Utah is a spook house Disneyland with three different venues — Nightmare on 13th, Castle of Chaos and Fear Factory nearby. Though Nightmare on 13th has been named best scare in Utah in the past, it didn’t live up to its title this year.
Fear Factory, Salt Lake’s newest haunted attraction, followed a pretty traditional startle scare theme. While the creepy rooms and different characters were standard, the haunted house mostly exploits its location. It advertises its building as haunted, and once the path takes attendees inside the building, they use cavernous rooms to capitalize on a naturally creepy building.
The Fear Factory uses its newness to build up a “hipster” atmosphere. It has live bands playing for the line, gives out shot glasses with its upgrades, achieved a relatively low-tech setup and nothing screams “cool” these days like hanging out in an abandoned factory.
Fear Factory might not be the scariest haunted house out there, but it’s more inclusive to those who scare easily, and it makes a case for being the most entertaining. The walkthrough has a few too many stairs, which give fewer opportunities for scares, but it is all made up for at the top when attendants have the chance to slide down one of two slides that are constructed as high as legally allowed in North America.
Nightmare on 13th has been one of the most successful haunted houses in the country, and it shows in its budget. It is by far the most theatrical of the three in Salt Lake, and many features, such as the animotronic dragon looming over the line and the bungee that allows actors to jump at attendees at full speed without hitting them, are indisputably impressive.
However, after a few rooms, it is easy to get used to the dummy in the middle of the room or just around the corner, and the startle scares become expected. Nightmare also uses media most heavily, referencing things such as Dr. Who and the Slender Man, which can actually take some of the fear out of the environment.
It is a narrow path, and groups seem to be pushed through, with a quick startle-scare in each room while very few actors stop and play around with individuals. Nightmare on 13th is a popular place, and it shows. Groups have to keep moving in order to avoid being in the way of those behind them and quickly run into those in front, even on a weekday.
As a result, most of the traps are triggered by preceding groups and are often still resetting after all had gone past. This assembly line approach and limited amount of slides, crawl spaces, etc. make it seem more of a show than a haunted house, and those visiting might as well be in cars as in the Terror Ride at Lagoon — which might have been better, since the flow would be constant.
Another point where the other two houses outdid Nightmare on 13th was use of sound. Fear Factory and Castle of Chaos have quiet areas, which makes slamming on the walls and yelling much more effective. At Nightmare, whether you were under the dragon or next to the Tesla Coil, everywhere was loud.
Even though some are executed better than others, the three houses in the area were similar, from startle-scares to the typical yelling hillbillies or crazy doctors. Few have deviated from the haunted house formula in recent years, and what they are really lacking is interaction and isolation.
It would be nice if haunted houses would drop the gimmicks. There is going to be a line to suffer through whether a VIP pass is purchased or not, and levels of fear, screamatoriums and different “nightmares” only serve to confuse the website, since most of the different rooms follow a common theme both between haunted houses and those from previous years. Plus, the ridiculous number of upgrades and extras only hide the actual price. If there’s anything haunted houses should learn from each other, it should be to have a flat price and upfront descriptions.