299 Montgomery Road, Montgomery, IL

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Year: 2015
TOURERS: Bryan, LAURA, James, ursula
COSTS: $20/$35 VIP

CHAINSAWS:3.5/5
MORE INFO: Massacre

One of our favorite haunts in recent years, and indeed perhaps our top haunt of 2014, is the Massacre. We enjoy practically everything about it, from the actors to the sets, to the atmosphere. Thus, we always look forward to any event at the Massacre, and the 2015 Valentine's haunt was no exception.

However, when we learned that the Valentine's version would be a blackout we were a bit concerned. For the uninitiated, "blackout" haunts usually involve turning the lights out in the entire haunt area and giving groups of people a single light source which they use to navigate. In theory, this sounds quite scary. An entire haunt in darkness with characters just waiting to jump out and scare you to death.

However, In our experience, blackouts tend to be "stumble around in the dark" affairs that are neither scary nor fun, due to the fact that you lose the ability to see the great sets and actors that make a haunt enjoyable, and that you are more concerned with not tripping and falling than with actually experiencing the haunt itself. Given that the Massacre is such a quality haunt, though, we had hoped that, despite the blackout, the Valentine's edition of the Massacre would be just as good, only different. Unfortunately, the blackout turned out to be a case of less (in terms of visuals) not being more.

One of the main reasons we love the Massacre is its great sets. It's very visual, with
a high level of detail and a large variety of types of sets. It's fun to look around and take in all of the set detail, regardless of whether or not actors are in a given scene. A blackout, naturally, removes most of  this visual appeal, and unfortunately for us, it also removed a lot of the enjoyment. Instead of taking in the visuals, we found ourselves simply moving from dark room to dark room looking for the exit.

Additionally, the Massacre has some great actors, many of whom interact well with visitors. For the most part, the blackout wound up removing these interactions as well. In a number of rooms where we were used to seeing multiple actors, both of the diversionary (victim) type and the scary type, we found simply empty spaces, or spaces too dark to effectively see any of the great costuming and makeup. There were a few exceptions to this, however. There was a great animal skull-headed creature in the room with the giant animatronic dinosaur head, a cool giant bunny who stole our glow sticks, and a creepy zombie who ran out of the darkness, grabbed our glow stick, and ran away. Also, special mention must be given to Pedo the Clown, who not only was hilarious and creepy, but also befriended our group and showed up at various points throughout the haunt just to give us the benefit of his one liners and witticisms. You can tell that Pedo really loves his home at the Massacre and takes great pride in leading people through it. We love PAdditionally, the Massacre has some great actors, many of whom interact well with visitors. For the most part, the blackout wound up removing these interactions as well. In a number of rooms where we were used to seeing multiple actors, both of the diversionary (victim) type and the scary type, we found simply empty spaces, or spaces too dark to effectively see any of the great costuming and makeup. There were a few exceptions to this, however. There was a great animal skull-headed creature in the room with the giant animatronic dinosaur head, a cool giant bunny who stole our glow sticks, and a creepy zombie who ran out of the darkness, grabbed our glow stick, and ran away.

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Also, special mention must be given to Pedo the Clown, who not only was hilarious and creepy, but also befriended our group and showed up at various points throughout the haunt just to give us the benefit of his one liners and witticisms. You can tell that Pedo really loves his home at the Massacre and takes great pride in leading people through it. We love Pedo!

As great as Pedo was, though, we did miss our interactions with the other actors in the Massacre, including the sarcastic clowns, the creepy guy in the theater (he was there but the scares didn't work too well since we really couldn't see him), the creepy Exorcist-like child in the mental ward and our all-time favorite Massacre character - the twitchy Silent Hill nurse in the medical ward. We were very much looking forward to seeing her but wound up missing her entirely due to the fact that we were directed away from her room. Although the haunt was advertised as "free roam", where visitors could wander around at random, our group was directed into and out of various rooms, sometimes to vary the experience and other times to get us lost in the darkness. Thankfully, we have been to the Massacre enough that we know our way around, so we avoided getting lost despite the misdirection, but we also wound up skipping the entire mental hospital/medical setting and thus we missed our favorite character!

As we have mentioned before, we're not big fans of blackouts, and our experience at the Massacre is precisely why - both the visuals of the set design and the nuances of  the actors' performances were lost in the darkness, and two of the things that make the Massacre great were unfortunately missing. Thankfully we avoided getting lost or misdirected (mostly) as that really would have made it worse, and we did enjoy the actors we did see, so it wasn't a total loss, but we miss our "regular" Massacre!

Let's put it this way - there were a number of haunts open Valentine's weekend, and almost all of them were blackouts. To be honest, since blackouts take away most of the lighting, you've got to be creative in order to make them unique and fun, otherwise they tend to be the same as every other blackout haunt. In our opinion, the Massacre doesn't need a gimmick to make it great - it just is. Such a visually stunning and creative haunt doesn't need to be in the dark - it needs to be seen to be appreciated. Thus, while we love the Massacre and will definitely return, we weren't too thrilled with the blackout version. Our advice? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

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