3800 E. MAIN STREET, ST. CHARLES, IL
Year: 2015
Insanity is a brand new haunted house located inside the Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles. It's a bit difficult to find if you do not know it is inside the mall, as the GPS only leads you close to the mall parking lot, and there is only one sign near the road. It took us a bit of time to find it, but once we got closer to the mall we spotted another sign in front of a mall entrance.
Insanity advertises itself as 5,000 square feet of pure terror, and the imagery on its web site gives the impression of an intense haunt with a an insane asylum type theme. However, the actual haunt is quite a bit different than that. In reality, Insanity has more of a Jaycees or community haunt feel than a big dollar professional haunt. There are some detailed sets, such as the beginning set where visitors sit in a living room and listen to the rules in front of a fireplace with a digital painting above it that comes alive to threaten them before they enter the actual haunt, and the first room inside of the haunt, which is decorated as a library. Also there is a small saloon set deeper inside the haunt. The rest of the haunt, however, consists mostly of painted walls and dark corridors without any elaborate set pieces, and there is no hint of the type of haunt that the web site describes. The haunt had a small amount of actors, at least on the night that we visited. There was at least one actor per room, and most of them were either in simple masks or makeup rather than more elaborate prosthetics and costumes. Actors tended to be younger, and most were of the screamy, "get out!" variety. Many just popped out of a scene as we passed by and said "rahr!" or something like that. Some of them were good, such as the girl in the rules room, the girls in the library, and the creepy girls in the doll room, but others didn't seem too enthusiastic about scaring, and jumped out in a somewhat lackluster fashion. Aside from the scenes mentioned above, most scenes were unremarkable, and didn't have much to see inside. This, coupled with certain below average performances from some of the actors, made for an average haunt. However, the haunt was only about eight minutes long for a $15 price tag. To us, this seems quite pricey for what you get. If there were a lot of actors, or a lot of professional sets, or if the length was longer we might have a better opinion, but as it stands, $15 for an eight minute haunt with little to see inside is really not that great of a deal,.especially when there are other haunts in the same price price or less that offer more. Overall, our experience was just OK. We understand that Insanity is a first year haunt, though, and hopefully will grow into something more. For those looking at the web site to get an example of what the haunt is like though, be aware that what you get inside is not what you actually see online. |
CommentaryMAP
|