[0:00] Greetings, everyone. Jonathan here. First and foremost, I am sorry we were not able to get an episode out this week. I'll spare the details. We are actually in the process of packing and getting ready to leave for a combination haunt trip slash baby shower slash a bunch of stuff. off. I have spent the past week in literal hell. Well, okay, maybe not literal hell, but in basically a middle of a big fire of a project that needed to be done within a week. This project normally would have taken a couple of months. I had to condense it all into one week. And in the middle of that, we've been trying to build our yard display and we are behind on that as well. So it is not just Haunt Weekly. We are overwhelmed with a little bit of everything going on. But But I know some of you don't like Redux episodes, and I promised I wouldn't do them for just the sake of doing one, just the sake of completionism. But this one is special to me.

[1:02] One of the things is all this craziness has been going on I've been taking some comfort in has been following social media feeds of my friends, including Jabes, including Alex, including a bunch of people in the Haunt community, as they've been enjoying the 2024 Lost Souls Haunted Bus Tour in and around Chicago, Illinois. And just seeing the photos on the bus, seeing the smiling faces, seeing Brewster Bonesaw, it's been such a treat for me. And it reminds me to no end of the time, we got to do this in 2018 and had such an amazing time doing it. And so I just wanted to share this episode again with you all. It's the episode where we talk about going on this trip, seeing all the haunts, and where we basically try to recap two insane nights of haunted attraction visits in under an hour. I don't know how we did it, and I listened to the episode recently. I still don't know how we did it. So anyways, I'm going to leave it here and let you enjoy the episode.

[2:02] Welcome to Haunt Weekly!

[2:05] Music.

[2:21] Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this is Haunt Weekly, a weekly podcast with Haunted Attraction and Haunted Entertainment Community. Whether you're an actor, owner, or just plain aficionado, we aim to be a podcast for you. And I suspect we may have picked up a few new listeners this go-around. Hopefully. Hopefully a few.

[2:40] If you pick up that we are tired, that we are not ourselves, we are slurring speech, unfortunately it's not because we're drunk. No. I would really like it to be the reason. Sadly, though, it is simply exhaustion has taken hold. We've had one of the busiest weekends of our lives, and we're going to talk about that weekend. We're going to discuss the Lost Souls Haunted Bus Tour in Chicago, Illinois. It was a great time had by all. I don't think there's going to be much, if anything, negative said over the next hour. Right. But hopefully you enjoy and will be entertained by it. But first things first, a few housekeeping items to go through. First, in case you did not know, you are listening to Haunt Weekly. If you intended to get on a different podcast, please exit the vehicle now. Yeah. We are at HauntWeekly.com. We are also HauntWeekly on Twitter, HauntWeekly on Facebook. Facebook. You see what I mean? Facebook. Facebook. It's my new social network. It's for Wookiees. Gotcha. It's for Wookiees. It's Facebook. It's great. You're going to love it. Hey! Yeah. I cannot do a Chewbacca roar. I'm pretty sure that just sounded horrible. Yeah. But anyways, you can also go to tinyurl.com slash hauntweekly for our YouTube channel. We're available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher. Every podcasting app you can think of probably has us at least once. I downloaded a new podcasting app while we were gone. I already forgot the name of it. It had us twice, though. That was great. We were there twice. You could listen to this podcast twice.

[4:09] Highly encouraged behavior, by the way. Yeah. And a highly insane behavior, too. A little bit. But anyways, all right, so first thing is first, conference reminders. It is an odd episode. You are the odd ball. That means it's time for you to start. Crystal, kick us off, please. Okay, November 9th and 10th, it's Dark History and Horror Con in Champaign, Illinois, at the Garden Hotel Urbana. Tickets are just $20 for the weekend. $10 per day includes film festival.

[4:39] It's dhhcon.com for more info alright after that the same days in Salt Lake City Utah November 9th and 10th this is the legendary haunt tour at the Holiday Inn Express it will not actually be at the Holiday Inn Express it will be a bus that tours haunts kind of like what we did this weekend so it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun it's going to be a lot of fun it will be touring current haunts announced include, Nightmare on 13th and Fear Factory more haunts to be announced at legendaryhaunttour.com. Okay. January 25th through the 27th, it's HauntCon Halloween and Party Expo right here in New Orleans at the Ernest M. Morial Convention Center. It'll be featuring us. He's speaking. Yes, I am speaking. I will be giving the legendary, cannot-be-topped, number one-ranked, king of the world, totally humble copyright and trademark for haunters. I've got to make people seem like it's interesting. All right, I've got a challenge here. It's kind of a dry topic. It is, but it's an important one. Echo, you owe me a beer or whatever. Yeah. Blah, blah, blah. HauntCon.com for more info. And to see who else is speaking. All the other losers speaking. All the other great, great people that are speaking. All the other people are probably far superior to me speaking at HauntCon.com.

[5:56] Alright, after that, it's Haunt X, the Haunter's DIY Expo, February 23rd and 24th, in Pomona, California, the Fairplex, touring Coffin Creek, both lights on and lights off. We'll also feature a costume ball. HauntX.com for more.

[6:13] Okay, February 27th through March 2nd, it's the May Chicago Corn Party in Dallas, Texas, in Oklahoma City. It's the Westin Fort Worth Airport Hotel. Yeah, the Westin Dallas Fort Worth. Dallas naming is confusing, is what I'm saying. Well, the Dallas Fort Worth Metro is a thing, so that's probably what they're talking about. Yeah. Touring various mazes around Dallas and Oklahoma City, including Yesterland Farm and Mainstay Farm, themaze.com for more info. And that's M-A-I-Z-E. All right. Well, now it's time for a little bit of honesty here. We did not have time when we got home to do show notes. Once we arrived, our plane was even late, just to further screw things up. By the way, did you know that Spirit will not tell you that your plane is departing late, even if it leaves an hour late? Yeah. Bastards. Yeah. Yeah, in fact, the pilot, when we got on the plane, said, you might be getting there a little bit later than expected. Yeah, an hour. Yeah. It's like, we're already leaving late. I don't mind being late.

