You would think 2020 has already served up plenty of scares. But for people still chasing an extra jolt of fear and adrenaline, it is the time of year for those spine tingling haunted house attractions.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has cut back on plenty of long distance travel, especially by air, these Halloween themed attractions around the world tend to draw a more local crowd. So they should not suffer much from people taking shorter trips this year.
Still, they face other hurdles.
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On the carefree nights of 2019, the big questions about these attractions were: Which ones are the best? Just how scary are they?
On the cautious nights of 2020, we have different questions: Are haunted houses even opening this year? And if they are, is it safe to visit them?
With Covid-19 cases on the rise, medical experts are urging a careful approach.
A Mix of Openings and Closings
To get a sample, we checked back with our list of the 10 best haunted house attractions in the United States for 2019 to see what they are doing in 2020 during the pandemic.
The results: Seven are open this year. Three chose to stay closed for 2020. The seven that are open are:
– Bates Motel, 1835 Middletown Road, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania 19342; +1 610 459 0647
– The Dent Schoolhouse, 5963 Harrison Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45248; +1 513 445 9767
– Erebus, 18 S Perry St.., Pontiac, Michigan 48342; +1 248 332 7884
– Haunted Overload, 20 Orchard Way, Lee, New Hampshire 03861; +1 855 504 2868
– Netherworld Haunted House, 1313 Netherworld Way, Stone Mountain, Georgia 30087; +1-404-608-2484
– Scream Town, 7410 US-212, Chaska, Minnesota 55318; +1 888 317 7308
– The 13th Gate: 832 St Philip St, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802; +1 225 389 1313
Citing safety concerns over Covid-19, three of the 2019 top 10 decided not to open. They are Freakling Bros. Trilogy of Terror in Las Vegas, the Haunted Trail of Balboa Park in San Diego, and Scared by the Sound (at Playland Park) in Rye, New York.
In a message to fans on their website, Freaking Bros. in Nevada said: "Current guidelines will not allow us to present our haunts with the intensity we are known for, and we cannot guarantee a way to properly protect our guests or our valued staff and volunteers during this pandemic.
"After months of discussion and careful evaluation, we regret that we have to admit the only responsible way to handle this is to put safety first and close for the 2020 season."
The venues that are opening are stressing Covid-19 safety.
The 13th Gate in Louisiana, for example, has an entire page devoted to Covid-19 measures. Anyone who visited a theme park this summer will find all of it quite familiar.
The 13th Gate's measures include mandatory masks for guests and actors, virtual queues, reduced capacity, temperature checks, and new setups to support social distancing.
An Inside Look at One Attraction
We spoke with Ben Armstrong, co-owner of Netherworld near Atlanta, about how the attraction is adapting to the pandemic during its 24th season.
Armstrong said planning a big Halloween attraction is a year round effort, and they eventually realized the pandemic would not be gone by the time their operating season began in late September.
"We worked on this for months. We had to come up with new ways to present the attractions. It was down to the wire," he said. "We were not even sure we could open. We did not even know whether we should open, depending on how the crisis played out."
Armstrong said they had to draw up plans for a safe opening, and they worked closely with the Georgia Department of Public Health while planning.
A New Way of Operating
Among the measures is operating on fewer days than usual.
"We are not running on Mondays and Tuesdays, to make sure we do not overwork our staff, and we take a short break between shows."
Armstrong said they had to think about both staff and visitors when planning an opening that would sharply lower the risk of Covid-19 transmission.
"We wanted to put on a quality show, the way we always do, but we wanted it to be safe. The trick was figuring out how to pull off both at once," he said.
"We cut the number of actors in the attraction, and we drastically cut the number of visitors. On top of that, we ramped up the special effects and animations. We added about 100 beyond what we already had."
Armstrong said the ways actors interact with visitors have also changed.
"They are not making the sounds they normally make. They use voice amplifiers and recorded audio. They stay silent when they scare you. They use strange sound devices that startle people. They have props they point at people. The whole way they interact with you has changed dramatically."
Actors at Netherworld wear masks, and they set up one way foot traffic to keep people from walking back through.
"We expanded the size of the open area. We were already leaning that way, but we made big changes to our physical space."
