Two reporters explore the Great America Halloween Haunt experience

Great America’s Halloween Haunt was about to make my love for anything spooky and creepy come true. I got to attend the opening weekend of the event at Great America that lasts from Sept. 27 through Halloween night. 

Every weekend, the amusement park transforms into a horror filled nightmare packed with mazes, haunted houses, thrill rides. The event costs $28 online and $45 at the gate.

It was Saturday night, and as junior Trung Vandinh and I made our way to The Demon rollercoaster on, a decayed zombie stumbled toward me out of the mist. He stood about a foot away from me and turned to stare at me, keeping his mouth open and ready to feast.

I raised my hand, not out of fear or to protect myself, but to offer him a high-five. He wasn’t very social and walked away, looking for more victims. I may have spent too much of my summer reading horror stories on creepypasta.com, so I was used to this kind of thing. 

Trung and I arrived at The Demon to find that the ride was temporarily closed. Instead of riding The Demon, we decided to head to Madame Marie’s Massacre Mansion, one of the many themed haunted houses for Great America’s “Halloween Haunt.” Trung took a seat at the bench close to the attraction.

“You’re gonna love it, Ati,” Trung said as he smiled at me. 

He wanted me to experience the full effect of Massacre Mansion by making me go alone.

While he sat on the bench, I stepped in line and waited for about 10 minutes. Even when I wasn’t in the house, the Halloween-themed music blaring from the speakers outside the house still sent chills up my spine. 

When I was let in, I was enclosed in a 1920s-themed hallway. I was surrounded by paintings left and right. Looking ahead, I noticed a monster pop out from one of the paintings, and I heard victims scream in horror. I quickly walked past the painting, keeping my eye on it to avoid any surprises.

I made my way through elegant yet eerie rooms decorated with tables, chairs and bookshelves when I came across a pale-faced lady in old-fashioned clothes. A dining table with a severed corpse stood behind her. She eagerly approached me.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” she asked.

I paused and thought of a response to her unexpected question before I walked to the next room.

“Is there steak?” I casually asked.

She nodded her head side to side. I couldn’t tell if she did that out of my lack of fear or if it was a response to my joke. 

I kept going, and a seemingly dead man sitting on a couch, and I already knew what to expect. He suddenly woke up and screamed at a group of kids behind me. Out of curiosity, I took a look behind me to see how they reacted.

They panicked and quickly rushed forward to get out of the room.

“Oh God, oh God,” one of the kids silently whispered to himself. 

I may have had to leave out certain words that they said. Let’s just say that the words aren’t fit for a school paper.

I followed him and his friends to a dark storage room with bodies wrapped in thick cloth hanging upside down. They tightly stayed together and held onto each other’s backs as they quickly turned their heads to make sure no one snuck up on them.

In one of the final rooms, Madame Marie, dressed in high-class clothes, sat by herself at the foot of her bed, with an umbrella in hand. She laughed maniacally to herself as I closely watched her to make sure she didn’t catch me off guard.

Bright light flooded my eyes as I came to the exit of the maze. I walked back and met up with Trung.

Massacre Mansion wasn’t the most terrifying haunted house, and it did not get my adrenaline rushing. However, there are many more haunted houses at the event with different themes that I did not try out, and they could yield different results and possibly more scares.

We both agreed to head back to The Demon because at the end of it all, we did need a thriller.