[7:20] I don't mind the gaslighting, guys. Yeah. No, you're not late. You're leaving on time. No, it's 8 o'clock. We haven't boarded. The flight's supposed to leave at 8. Yeah. And we haven't even gotten on the goddamn physical plane. Anyways. That's because it wasn't there. It's still in the sky somewhere else.

[7:39] They don't have teleporters on the plane yet, Jonathan. Apparently not. Oh, but yes. But we've just returned from the Lost Souls Chicago tour. I want to, A, thank Japes for a great experience in helping us get out there. Without his help getting out there, I don't think it would have been possible. In fact, I know it would not have been possible. Right. There's no think. I know. So he was a big, big part in getting us out there. I also want to thank him for the award he gave us on Saturday night. Yeah. Completely unnecessary and completely unexpected. Right. But very, very touching. He gave us an award that was a quote-unquote leftover award from Rob Zombie's Great American Nightmare in 2015. It is a beautiful piece of wood and glass. that is like way nicer than anything we deserve. Like if we, I figured if we were getting an award for the podcast, it'd be like a 10 trophy from like the dollar store. That would have been an honor enough. Like this is way, way too nice for what we do. And it was deeply touching and deeply appreciated. Thank you for that. All in all, it was an amazing experience. And we're going to have him on to talk about operating this later. He's agreed to do it, but he's a little busy right now. Right. And we don't want to pull him away. I feel bad because he had Sunday for him and his family. Yeah. And he actually spent time with us again. In the evening. In the evening.

[9:03] Man, you're so nice. It makes you sick. Yeah. He's so, so nice. And so incredible. But it was really great to get to meet him and hang out with him and wind down the weekend that way. And meet Brewster Bonesaw. Yeah, Brewster Bonesaw. The totally unrelated, not connected to Japes in any way. Yes. Japes' haunted character, Brewster Bonesaw, got to meet and hang out with him for a while. Yes. Yes, we were only hanging out with Brewster most of the time. But we did hang out with Japes some. Yes. But yes, on the bus it was all Brewster. Mm-hmm. All in all, yeah, I mean, it was a great time. But the whole experience got us thinking about these types of experiences for haunt customers and why they're good for haunt customers and possibly good for haunts. Yeah. Probably good for haunts. Mm-hmm. So we're actually going to – this is going to be kind of weird for us because, A, we don't have show notes. Like I said, we didn't have time to draft show notes. We're kind of winning this a little bit. But a lot of the conversation we've been having since is about these types of events and attractions.

[10:10] And putting them together and the value that they add to the industry. Because we've been hearing more about similar tours taking place in other cities and other locations. And I remember our trip to Atlanta. Right. Which is kind of where I want to start the conversation. Because we're mad bastards. We have long said that we are crazy for haunting. Yeah. We have a podcast about it. Which people were perpetually surprised to learn on the weekend.

[10:42] And it was weird because it's like there's so many great haunted attraction podcasts and we often got asked oh they're a podcast about haunting, yes we're not the only ones we're not the only one even there are plenty of others out there I suggest you search iTunes or Stitcher or whatever yeah definitely, But, yeah, so we're mad bastards. So when we planned that Atlanta trip, it was a feat of engineering, almost, to make all those moving parts work. Yes. Jonathan spent many, many days scheduling all the trips, figuring out how far it was between haunts, trying to guess what the lines would be like, which days were the slowest, according to the website. Sites um and it was a huge huge task because i mean when planning it we really pushed like google maps to its extreme edges of what it's good for yeah i mean i was doing custom maps with multiple layers you might hear some rain in the background holy christ it just opened up i don't know it was bright and sunny two seconds ago. What the hell? Yeah. Oh, jeez. Anyway, yes. If you hear rain, that's that. And if you hear the cat meowing, it's because the cat's an asshole. Those are the two things that you might hear.

[12:04] But yeah, so we spent several days planning this. And with spreadsheets for ticket prices, average estimated line time, whether VIP was necessary or warranted, and trying to move all these pieces around and trying Trying to plan. Essentially, we only had two nights in Atlanta for really hardcore haunting. Right. We did eight attractions in Atlanta, three Friday night, four Saturday night, and one Sunday night that was just kind of we picked up on the way out. Yeah. And the thing is, is even with all of our planning, we would get to a haunt and they say, oh, are you going to such and such haunt? It's just 10 minutes away. It's like, son of a bitch. It never showed up. It's like, we didn't even know that such and such haunt existed. Now we're going. Yeah. We were going to have a lighter night, but now we're staying out later.

[12:55] Thank you. That was Saturday night in a nutshell right there. I think we actually did four and a half kind of that night. It was really crazy.

[13:05] And so one of the things I realized about being on this bus tour was I didn't have to do any of the planning. Yes. All of the logistics was getting there and getting to the actual bus. Right. Which that was the part that Japes helped so, so much with. Yes. Was helping us pick a place to stay. He drove us to the bus both nights, drove us home one of the nights. Yeah. That element of it was the part he helped with so much. And it was really, really generous of him to do that. We could have lifted in Uber. We would have been perfectly happy doing it. But he made sure we got there on time and everything. Right. But I got to say, I mean, not having to do all that logistics. Was a huge load off my mind. Yeah. I mean, just to be able to say, here you go. Yes, we're going on the bus tour. Whatever the ticket price is. The bus is going to take us wherever it takes us, and we're going to have fun.