Caution Across the Atlantic Too
Some haunted houses in Europe are opening as well, following many of the same precautions.
A favorite spot in Cornwall, England, is the historic Bodmin Jail, which was built in 1779 for King George III.
They have a whole page online about what visitors need to do before arriving and after they get there to stay safe from Covid. They have a timed entry system. They removed interactive elements and set up one way foot traffic, just as Netherworld did.
Despite the pandemic, the Movie Park Germany theme park is holding its annual Halloween Horror Festival. The Teutonic frights include a Circus of Freaks and a not so welcoming hostel. This park near the Rhine River in Bottrop had planned since summer to keep the scares safe.
Manuel Prossotowicz, marketing and sales director at Movie Park Germany, told the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions that they would build larger open lines, set up one way visitor flow, and cancel the pre shows that tend to gather people in tight spaces.
Wide Open Spaces
Some haunted house attractions that already had outdoor components are expanding their use of those areas. For the newly opened The Forge: Lemont Quarries, it helped that it was already an outdoor focused park.
About 22 miles from downtown Chicago, this recreation area, full of zip lines, ropes courses, rock climbing, and the like, opened on July 17, when the pandemic was already in full swing. But because of the spread out nature of the site and the unique kind of activities, they did not have all the same problems that theme parks did.
Co-founder Jeremy Bacon said it helped both with opening during the pandemic and with planning their main Halloween event, a "Zombie Apocalypse" laser tag.
"Beyond the health and safety benefits of an outdoor venue during Covid, The Forge's setting naturally lends itself to a one of a kind Halloween activation experience," he said. "We have eerie woods to hide ghouls and goblins, and a whole series of striking outdoor lighting systems that add a Halloween atmosphere."
He said the zombie laser tag battles would "take place in a heavily wooded and secluded area of The Forge. The game will consist of two teams facing off in tactical laser tag against each other, while also fending off flesh eating zombies."
Meanwhile, he has the standard Covid-19 safety measures in place: booking systems, virtual queues, social distancing markers, and so on.
Drive-Throughs and Drive-Ins
Cars and road trips have made a comeback during the pandemic. After all, you can control who is in your car. Operators of Halloween themed attractions have responded this year with drive-through and drive-in shows that let you stay out of reach of anyone outside your group.
Kowagarasetai, a Japanese company that produces haunted houses and horror events, created a drive-in haunted house set in an indoor parking garage in a nondescript building in central Tokyo. It gives visitors a 360 degree, front row experience that simulates being stuck in a car during a zombie outbreak.
American attractions are joining the trend, including the Haunted Drive in Houston and Haunted Road in Orlando, Florida, where guests drive up and park their car at each scene.
With a little luck, your car will not fly into a rage and start acting like Christine!
But Is It Safe to Visit?
Even with safety measures in place, it is a fair question to ask yourself: Should I visit one of these attractions while the pandemic is still going on?
Dr. Shannon Hopson is an endocrinologist in Corvallis, Oregon, and the mother of two boys who love amusement parks. We wanted to know what she thinks as both a professional and a parent.
"We have never been to haunted houses before, but my kids are at the age where they are starting to like scary things, and they were asking about visiting haunted houses this year," she said. "I told them no. Enclosed spaces with lots of people who may or may not be wearing masks do not seem safe to me at all."
She is more open to outdoor attractions than to ones held indoors.
"Any indoor haunted houses seem like a bad idea, and I would recommend avoiding them entirely. There are some places that have outdoor versions of haunted houses. Being outdoors, they seem much safer to me, though there is still the potential for overcrowding."
If you are still willing to take the risk, we wanted to get her advice.
"On top of limiting any haunted 'houses' to outdoor ones only, I would also look for places that require masks and limit how many people can go through at any given time," she said.
"It may seem silly to wear masks outdoors, but close contact with someone from another group who got scared and ended up too near you (screaming or laughing) is a very real possibility."
Armstrong of Netherworld argues that we still need ways to mentally escape the fact that it has been a hard year.
"We are creating this escape from the real world, a fantasy. I think people really need that kind of escape right now. It is so important."
