybe a bit beyond). But we've already seen examples in this thread of how this extreme scene can be made "acceptable" by turning the gun onto a zombie head instead of a suicide (or even explaining that "the zombies aren't going to get my brain! [bang..splat]" According to HauntWorld issue #14, Page 54, this attraction gets about 30,000 attendees each season so that's not too shabby. I hope to one-day be as successful (but maybe slightly less controversial).

[horrorfiend99]

What a great post! This really shows that someone who may not be a huge fan of the splatter style of haunted house can still enjoy such an attraction, taking it for what it is.

The only thing I dissagree with, as I have when it was brought up in previous posts, is that linking the suicide to some kind of zombie invasion somehow makes the scene "acceptable". I think, if anything, it just makes it more cheesey. The motivation for the suicide is really not the issue. Maybe the guy has just been driven to madness due to the evil in the haunted house. Maybe he's possesed or he has some sort of mind-controlling parasite. It seems the Hoochie isn't particularly clear (or doesn't particularly care) about this part of the "story", and the overall theming of the haunt appears to be derived from a barrage of over-the-top set pieces and situations rather than a cohesive plot (of course this is coming from someone who has never actually visited the attraction). My point is, the motivation for the suicide - other than just the general evil of the haunted house itself - is up to the guest's interpretation, just like the motivation behind the mallet-induced demon birth and the chainsaw vivisection.

"People do evil things in haunted houses" may not be the most engaging story in the world, but if the haunt pulls off the individual scenes successfully, does it really matter?

[woolf]

...The only thing I dissagree with, as I have when it was brought up in previous posts, is that linking the suicide to some kind of zombie invasion somehow makes the scene "acceptable". I think, if anything, it just makes it more cheesey. The motivation for the suicide is really not the issue. Maybe the guy has just been driven to madness due to the evil in the haunted house. Maybe he's possesed or he has some sort of mind-controlling parasite. It seems the Hoochie isn't particularly clear (or doesn't particularly care) about this part of the "story", and the overall theming of the haunt appears to be derived from a barrage of over-the-top set pieces and situations rather than a cohesive plot (of course this is coming from someone who has never actually visited the attraction). My point is, the motivation for the suicide - other than just the general evil of the haunted house itself - is up to the guest's interpretation, just like the motivation behind the mallet-induced demon birth and the chainsaw vivisection.

"People do evil things in haunted houses" may not be the most engaging story in the world, but if the haunt pulls off the individual scenes successfully, does it really matter?

You are right. My point was to show how something considered unacceptable by a present society can be made acceptable with a few modifications even though it is really the same thing. This has been done throughout the history of entertainment. Cecil B. DeMille was able to get away with many sex scenes and even orgy scenes in his films by wrapping them up in a "Bible" theme. Without this theme his work would have been considered immoral at the time.

And even extreme haunts like the Haunted Hoochie know that they need to put some limits on what they do. This year the advertised a "simulated demon birth." Why do they need to say simulated? They don't advertise a simulated suicide. And certainly nobody would think they were actually showing us a live demon birth. But when it comes to anything that might look or feel like an abortion, they knew they had to tread lightly and add words like "simulated" to the text. Especially in a place like Ohio where the issue is at a boiling point. If bad things happens to something in a womb (even a demon) then people find it objectionable...even though the rest of your haunt will have people being chopped up, burnt alive, boiled and skinned. These are acceptable.

[Jim Warfield]

To feature a "Live Demon Birth" takes alot of planning...at least nine months in advance!
Then the following year advertise "Small Crawling Hell-Spawned Demons attack your ankles!"
Just as the little monster is about to chew off your foot it's "Demon After-Birth" to th rescue! Atacking the Demon and choking it to unconsciousness, plugging his mouth and nose.
The Demon regains speech and claims he saw the afterbirth trailing him for the last year but simply thought it was his own shadow.....a rancid shadow.

If a haunt is going to have extremely objectionable displays or themed rooms , do they have "I've Had Enough!" Exits every so often for those who have "Had Enough" of what the show is?
It might save them alot of extra work, the work of putting extra people through the place if nothing else?