[14:02] And the second component is when we did it ourselves, the most we could do was VIP access. Mm-hmm.

[14:10] Yeah. So if we had rolled up to, say, Netherworld, and Netherworld was the first haunt we did on Friday night on our trip, a big, huge haunt. Yeah, we're going early in season. It wasn't likely going to be a problem. But if we had rolled up and the VIP line was crowded, our whole night could have been hosed. Yeah. The whole timetable could have been totally shot. Right. We might not have been able to do everything. And given that we literally drove nine hours to get to Atlanta, it would screw the entire week and we were just going to miss haunts that we planned on seeing yeah so it was it was really really rough and the ability of this tour and tours like it just simply to provide complete front of instant access yeah it's a big deal um and i want to give kudos to japes and his partner terry for the organization here yeah because honestly i mean having done it just for the two Two of us. That's only a flavor of what they had to do. That's only like a smidgen of a taste of what they did. Because they, A, organized it for literally 10 to 15 times the number of people. Right. And they had to organize giveaways. They organized, you know, beer on the bus. They organized all this other stuff. They organized getting the bus. Yeah. They organized the bus. That's kind of important. A bus and a driver. Yes, advertising to get people on the bus. Yes.

[15:34] They had so many moving components of it, and I'm so happy it was a success for them. They had about 21 people the first night, which was about two-thirds capacity. It was not full, full, but pretty full. And then they were completely booked Saturday night, and they're also completely booked next Saturday, too. Right, but if you're in that area and you have, they do have a few seats available Friday still. Yeah, and they are leaving from... It seems like they are leaving... That night, I'm checking the details. I'm on their site.

[16:08] They're leaving again at Evil Intentions, which is what they did Saturday night. Evil Intentions is also the end of the tour. But yeah, it's definitely worth it because, A, you can't buy. I don't think you can buy the VIP tickets for that price. No. I mean, that's kind of the perk of this as a customer, is that you're getting the group rate. Yeah. Well, I mean, not only that, but we looked it up for Hell's Gate, for instance. They have a package where you can get the lights on tour and meet people and stuff afterwards. Yeah. But you're going to pay $150 just for that one experience. Yeah. That's $150 per person, by the way. Yeah.

[16:55] Yeah, I mean, are we mad enough bastards to do it? Maybe. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. We're probably just a little bit crazy enough. If we had the cash, we probably would consider it at least. Yeah. But, yeah, but being able to do it as part of this group was absolutely great. And we're going to talk about those parts of the experience. Yeah. Because even though we're going to go over everywhere we visited over the weekend. Yeah. I want to say, like, the full review part for what we do on Garbage Horror. So, you can go to garbagehorror.com. We'll be trickling those reviews out over the next probably week or so. Right. In fact, I'm probably going to start posting them tomorrow. just because we have so many to do right now. I think if we do one for the bus tour itself, we have seven. Yeah. So that's a lot. Yeah.

[17:40] But, yeah, I mean, really it was an awesome, awesome tour, and it took such a huge load off. It's a financial benefit, and haunts are able to get their hardcore fans special treatment because that's what this tour really is for, the hardest of hardcore fans. Yeah. Yeah, there were some people who were not in that hardcore group, but they still had a blast. You know, there were...

[18:09] I know there was a little bit of worry about whether or not they would like it, but they really enjoyed it, and they were participating in all the events. And, you know, I saw the little teacher scream, and it was fun, and she laughed right afterwards. So it was a great time to be had by hardcore fans and anyone else who's interested in visiting haunted houses. Yeah, I would agree with that. It was a lot of fun. And it was a way to get a lot of haunting in in a very little time and even though chicago um the haunts are fairly close together they're still not super close no they're you know 30 minutes between haunts is not much i mean think like you live like right between me it's 15 minutes either way you're you're close to both haunts yeah but when you're trying to play in an evening it's not nothing and it's time you have to fill and when we were doing the atlanta trip again going back to that yeah we would travel and have you know 30 minutes 45 minutes an hour between haunts what are we doing during that time well we're driving right often through very dark uninteresting places that we have no idea where we're going going so we're not really able to enjoy it.

[19:25] And so the main thing we're doing is we're doing our audio notes for each of the haunts. But yeah, other than that, you know, you're just driving. Here, you're doing a hell of a lot more. You've got Brewster Bonesaw entertaining. You've got giveaways. You've got raffles. You've got trivia contests that went sideways in a hurry. Yeah, we won so much that we had to mail a package back to ourselves.

[19:50] To be fair, part of that is about Spirit Airlines and the fact we only took personal items. But yes, we did have to mail a huge package back to ourselves of stuff we won. Yeah. And that didn't... We actually brought the award back with us. Right. We made room for that, but we won, I think, like three or four t-shirts. We picked up a couple, too, while we were out. We bought a few. Yeah.

[20:13] A vampire slaying kit. Yeah. Which I immediately, when I got it, I'm like, oh crap, airport security is going to love this one. Yeah. I could just see some very entertaining questions at O'Hare Airport. Yeah. At six o'clock in the morning when we showed up. Sir, why are you bringing two oak stakes and a crossbow with pointy ends? Yeah. And they're already covered in blood. Blood, yes. Not the nosopher. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see good things happening with that. And the other thing is that a lot of the prizes were from local artists. They were handcrafted. And they were freaking awesome. Yeah. So, not only was it t-shirts, but it was also artwork from people who provide artwork to haunted houses. Yeah. I don't think there were any prizes I hoped I didn't win for reasons other than I have no way to ship that home. Right. There were a few items like that, like the boxes. It's like, yeah, I've got no chance at hell of shipping that home. Yeah. Would love it. Would love it. It's beautiful, but I cannot get it home. So give it to someone else who can do something with it.

