Halloween is the only scary holiday. So, on that one occasion, people want to get terrified to the point of incontinence. People get happy about the garish, drunk on the dreadful and give props to everything from mutilation to cross-dressing. Halloween is weird, but we all play along, engaging in the grotesqueness and making it our own.
Problem is, folks just aren't that easy to scare anymore. The movie market is saturated with sloppy horror flicks, and the classics have been seen a million times. What people discovered with The Blair Witch Project is that there's nothing quite like the real thing. So, hoping to find the ultimate in live action terror, we set off to find out if a couple of local haunted house offerings can meet people's need for thrills.
Durham Jaycee's Haunted House
When we first heard that there was a haunted house in South Square Mall, we laughed. We imagined some sort of a kiosk-like structure floating in the middle of the mall's main runway, with innocent bag-toting shoppers looking from store window to store window being frightened by the shrieks and screams that often occur in the vicinity of haunted houses.
Actually, the Durham Jaycees 27th Annual Haunted House is located in a gutted-out store space on the mall's lower level, right next to the main entrance. There's really no better place for it, neatly tucked away from the primary thrust of regular mall traffic. For the most part, the volume level of the screaming is minimal, at least from the outside (which should keep the nearby vendors complacent).
That is, until Shanice and Tara showed up.
As we purchased our tickets, these two young ladies immediately took a liking to us, asking us to escort them through the impending journey through the dark side. We regretted this arrangement as soon as we walked through the door of the haunted store space.
Nothing had really happened yet, but these two girls were already clinging to our shirts, and what's worse, their hands wandered freely. And then, when the horrors finally began, we both had teenage girls on our backs. Literally.
So with girlies in tow, we proceeded (Jonas was gasping and wheezing already from Tara's intense bear hug). The Jaycee's Haunted House was pretty scary. It wasn't ornate, it wasn't flashy, but it scared the living bejesus out of us. There's something to be said for the kind of fright that occurs when someone jumps out and says "boo," especially if they're holding a chainsaw. It's the element of surprise that haunts this house, not the aesthetics.
Many of the stock horror film characters are accounted for: Michael Myers (Halloween), Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Jason (Friday
By the time we got out of the place, we were both sweaty and bedraggled like a couple of sailors fresh from the local brothel. And that was before we journeyed to Chapel Hill.
Hill of Horrors
People like to bitch about Durham's social options. That analysis, though prevailing, isn't fair. The real truth is that when it comes to the social scene, our light-blue rivals down the road consistently show us up. Thus, it's no surprise that the Hill's hellions have put together a gee-whiz large scale spectacle of a haunted house that is more than just a lot of chainsaws.
Yep, the "Hill of Horrors," sponsored by the UNC chapter of the Alpha Phi Omega coed service fraternity, sports technical know-how and thrills galore and also gives off a reassuring date-function feel. With our pants a little damp from the South Square shocker, we were anxious putty in our entertainers' hands.
Occupying the lower floor of the Franklin Street post office, a landmark whose outside usually plays home to late-night lunatics and cagey rabble-rousers, the Hill of Horrors has a gratuitous Universal Studios feel. Outside the joint, a couple of scratchy alternakids take tickets and offer up T-shirts, as well as a $2 student discount. They smirked when we whipped out our Duke mugshots but our wallets stayed two bones heavier nonetheless. After paying, we waited in a roped-off area of sidewalk vaguely monitored by Merlin the bearded wizard. The Franklin Street eye candy was even better than the old guy in the purple robe. Although it was still early Friday night, the street offered its usual mix of leering goof-offs, punks, bums, lacquered sorority girls and innocent bystanders. The haunted house added the occasional werewolf or demon in the mix, popping out of the post office's back entrance and scaring the hell out of passersby.
After a fifteen-minute wait, Merlin showed us into a narrow white passage. A TV at the end of the room lit up, framed by white-hot studio lights. Ominous intonations set against a professional-looking video promised the most terrifying experience ever, coupled with some cautious exhortations to those with epilepsy, pregnancy or unwillingness to crawl (don't wear your Capri pants or short skirts here, kids).
A side door opened; two jerky middle school kids, both afraid to enter, tried to push each other through the door. After shoving past them, we found ourselves in a black room with walls made
We pushed through a maze of dark, narrow passages, trying to find our way. People started at the screams that blared from the speakers above. Goo dripped down the walls; we heard an "eeeww" from the teen boys behind us. Once we made it to the next room, we had to cross a creaky bridge that spanned a Star Wars-esque garbage pit. Arms reached up at our ankles from below while Gabriel hunched at the end, a constipated scowl on his face. The fetid slop below impressed us; it looked as if APO scoured the cream of the BC/Han's refuse to get this stuff together. And their volunteers were willing to swim in it, too.
From there, things really heated up. Though slower paced than the South Square scare, the sets and presentation at Hill of Horrors were top notch. Costumes were more than hockey masks and blood-splattered T-shirts, and the gags relied on more than current horror-film fodder. There were live heads in kitchen cabinets, gimps in cages and the obligatory underdressed girl chained to a wall. The TV presentations used in several rooms were also a nice touch and set the pace more smoothly than our stalwart guide. The audience really dug the grand finale-the middle school guys loved the black light-"I'm gonna get one for my room!" piped one. "Dude, my teeth are glowing!" beamed the other as the room's walls closed in on us. We should be so lucky-at least our shoelaces turned a little whiter and our dirty shirts gave off a radioactive glow.
The way out of the Hill of Horrors features a blaring Crystal Method soundtrack, seizure-inducing lights and one final thrill (which we won't reveal). So, if you head to Chapel Hill this weekend, go to the Hill of Horrors. If you're staying in Durham, the Jaycees will satisfy. If your curfew is later than those of nerdy Recess guys, do the full tour of Triangle terror: Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (see sidebar). You won't be able to keep your hands to yourself... if you can keep your hands at all.
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