Thrillvania Haunted House Park wants to know what does it take to scare someone in 2013? Gone are the days when a simple rubber spider dangled from the ceiling could send a person screaming from the room. Today’s haunt-goers are understandably jaded by constant exposure to Hollywood special effects on the big screen, small screen and video games. Children are weaned on violence, blood, explosions and pyrotechnics, all in 3D Technicolor surround-sound.
In an effort to up the fright factor, haunted houses now integrate all kinds of high tech visual effects, lighting, chilling stereo and enough gore to fill a dozen Hollywood horror movies. Many haunted houses are like horror movies on steroids, and you, the customer get to play the hapless victim who goes stumbling through the doorway while the entire audience is yelling “don’t go in there!”
And still, it just doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. As opposed to bungee jumping or skydiving, there is no inherent risk in traversing a haunted house. Deep down, visitors know that they will not be harmed. This combined with the over-exposure to special effects has made some customers difficult to unhinge. The ante has been upped, and in an effort to meet the challenge, some haunted houses are going out on a limb these days – way out.
Take for example, a haunt in both New York and Los Angeles. Is more reality television than Twilight Zone, they send you through a sort of whacked-out, over the top Guantanamo Bay kind of experience, complete with blackout hoods and water boarding. You are forced to go through solo, and subjected to some physical contact, verbal abuse and sensory deprivation for roughly 40 minutes. Less a haunted house and more of an immersion experience. Here at Thrillvania Haunted House Park we choose not to go to such extremes to scare our patrons.
Is this what it takes to scare you? Let’s go back in time, to the works of the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. To truly scare someone, you have to get inside their mind. Hitch knew that a suggestion of horror was often more frightening than the deed itself. The human mind is capable of imagining things far more horrific than anything the best computer graphics can simulate. Thrillvania Haunted House Park like other haunted houses in Dallas choose to use the patrons psyche against themselves by invoking that fear of darkness and the unknown.
More than anything else, humans are afraid of the unknown. That’s why haunted houses often depict the supernatural in the form of zombies, goblins and ghouls. A haunt-goer knows that the actor with the chainsaw will not hurt him, but fear of the unknown makes him wonder if he might fall victim to a freak supernatural event beyond the control of the attraction’s owners.
A truly great haunt catches you by surprise, knocks you off balance and keeps you in suspense, never knowing where the next scare will come from. This is a function of careful planning, strategy and just a touch of genius, carefully cultivated by Thrillvania Haunted House Park and other haunted houses in Dallas/Fort Worth area. That is the mark of a world class haunted attraction, and that is precisely what it takes to scare someone in 2013.