[21:25] But yeah, it was a ton of fun. And the whole evening is filled. Yeah. And the other thing is all of the tours have something afterwards, some extra bonus. Right. At least the nights we went. We'll get to all that in a minute. But yeah, we did a Lights on Tour of Hell's Gate, led by John LaFlambois. Who we're hoping, fingers crossed, to get on this podcast sometime soon. He's agreed to it. We also met some listeners from Hell's Gate. We really appreciated talking to them. Mark, yeah. Yeah. In particular, Mark, who actually sought us out and spoke with us. Right. And it was really interesting meeting listeners to the podcast because, you know, you never really know if people are listening. I mean, yeah, sure, people talk to you, but you never really know.

[22:26] You know what I mean? It's one of those things where you, it's, when we're in here, we're speaking to the void. Right. Type thing. And it's nice to be reassured someone is on the other end listening. And that they have a face and they say things and they do things. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah, Mark Sakaki. Yeah. I'm hoping I did not totally butcher his last name. You may have, but it's okay. It's okay. You got the first one right. I definitely got Mark right, so we're going to run with that. Yeah. That's halfway there, at the very least. But, no, it was great meeting him. It was awesome. We got to chat at least a little bit. Yeah. It was also there I tried my first true Chicago-style dog, in air quotes for various reasons, according to locals. Right. With the relish and the pickles. Right. There was a lot of good memories made there. But we also did try the Maxwell, which is the locals Chicago dog. According to locals who we spoke to. They said that is more common. Right. So, yes.

[23:23] So anyways um yeah let's talk a little bit about the actual stops on the tour real fast okay and oh wait i forgot there was something else i wanted to talk about that was important um in terms of why this bus tour is important and why it's good for customers right and that is haunt curation yeah i know nothing about the chicago haunt scene nope in fact i may know I know less than nothing, because I know just enough to be dangerous. Yeah. Like, I know the names of some haunts. Like, as I was telling, as I was telling Japes and a few others there, discounting what Japes said, because Japes obviously talks about Chicago haunts all the time for obvious reasons. Yeah. But even before him, we had heard about Statesville Prison and Hell's Gate. No, the zombie army haunts. Right. And Evil Intentions. And Evil Intentions. We'd heard about those through news stories and things we'd covered and just buzz in the haunt industry and whatever. We may have heard about Basement of the Dead, too. I don't honestly know if that's reached us. Yeah, it didn't ring a bell when I heard it. And if I had heard about it, I may have confused it for the haunted basement, which was Kyle's old haunt in Detroit. Right.

[24:39] Basements use a lot of names. Yeah, it is. It really, really is. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's, but that haunt curation, because Japes is probably the greatest expert on Chicago area haunting you could hope to find. Yeah, he's worked at all of them. He's built up relationships with the haunts, the haunt actors, the haunt owners over decades. And so has Terry. Yeah, obviously. They're a great combo. And you're not going to get the kind of access that you get with people who've known people for decades. Yeah.

[25:14] And also, because he knows the haunts and he knows what they're about and what they do, he's able to sort of curate these very unique experiences like Friday Night. Right. Which is where we went to three very, very different haunts. Yes. All of them good, but good in very different ways. Right. He describes them as lightweight, a middleweight, and a heavyweight haunt. Yeah. And makes the point, lightweight isn't bad. Nope. Lightweight can hit you just as hard. Oh, yeah. But it's a smaller haunt, it's a smaller staff, smaller budget type thing. Right. And then you've got a more traditional, what we think of as a regular haunted attraction. Yeah. And then you have a big mama haunt in Hell's Gate, one that's a huge, huge expensive build and does all these incredible things. And so, yeah, you know, that's a very, very interesting way to curate the area and to get a flavor of it. Yeah.

[26:09] It's very similar to what we tried to do in Atlanta. Yeah. Now, before we jump in and talk about the actual places, and we did try to do it, but we did not do it in that order, which may have been a mistake. We might have wanted to do it lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight, because we did, like on Friday night, we did Netherworld first. Right. And then we went to Folklore, I think, pretty much straight after. Right. And, yeah, Folklore was very interesting and very, very cool.

[26:37] But, yeah, it's a very different experience. It is. Well, and we had also felt a little bit bad about not being able to stick around at Netherworld and experience the outside festival atmosphere that was going on. Yeah, a little bit more. We did the zombie game, which we apparently both just sucked at. I got more than you. Yeah, well, anybody could have gotten more than me. I got zero. Well, yeah. I sucked at it completely. You sucked at it mostly. Mostly. Yeah. I think that's the fairest determination of that. That's probably fair. But the point is, yeah, we felt a little bit bad about that, and I didn't like putting a smaller haunt in the shadow of Netherworld in hindsight. That seems unfair. Right. So, and then that made it difficult for us to look at it more independently.

[27:27] But yeah, so the curation element of it was very, very important. And that's something that you only get from that expert opinion. And you can go on sites like Haunted House Chicago and Haunted Illinois and get opinions.

[27:40] But honestly, the personal touch of that, I think, makes all the difference in the world. It does. You know, because he knows not just, you know, what haunts are what, but what haunts go together well. What haunts pair well, like wine and cheese. Which pair with each other type question. And that's something that you can do with an expert like that. Yeah. All right. So, Friday, October 5th, where were you at around 6 p.m.? At around 6 p.m., I was getting on a bus at Reggie's. Reggie's. Now, I had not heard of Reggie's before this, but Reggie's A provides the buses. Yeah. And also provides the beer person on said buses. So you can buy beer from Reggie's as you are driving.

