882 Anita Avenue, Antioch, IL
Year: 2014
The Macabre Haunt was one of our unexpected favorites of 2013. It came at the end of the season and was a pleasant surprise filled with old school scares. The haunt was expanded for 2014, and also had a new theme - that of a mental asylum. While we're not crazy about the mental asylum theme (no pun intended), we thought we'd give it a shot as we really enjoyed the haunt last year. Unfortunately, the 2014 incarnation of Macabre Haunt proves the old adage that sometimes, bigger is not necessarily better.
One the plus side, the haunt was bigger and had more scenes inside of it. On the minus side, however, some of the space had been used to create long corridors of nothing and also a circular maze which has us going around and around for quite some time. Things like that tend to get boring very quickly. There were also more actors this time around, but due to the them of being a mental asylum, almost all of the actors wound up playing screaming mental patients, getting in our faces and asking us why we were there, or asking if we wanted to play with them, etc. It seemed like many of the actors said the same things (the "do you want to stay and play") comments coming most often, so the performances tended to blend into one another and become very "samey." However,
there were some standout actors, with our favorite being the guy who
was alone in a room, sitting on a couch and "watching" the static on an
old TV. As we passed by, he began shouting "Cubs win!" at the static -
obviously what we was seeing was far more exciting that the blank screen
we saw. I was a funny moment and our favorite acting bit of the entire
haunt. The guy hanging from the chains over a large pit was also well
into his character, too, and the creepy individual who greeted us in the
waiting room (dressed as a nun) also deserves comment.
As far as sets, there were some holdovers from last year, including the electric chair scene, which wound up getting us once again (just like last time), a cool Mike Myers dummy in a surprise location, a detailed morgue set, a surgery set behind plexiglass that allowed visitors to observe it as they passed by, and a cool room filled with actors hanging from fences and clown heads impaled on poles in the center of it. |
CommentaryMAP
|
As mentioned, though, there was one part that was really much less than fun for us, and that was a large area of hallways filled with hanging white cloth. Actors directed us to go through different areas and we knew this was going to be a maze - sure enough, that's what it turned out to be, and we wound up spending quite a bit of time going around and around in the same location. After a while, we were only interested in moving on.
Overall, we'd have to say that we like Macabre Haunt more last year. This year, we feel the theme of the asylum limited the variety inside, and the addition of extra scenes was countered by the inclusion of multiple dark areas of nothing and the inclusion of the large white cloth maze area. Additionally, the price of the haunt has gone up to almost twice what it was last year. Frankly, we feel that $18 for a haunt that is only about four minutes longer than last year is a bit of a jump. For that type of increase we'd like to see a lot more in the way of variety and scenes. While it wasn't a "bad" haunt, the changes do unfortunately move it into the "average" category, and we'd love to see it move back into "must visit" territory.
Overall, we'd have to say that we like Macabre Haunt more last year. This year, we feel the theme of the asylum limited the variety inside, and the addition of extra scenes was countered by the inclusion of multiple dark areas of nothing and the inclusion of the large white cloth maze area. Additionally, the price of the haunt has gone up to almost twice what it was last year. Frankly, we feel that $18 for a haunt that is only about four minutes longer than last year is a bit of a jump. For that type of increase we'd like to see a lot more in the way of variety and scenes. While it wasn't a "bad" haunt, the changes do unfortunately move it into the "average" category, and we'd love to see it move back into "must visit" territory.