I had this idea for a haunted house that I know will
never happen, due to anticipated OSHA violations. Given that, no one will steal this idea
either. It’s just interesting to imagine,
because it features eclectic fears that aren’t normally considered when
conceptualizing a haunted house.
Normally, there are people jumping out of corners and screaming
semi-randomly, which is more annoying than scary.
Anyway, onto the
non-existent Halloween attraction that will never be built!
Patrons would need to sign
waivers and get an EKG test prior to entering.
The adventure starts with
patrons being led into an elevator. It claims
it's taking you down to the eighth basement.
It descends one level, but it shutters and gets stuck with the lights
out. The fire alarm goes off. Red lights flicker. None of the emergency buttons work.** The phone box is empty. Fog starts filling the elevator compartment,
and it smells smoky.
After a minute, the doors
fling open. The patrons walk down a hallway
with glass walls. On the outside of
these windowed walls are hundreds of tarantulas. There are separate glass enclosures for the
scorpions. A voice over the loudspeaker
says that the windows need to be fixed due to breakage points in the
glass. At the end is an abrupt chamber
for a couple coconut crabs. (At this
point, PETA would come after me too, but they have animal skeletons in their
closets anyway, those baby seal clubbing hypocrites! I would feed all the insects and those coconut
crabs! Plus they would get enough
exercise!)
The patrons would turn a
corner into the next hallway. One side
has a floor-to-ceiling mirror. People
might think it’s tame since there is nothing else in the hallway, until they
reach the end. They would turn the
corner, and find out that it was a two-way mirror on
the other side. There are creepy people on the other side,
watching. Instead of horror movie monsters,
they are just dressed as unkempt, trashy people sitting in chairs, staring at
the unaware patrons through the mirror.
The creepy employees don’t say anything or move.
Then
the final hallway is a winding, dark crawl space with absolutely no light. Inside the void/crawl space, there are
unnerving sound effects. Disturbing
sounds include distant screams, and closer growls of animals prowling the crawl
space. There are whispers over a loud
quietspeaker that there is no end to this maze, that it eventually narrows into
an ultimate dead end, and you’ll be buried alive and/or eaten by the
tarantulas. (I can already imagine the
lawsuits! This is supposed to be a
non-existent, never-will-happen haunted house.
So chill!)
In
the end, patrons will make it out of the crawl space alive, which leads to a gift
shop. Honestly, who doesn’t like gift
shops? All patrons would receive free
sunglasses to cope with the light, which would be relatively dimmed. If anyone was too disturbed, they would get
refunded and a free gift from the shop.
If someone was unimpressed and completely unafraid, they would be free
to give constructive criticism on how to make this theoretical place more
threatening, plus get a free gift!
Disclaimer: No, I would never subject anyone to these
horrific situations. The point was to
conceptualize the scariest possible haunted house.
**At my first apartment,
the elevator malfunctioned, and the alarm button was not working. There was no call box. I was alone in a small, old Westinghouse
elevator, trapped. Emergency services
were going to take forever, so I banged on the elevator door, and the doors
opened! Luckily, it was stuck at an
opening, and not between the levels. I
got out!