[28:30] But yeah, the Reggie's South Tour. And Reggie's is, it's a bar and grill type place. But it's also a live music venue. And apparently, judging from the line at the live music venue, it's much better known as a live music venue. Yeah. The bar and grill side was pretty dead when we rolled up. Yeah. So we got there. We pre-gamed a little. Got to hang out with Jabes. what he had dinner he made himself brewster while we were eating cheeseburgers so many cheeseburgers and hot dogs were at on this trip in fact just just do a shot every time you mention cheeseburger or hot dog and probably be dead by the end of the podcast yes anyways it's a very cool hard rock heavy metal type place i did not realize how rock and roll chicago was yeah i mean It's metal. It's very, very metal. It really is. Yeah. And that is something I really, really love about it. So yeah, met there, got everyone on the bus, and took the trip to Dead Rising.

[29:36] And Dead Rising was a very interesting first stop on the tour. It's a very small lot. Yeah. Both in terms of actor count and in terms of square footage. Yeah. And we found out later it's not significantly, it's only like three times bigger than what we have now. Right. Which what we have is our garage yeah you know it felt much bigger it did and the reason it felt much bigger is because they focus on having good actors doing a lot of interactivity right if you go to dead rising really expect to be called out expect to be told to do things expect to have your group broken up yeah of which i am two minds of yeah because on one hand i agree with japes that that haunting is a communal experience, going to a haunt. But on the other hand, that takes away your shields. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I enjoyed it. It puts me a little more on edge when I'm separated from my group. Especially. Which does make it harder to relax and be scared. Mm-hmm. But it's also fun in a different way. More anticipation. Exactly. Anticipation. Exactly. Yeah.

[30:49] And yeah, it's very, very heavy on interaction. You have the guy outside who's playing the role of a police officer, separating you out and really messing with the group's line hardcore. He's a very, very good line actor. I think he's one of my favorite actors. Certainly one of the most memorable. Yeah. Because I've never seen a guy be so commanding in that environment that nobody said shit. Yeah. Did you notice that? Yeah. Like, he said, you, come here. They came there. Yeah. He said, you, back there. You, you're in next. And what, no one said anything. anything well and he also threw humor into it yeah exactly while you were inside i was being put with my group and my group was troublemakers apparently oh because we didn't know how to make a line so he started putting the uh the cones on both sides of us so that we'd be in a line.

[31:40] I i wish i had seen that it sounds great so that's why they were messed up whenever you came out I had noticed cones were not where cones were not previously when we left. Okay, that explains that mystery then. Yes. And then there was a little clown girl that came and kicked them all down and told us not to listen to him. So, but he put them back and it was fine. But that's how they sort of compensate for that. I don't know if compensation is the right term. No. But how they deal with that is that they focus on the interactivity. The first few sequences are all very heavily interactive. Yes. Now, there is a middle portion that's not, that's more traditional haunt. Right. And even though that's what they photograph in all their promotional material, it's probably my least favorite part of the haunt. I don't know why the exit is a circus.

[32:24] No, but it was fun. I'm not saying it wasn't fun. It was just out of nowhere. It was out of left field. Yeah. But yeah, it's a very interaction-focused haunt. And because it has a walk-through time that is far longer than you would expect for a haunt that size, I don't know how the hell they time it. No. There's got to be some voodoo there I don't fully understand. Yeah. But I was very impressed with that experience, especially considering what they had to work with. Right. In terms of space and actors. They did a lot with very little, and that's something I have mad respect for. Mm-hmm. After that was the quote-unquote middleweight haunt, Midnight Terror. Mm-hmm. Midnight Terror, I liked the fact that they had a story that played out throughout the haunt. Yeah. We're big proponents of storytelling and haunting, and haunts as a storytelling medium. And they actually had one. I think they kind of dropped the plot a little bit there towards the middle. Yeah, well, it started out industrial and then went into Willow's story. Yeah. So there's actually two stories going on. I'm not sure what the industrial story was about, but they started the whispers about Willow pretty early. They did, yeah.

[33:43] And honestly, I don't think we got to meet Willow. If we did, I'm not clear who she was. Yeah, but, you know, that's okay. That's not necessarily important. It's just in this case. Yeah. But, no, it was, all in all, this was a haunt that, you know, it's what I like to think of as two-by-four technology. You're not going to see a lot of animatronics. You're not going to see a lot of high technology here. Right. But it is a very, very convincing experience, and they did a very good job with attacking at multiple levels. Right. They attacked high. They attacked middle. They attacked low. Mm-hmm. They attack front, they attack side, they attack back. They are always coming from different directions, which made it very, very difficult to predict what the next scare was and where it was coming from. Yeah. And I like that about it a lot. That is a good example of how when you don't have all the technology to do the wow factor. Right. You get that wow factor is by sticking some motherfucker in a ceiling. Yeah. And having him come down from the top. You have things that are just unexpected. You wow them. Right. Or things that make loud noise above you while an actor hits you from below. You know, that happened in there, too. Anytime you can hit someone with the unexpected. And the actors were very good and had very good timing. They had obviously worked with them for a while to get them to where they were. I agree. Okay, after that was Hell's Gate. Mm-hmm.

[35:12] The build on this is very, very, very impressive. Not only is it impressive, but whenever you get the behind-the-scenes tour and realize that they moved a hill. Yeah. They flattened the fucking hill. Honestly, I don't want to talk about the going through of Hell's Gate as much as I want to talk about the behind-the-scenes tour on this one. Yeah. Let's just skip straight to the behind-the-scenes tour because we'll do the review on Garbator. Right. But the behind-the-scenes tour was crazy. Hey, John LaFamboy, I see why he's got so many fans. Yeah. He's probably the closest thing the haunt industry has to Elon Musk. Yeah. Very charismatic, very, you know...

