The Haunted Circus

Last week Meagan and I visted the Fear Factory. This week we visted the Haunted Circus

This haunted house has a circus clown theme. It makes decent use of the evil clown theme throughout most of the exhibit.

Scariness

2 / 3 Stars - We say somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. The first half of this haunted house was fairly disappointed, it was one dark hallway after another. I'll give them a little credit for their ability to make a pitch black atmosphere, but it is fairly lame after you go through a dark hallway to a small room with few decorations, through another dark hallway to another small room. Repeat seemingly forever.

The second half of the haunted house was much better. The sets were larger, and they did a good job of making scarier areas and good use of the environments to get some jumps out of us.

Decoration

2 Stars - Again the challenge with rating this haunted house is the split in the middle between the ultra dark first section against the decently decorated second half. The second half made use of some clever gags to generate scares, and have some creepy atmospheres. There was one outside area full of smoke and fog, and a boy came up out of it seeming to materialize out of nothing. It was a pretty nice effect.

Actors

1 Star - Except for the pleasant rare occastion of a surprise, these actors have only been trained in the art screaming in your face and directly into your ear. There has to be something haunted house actors can do more than just scream into your ear.

Line

3 Stars - The line was short. As we waited clown actors roamed up and down the aisles. After a few minutes of waiting the Michael Jackson Thriller song came on, and clown zombies came out dancing and scaring the teenagers. This was very similar to a haunted house that existed a number of years ago, which had the dancers in a graveyard dancing to the same song. It makes me wonder if this Haunted Circus used to be that other one, and has rebranded itself.

Length

2 Stars - After waiting for about fifteen minutes in line, we were admitted into the Haunted Circus. I forgot to check my watch, but I believe the experience to have been around thirty minutes total, maybe a few more. For the price (to be mentioned in the next section) it could have been longer.

Price

2 Stars - The price was $21 per pesron. I suppose someone who really have a clown phobia, or a really enjoys the dark would love this haunted house. As it stands maybe Meagan and myself are just too old to have people screaming in our ears and to wander around in the dark for awhile.

Summary

If the first half of the experience was as good as the second half, then this haunted house would have gotten a much hirer rating. There were so many good things in the second half, if you have a coupon or something that reduces the rate I recommend it. You might want to wear ear plugs though. At one point Meagan got a blast in the ear from a loud air gun, and her ear bothered her for the rest of the night.

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