Spooky, Great Fun In The City

Not one, not two, but THREE hauntings were on tap in the Windy City Friday night.  It was soooooooo cool… (so maybe not the hour long wait in the line that never moved that went on and on my friends) but even that did not damper my excitement.

First stop was the Ditka Dome for the Haunted Mansion and Asylum.  Our group of six was divided in half and Mare, Derek, and I went in second.  This was more focused on the jump out and scare you approach… been there done that, but it was still fun.  A 12′ man on roller blades was interesting.  As we made our way through, I was once again amazed that the inhabitants kept saying my name.

We then made our way to Eleventh Hour where we had VIP tickets.  There were four attractions in one: a corn maze (nothing special), and a three segment haunted house.  Even outside the haunted house, we were entertained by actors being pused in wheelchairs and a crazy British woman giving orders who was unwilling or unable to take a photo of another couple who braved the terror.  The haunted house was really amazing, full of actual scenes in which the actors stayed in character the entire time.  I enjoyed the “Sweeney Todd”esque character who greeted us with a history of the house.  The stairs then lifted a la the Munster case without Spot the fire breathing dragon.  Also inside was the much mentioned little screaming girl, a walk in freezer, a live rock band, a very disorienting maze, and an elevator of doom.

Our final stop was Evil Intentions.  The story line for this one had to do with an old coffin factory (if memory serves that was the actual location… was it not?)  This was the spot for the dreaded wait of doom.  When we finally got in, we were all placed in separate coffins before being led through the terror.  A locker room separation, a crawl through vents (I was half expecting a creep to come at us), and by the middle of the haunt, 4 of us had been led away leaving Chris and I by ourselves and eventually being required to sing a song to leave the haunt.

If I had to choose, I would say that Eleventh Hour was the scariest house of horrors because the whole thing was so elaborate that we all could tell that so much time had been put into the extravaganza.  Evil Intentions minus the wait was very cool, too.  And while not as memorable, I’m glad we went through the Haunted Mansion and Asylum.  A frightfully good time with ghoulishly cool friends.

Jamy Shaffer