[35:52] And inspirational and doing, just go do crazy big things. Right. You get inspired just talking to him and listening to him. Because he has a definite vision and he has a work drive and ethic that's, I don't know how he's still standing. Yeah. Because he puts in crazy hours. He does. And you know what? But it shows in his haunt. Yeah. And they built that thing in six and a half weeks. Yeah. That blows. 12 weeks, basically, from flat earth. Well, from not flat earth. Well, that's true. From flattening earth. From countryside to haunt. Yeah. In six weeks. Yeah. Woods and hills to haunt. Yeah. In six weeks. In 12 weeks, rather. 12 weeks. Because it was six weeks to get earth flattened, roads paved.

[36:42] Piping put in and electric. Piping put in, electric put in, building and the rough metal structure put up. Right. And then another six weeks to build the haunt. Yeah. You mad bastard. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They have a lot of room to expand the eventual vision. It's beautiful. I love it.

[36:59] Yeah. Not going to go into it too much. Fair enough. We'll spare the details. But the behind-the-scenes tour, really, if you can get a behind-the-scenes tour of Hell's Gate, I cannot encourage that enough. I think that's going to end up being one of the highlights of the weekend for me was that tour. Not just because, you know, I feel so at home behind the scenes of a haunt. Right. Because I do. it was great and everyone there was awesome um but this is a master class yeah in designing a haunt for ease of problem resolution yeah because the the the spoil some of the magic a little bit here i won't go into full details but what they did was rather than having their egress right be around the outside, which like most haunts happen, they had their egress be down the middle.

[37:54] Which sounds totally batshit sane. Why would you do that? Right. Well, the reason is now you have one hallway that runs down the spine of the haunt where you can get into any room. Yeah. You got a problem maker? You got some drunk assholes? Yeah. Yank them the fuck out and send them home. Yeah. You got someone touching props or punching your actors? Yank them out. You got a prop that broke down? Slip into the room and fix it. Yeah. Yeah, you've got too many people starting to get too close together. Stick an actor in. Boom, break them up. Yeah. Yeah, and it's really, it's super impressive. And it's one of those designs, like you said, yeah, this haunt runs all the way down the middle of the haunt. Yeah. And I wonder, well, why the fuck would you do that? Yeah. That's kind of stupid. It's a long hallway. You know what I mean? It took up a lot of space in the center of your haunt. Why would you do that? And then he explained it and went, oh.

[38:49] Yeah. Ooh, that's smart. Yeah, it is. And that way you only have to have one hallway instead of the outside edge. Exactly. So you actually are saving space. Exactly. It really is. But it was kind of funny because going through the haunt, there's a part where you go up into an attic sequence. Yeah. And then you go around, not very long, actually. It's a very short sequence, and it's not super well populated with actors. And then he, like, basically 40 feet later of linear pathing, go down a slide. Yeah. And it's like, what the fuck was that for? Yeah. Well, the answer is to get you over the goddamn hallway. Yeah.

[39:34] That's what it's for. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, not only that, but it also plays into the legend that they're trying to play off of. Yeah. Of the haunt that, you know. Had the giant slide. Had the giant slide. The Hall of the Giant Slide was Raven's Grin Inn. Trust me, I've been there. It has two. Yeah. But this one has slides. It has a slide, yes. This has a slide. My slide did not slide. So your slide failed. Or I did not slide. One or the other. Either you failed the slide or the slide failed the slide. We have not determined the culprit. But failing the slide happened. Yes.

[40:06] But, yeah, no, it's such a brilliant design. It's a master class in haunt layout. If you can get that behind-the-scenes tour. There's much, much more, too. This is just the beginning. Yeah, and like I said, they do sell tickets for behind-the-scenes tours. They're $150. Now, compare that to one night of the bus tour, which is $125 this year. Yeah. So, you're already getting more value just from one haunt, and you get two others added on. Yeah. And once again, all these haunts, it's the better than VIP access. Yeah. That is absolutely wonderful. Okay, after that, after that hanging out with John the Flamboy, got on the bus. And Mark. Hi, Mark. Hi, Mark. Yeah, Mark. And by the way, that reminds me, Mark was totally the best actor at all of Hell's Gate. He was amazing. He really rang my bell. Good job, Mark. Just take my line. Yeah, I'm going to steal your line. Thank you. He deserves all the raises and all the promotions. And he needs a gong. He needs a gong, yes. Give this man a gong.

[41:08] Hope that helps, Mark. All right. Day two. We started at Evil Intentions, actually, is where we met. Right. But then we went to Statesville Prison, which was the other zombie army production haunt. Right. Well, first we went to the little bar across the way because we were there early. Yeah. Where they had dollar hamburgers. Take a shot. But we did not have them. But we were told they were good. They did have cheap drinks, though, and they were all really, really nice people there. That bar, actually, I think, was one of my favorite spontaneous experiences of this trip. Yeah, and it's the oldest bar in... Bar and Grill, I think is what they said. Yeah.

[41:50] It's the oldest something in its category in Illinois. Yeah. It was crazy. It was the Old Town Inn is what it was. And it's literally like up the hill and one block over. Yeah. And it is a very, very neat little place. Everyone in there was just awesome. They were very welcoming of Crystal and I as outsiders. Yeah. And everyone was... We had a great time. We actually gave out some cards there. People were interested in the podcast there. It was very, very weird. Yeah. So, yeah. But after meeting at Evil Intentions... Yes. Sorry. Sorry. No, that's a very good point about the bar. If you go to Evil Intentions, check out that bar. Get there early. Get there a little early, check out the bar. It's more than worth it. Yeah. It's more than worth it. But the first thing we did was Statesville Prison and City of the Dead. And I almost wish we had not done these back-to-back with Hell's Gate. Okay. Because...