[malicious_intents]

I Love Demon Baby Afterbirth.... Its Chewy.....and Tastes Like Chicken

[6stringjohn]

Demon Birth! Pop.. out that baby!!The dungeons of delhi also has a demon coming out of her mama! But I heard it tastes like Liver. Mmmmmm Mmmm Good!

[hamilton]

A moral issue...?

Do I find it scary? Not in the least. In fact I have never found theatrical gore scary. There's nothing unexpected or entertaining about the effect. No sense of mystery... you know what he's going to do. Fun? Not so much. I won't sit here and criticize gore-fest haunted houses, as they do all right... SOMEBODY must want to see this stuff, right? Or do people go because that's about all there is for Halloween entertainment these days? I look at it this way: it's like being a stand-up comic... do you take the high-road or the low-road? I think these kind of effects have their place, and for those that want to see them, more power. I choose to give patrons an option, and give them more for their money.

[Jast223]

Hey is haunted houchie a year round haunt or a seasonal haunt? If it is year round i will be in Columbus at a ems continuing ed class. And I will stop by.

[badass]

As I said above, I would absolutely LOVE to come to your attraction - it looks to be totally top-notch! Unfortunately it is too late in teh season for me to venture out that way since I have many obligations during the rest of the month. Perhaps next year!

Keep up the great work and keep pushing the limits! Everything I've heard and seen just makes me want to come more! It doesn't matter if what you're doing is gory or not really, in the end you are doing something original, and THAT is the future of this business.

For too long this industry has skated along on "standards" that are basically repeated again and again ad nauseum (i.e. Hell-o-vator, chainsaw gag, store-bought animatronic electric chair guy, rotating tunnel, etc.). Although these effects are not always bad, they definitely aren't original. In my opinion, originality is the most important aspect of horror, since almost every genre cliche has been done to death (pun semi-intended). With the inclusion of in-your-face chainsaw vivisections and live demon births, I believe you (Dead Acres) are bringing us (the public) things seldom seen in a live walk-through attraction.

I actually hope more haunters start taking your lead - I know I will! My pointy of view is that if you're not bringing your proverbial A game and coming through with something original you are just wasting everyone's time and money (especially your own). Not only that, but "safe" horror is just not that impressive anymore. Sorry fans of spooky atmosphere, floating books and things that go bump in the night, but I can experience that walking through my grandma's semi-spooky house or any local cemetery. Haunted attractions need to step it up in this day and age - pushing limits in terms of shock, humor, design and yes, good taste.

Horror by nature is not a "safe" genre - it revels in disturbing the mind, assaulting the senses and making the viewer/guest squirm. The folks over at Dead Acres seem to have a firm grasp on this concept (as well as their chainsaws and shotguns) and for that, I commend them!

Bravo!

Hail horror!

i could not have said it better myself......the world is a changing place....and haunts like the Hoochie are leading the way....there will always be room for kiddy haunts....but there is a much bigger demographic out there.....one where the fans go home and can't stop thinking or talking about their experience...they come back again and again....over decades...halloween means hoochie time...no matter where life takes em they make the trek back to the hooch.....horror is not pretty...its not cobwebs and story lines...this is not church its the Hoochie baby...see ya in vegas

[Jim Warfield]

No matter what kind of style of a show that you produce ,if there is energy and at least some measure of what seems to be sort of original, then people will be talking about their experiences there.
I am eirher very cursed or very fortunate because entertaining people here beginning 20 years ago I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing or even trying to do, I just knew that the larger part of whatever it was had to basically come from within my mind, my abilitys for me to keep enthusiastically repeating it and make a living at doing it.
The show you get here is heavilly "me" (I'm getting heavier too!)
Maybe this is good because it makes it harder for anyone to copy it, but it also makes it harder for me to hire help in October and keep up certain customer's satisfaction levels,"Well he was pretty good, BUT IT WASN'T YOU, JIM!"
I have had some help here that was Dam Good, and I sure hope they knew/know that, inspite of some customers who have crossed over into fandom for me and refuse to be as pleased with the help's efforts as they should be.

I do and say the things that I am comfortable doing, I try real hard not to copy anyone else's movie or their characters. Life is "Finite" and I am still defining who I am and how I will be reguarded when I am gone. Why waste time copying?
the last time I consciously copied was to pass the test to advance out of Kindergarten, "Whee! Glad I did that, or I'd still be there!"