5700 Archer Road, Summit, IL
years: 2011-2012
Dark Summit is a newer pay haunt on the Chicagoland haunt scene, having opened in 2010. The Tourers visited in 2011, and found it interesting enough to warrant a return visit in 2012. Although the haunt does not look like much from the outside, being housed in a small, nondescript building at the end of a large park, the quality of the sets and actors proves appearances can be deceiving.
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By far, the standout quality of the haunt is the live actors. In 2012 there was a lot of wait entertainment, led by two female ghouls who were dressed as carnival rejects. One kept offering us candy and giggling, while the other was more sinister. They served as a sort of warm up act to what was inside. Also notable in the wait entertainment department was a very large, bare chested man on half stilts, covered in fur from the waist down and adorned with dreadlocks, long curled horns, and glowing yellow eyes. He didn't try to spook anyone, but rather just wandered around - his presence was certainly unnerving, though.
Immediately inside the haunt, visitors were told the rules by a carnival ringmaster on a large plinth. He welcomed visitors to "his" haunt, and warned them to heed his words carefully, lest they be tossed out or worse. The ringmaster reminded me of the creepy central character in the movie "Something Wicked This Way Comes" - look it up to get an idea of what I mean.
After the rules portion, visitors moved through the rest of the haunt, most of which had a carnival theme. There were several creepy clown rooms, including one where a jester popped out of a large jack-in-the-box display. As a nice twist, he then proceeded to pop in and out of various scenes along the rest of the haunt. There was a voodoo room with a priestess hanging from the wall, appearing to float, chanting at visitors. Like many of the rooms, this one was very detailed in its decoration, featuring numerous skulls, candles, and even camouflage netting on the walls.
Other scenes included a large kitchen scene with numerous actors cooking up disgusting meals, banging on pots and pans, and arguing about who'd be next for dinner, a mental asylum setup with patients peering out from behind the bars of their cells, and
a creepy child's room filled with stuffed animals (which seems to appear a lot in haunted houses these days). Our favorite room was a room with three cages in it, each containing some type of ghoul or freak. One cage had some odd looking unidentifiable creature in it, another had a girl chained by her neck, but the best one by far had a young guy dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, who was able to contort his body so that it looked like he was entirely twisted into an impossible position. To make it even creepier - he was able to scuttle along the ground like that, making odd faces at visitors. It's that kind of creepiness factor that makes a good haunt great. We can honestly say we've never seen someone contort their body in such a way in any haunt we've been to.
The age of the actors ranged from mid-teens to early 20's, and all were in good costumes and makeup, remaining in character throughout. Special little performances, like the aforementioned jester who kept popping in and out of scenes and the mental patients who escaped from their cages and wandered slowly behind us really showed the extra effort put into the haunt by everyone involved.
While we were a bit skeptical about Dark Summit, given the fact that they had a nicely done web site from the get go (which sometimes, in our experience, signifies more hype than quality), we were pleasantly surprised on our two visits, and would recommend this haunt for someone looking for a professional haunt experience without the high professional price.
Immediately inside the haunt, visitors were told the rules by a carnival ringmaster on a large plinth. He welcomed visitors to "his" haunt, and warned them to heed his words carefully, lest they be tossed out or worse. The ringmaster reminded me of the creepy central character in the movie "Something Wicked This Way Comes" - look it up to get an idea of what I mean.
After the rules portion, visitors moved through the rest of the haunt, most of which had a carnival theme. There were several creepy clown rooms, including one where a jester popped out of a large jack-in-the-box display. As a nice twist, he then proceeded to pop in and out of various scenes along the rest of the haunt. There was a voodoo room with a priestess hanging from the wall, appearing to float, chanting at visitors. Like many of the rooms, this one was very detailed in its decoration, featuring numerous skulls, candles, and even camouflage netting on the walls.
Other scenes included a large kitchen scene with numerous actors cooking up disgusting meals, banging on pots and pans, and arguing about who'd be next for dinner, a mental asylum setup with patients peering out from behind the bars of their cells, and
a creepy child's room filled with stuffed animals (which seems to appear a lot in haunted houses these days). Our favorite room was a room with three cages in it, each containing some type of ghoul or freak. One cage had some odd looking unidentifiable creature in it, another had a girl chained by her neck, but the best one by far had a young guy dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, who was able to contort his body so that it looked like he was entirely twisted into an impossible position. To make it even creepier - he was able to scuttle along the ground like that, making odd faces at visitors. It's that kind of creepiness factor that makes a good haunt great. We can honestly say we've never seen someone contort their body in such a way in any haunt we've been to.
The age of the actors ranged from mid-teens to early 20's, and all were in good costumes and makeup, remaining in character throughout. Special little performances, like the aforementioned jester who kept popping in and out of scenes and the mental patients who escaped from their cages and wandered slowly behind us really showed the extra effort put into the haunt by everyone involved.
While we were a bit skeptical about Dark Summit, given the fact that they had a nicely done web site from the get go (which sometimes, in our experience, signifies more hype than quality), we were pleasantly surprised on our two visits, and would recommend this haunt for someone looking for a professional haunt experience without the high professional price.