[42:44] There was a little deja vu between the two. Yeah, but it was still awesome. It was awesome. Hold on. No, I'm not saying it wasn't awesome. And after the opening scene, the deja vu went away very quickly. Yeah, okay. That's fair enough. But the opening sequence at Statesville is almost the exact same as the opening sequence at Hell's Gate. Yeah. And it includes the bit where they have you line up and then shift to the right or to the left or whatever so they can break up and space out your groups. Mm-hmm. But I have to say, if you're wanting to do a stage show or a performance at your haunt to kick things off, these are haunts you need to check out. Definitely. These are haunts that, A, do it very, very well. They do it without obstructing their flow or screwing over their throughput. Yeah. Because that was one of the challenges House of Shock here had was their stage show, as important as it was, screwed up their throughput. Yeah. So, yeah. Something to think about. But if you are looking at doing that, these are haunts you want to check out. Yeah. After Statesville Prison, City of the Dead. Now, City of the Dead was short, but I thought very, very sweet. Yeah. I liked both. Oh, yeah. Both were good. But I think I walked away liking City of the Dead a little better. Yeah. Well, and it's weird because the main thing that jumps out in my mind from Statesville is not the prison scenes. Yeah.

[44:11] It's the clown sequence at the end it's the clown sequence because it's the only good clown sequence yeah I've never had a clown sequence I really thoroughly enjoyed that was the first yeah I didn't think it was possible but somehow they did it yeah so good job on that one.

[44:26] But, yeah, it was a really, really good haunt all around. I'm glad we did it. My advice there, though, is get there early. Yeah. They are busy. They are. It was very good that we were able to skip the line entirely. Yeah, it was nice to be able to do that. But, yeah. And, like I said, City of the Dead, I really, really enjoyed the sets on that one. Yeah. They played more with verticality on it. They played more with other things. They did a lot of verticality in the clown parts. Yeah. But they did so much. They did it throughout in City of the Dead.

[45:03] Like I said, I think I wound up liking City of the Dead a little better, even though it was significantly shorter.

[45:08] Yeah. I will say that City of the Dead, I got got more times because I do startle.

[45:17] I startled three times in City of the Dead because I was too busy looking at the damn rooms. Decorations yeah the set design and how how things are put together and this is falling this way oh that's how they did that that's awesome you know yeah just looking at the sets in general yeah and all of all of the zombie army yeah are really nice yeah and i think maybe one big part of the difference was city the dead was lit was brighter yeah so you could see more of that detail and get lost in it easier yeah and someone like us that's going to really attract our attention yeah well i I mean, like in Statesville, they had a men and women's prison section. And the women's section had hair ties and brushes and things in the ceiling. Yeah. Which I thought was a really nice touch, because that's things that women are going to use. Yeah, it was very subtle nuances. Yeah. If you weren't paying attention to the actors very closely, you might not even know you made the shift. Right. To, like, the women's wing or the women's prison or whatever it was. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, Statesville's a bi-gender prison or whatever. Yeah. I don't know how it works. They have a men and a women's prison. They just happen to be located in the same building. Yeah, or the same grounds. Yeah. Fine. Okay. Well, after that, we went to Basement of the Dead. And if you want to know how to do your queue line. Oh, yeah. Go to Basement of the Dead. Go to Basement of the Dead and just buy a regular ticket. Yeah, you're going to be there a while.

[46:40] Or don't. Just go and hang out. Yeah, don't buy. Yeah, I mean, it's all. You do want to buy a ticket, though. You do want to see it. Do go see The Haunt, please. But it was interesting because we're sitting there in the VIP line, and I'm thinking, I want to be over there. Yeah. The party's over there. Yeah. I have never, ever in my life been in a VIP line and wished I could have been. In the regular long ass line. In the regular line. Yeah. Because it was a party. The line actors were amazing. They were doing tons of free giveaways. There was a DJ spinning tracks I love. Right. The crowd was pumped. Yeah. There were still walkers. there were giant puppets there were dancing, stripper zombie clowns I don't know how to describe it but that's about all you're going to get, It was amazing. And like I said, the queue line seemed like the party of the town, man. It really did.

[47:33] So, you know, as for Basement of the Dead, it was a good haunt. It was solid. It was very claustrophobic. But I remember the queue line way more than the haunt. Yeah. I came away with far more memories of the queue line. Yeah. And they also had the Shattered 3D Haunt. Right. Which I, the interesting thing there to me was that they gave you a black light flashlight, a tiny little like pocket one. Yeah. It wasn't like a thing, it was a little pocket one. Yeah. That you took with you and you got to play with that on all the black light paint stuff. Yeah. And that was really interesting because I liked how they would, like the prop heads, they would cover in these weird black light paint patterns. Oh. And as you like shine the light on them, you'd see it come to life and then it'd go right down to dark. It was very, very cool. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I danced with mine all the way through. I mean... Because it had a good beat. It is. And it's not really intended to be like a scare-intensive haunt. Right. It's meant to more be like a lot of these blacklight 3D haunts, more of just an experience type thing. Yeah, but I really did like having my own blacklight and being able to bring out that detail when I want. And it added a layer of customization to it very, very quickly and easily. Yeah. Because, I mean, that's the thing. We've gone through a lot of these types of 3D attractions. Yeah. And it's been like this stick black lights in the ceiling and it feels like you're going through an art gallery. A very bizarre, twisted, glowy art gallery. And this felt like you were actually part of the experience. So something to consider with your 3D attraction if you're doing one.

[49:02] And the final one was Evil Intentions. Yeah. My God, you know, I really, really like Evil Intentions. Yeah. It's amazing to me because they play with your expectations a lot. Like, they have the chainsaw people in the middle. Yeah. Like, we all know the whole thing. Ain't spoiler. Sorry.

[49:26] But, well, they have them in multiple places, actually. But the thing was, it's like I'd heard it. I'm like, okay, well, it's been fun. It was a little brief, but it wasn't that bad. It wasn't, like, ridiculous or anything like that. I'm cool with this. I've had a good time. And then you turn a corner and there's a beautiful church facade. You're outside and there's a beautiful church. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's just gorgeous. Yeah, it is. And the thing I love about it is talking to the guys and hanging out with them at the after party. Yeah, which you cannot do if you do not go on to the Lost Souls. Yeah, that is something that is unique to this tour. Yeah. Is the after party with Evil Intentions cast and crew. Right, which was sponsored by Chicago. HauntedHouseChicago.com. Thank you. You're welcome. Because no show notes. Yeah, this was part of their top three tour. This whole night was sponsored by them. It was their top three haunts. Yeah. Um...

[50:17] But, yeah, I mean, so we got to hang out with them and talk to them and do out lights on tour. And the thing I learned and really, really amazed me was that these guys are just, hey, I got a crazy idea. All right, let's build it. Yeah. Let's go to Home Depot. Let's get some two-by-fours and plastic sheeting and go do it, you know? Yeah. And that's really it. They wanted an elevator sequence because they saw one at Transworld. Uh-huh. They built it. Yeah, that's how Tyler started working there. Yeah. Tyler was our guide for the lights, the quote-unquote lights on tour. Yeah, realistically, a lights-on is a misleading tour in a haunt that doesn't have overhead lighting. Yeah, because it's in a building that's old enough to not have electricity throughout. Yeah, its relationship with electricity is complicated. I quipped at one point, so what, you just run the whole haunt of an extension cord thrown over the fence at your neighbors? Yeah. And no, that's not it. Obviously, they had to have real wiring. But still, the building is old enough that electricity is an issue. Yeah, they've had to put in the electricity that they do have. Yes, exactly.

[51:21] So they don't have overhead lights. But it was a very interesting tour. Like I said, we took Tyler Brock as the other person who was giving tours. And then they had a character actress also. Yeah.

[51:35] And they were both great. And you got a lot of technical details and, you know, how crazy the night can get for someone who builds and fixes on the fly. Yeah. And it was an actor's playground. Yeah. That really was, I think, one of the smartest things they did was rather than build these big elaborate scares or focus on tons of very expensive props. They built entire zones, like the prison sequence and the end sequence, where it's just like, hey, let's just give the actors lots of potential things to do and let them go crazy. Yeah, and there's so many actors that you don't know where to look. Yeah. So you're going to be taken off guard at some point in one of those sequences. Yeah. They work together really, really well, and some of these actors are bona fide crazy. Yeah. Well, they have monkey bars to play on. They have ladders to climb. They've got metal grates to slide down towards people. I mean, it's a lot of fun. There's a lot going on in those sequences.

[52:46] And that's just it. They build these playgrounds, and they trust their actors to operate them. It's very smart. It's very simple. And like I said, the sheer willingness to go out and try to build things, even if time is limited, even if it doesn't necessarily make sense sometimes. Right. Even if it's just an idea.

[53:06] It's very, very cool, and honestly, it's the spirit of haunting to me. It's the spirit of creation. So I really did like going through Evil Intentions, and I especially loved hanging out with them and spending time with them and getting that tour. It was a great part. And yeah, that really sealed the deal on the bus tour, and it made everything worthwhile. It made the flight out there. It made the hotel, the trip, the tickets,

[53:31] everything. It was all worthwhile. Now, be warned that you will be getting home late every night. Oh, God.

[53:37] Just know that. Yeah, we got home at about, to our Airbnb, we got home at about 2 a.m. Friday night. Or 2.30. Yeah. I think it was closer to 2.30, actually. Yeah. And on Saturday night, I think it was straight up 4.30. Yeah. We rolled in. Plan for a long night. If you do both nights, scheduling your sleep, it's going to be tough. Yeah. Take naps during the day. Take naps during the day. Do something to guard yourself there because it's long. And he actually called it on Friday the Haunter's Hours. You're keeping Haunter's Hours. You're going to meet up at 6, which is about when actor call usually is. And you're going to get home at about 1.30, 2.30, which is when actors typically get home after doing removal of makeup, costume turn in, all that stuff. Yeah. And yeah, that's very accurate. That's very, very true. Yeah. And remember, a lot of haunts only pay actors the time they're haunting and the time the haunt's open. Right, or per night fixed price. Or simply a per night fixed rate. Yeah. Either or. And so, yeah, be mindful of that. I just have one shout out to all of the haunts we went to. We've talked about women in scaring and minorities in scaring before. Yeah, people of color especially. Yeah. They...

[55:02] Everywhere was just awesome, awesome women in scare roles everywhere.

[55:11] I just can't say enough. I'm blown away by how integrated the scene is there. It's very interesting. At Statesville, you had the men's prison section, which made sense. They'd all be men's scare actors there. Then you had a women's section where it was pretty much all women. Yeah, it was all women. And then you had the clown portion at the end, which was still very women-heavy. Yeah. They had a lot of women in there. I mean, and that's just that I can't tell you if it was a 50-50 split or whatever, but it was definitely a bigger split than I see here in New Orleans. Yeah. Well, and it was at all of the haunts. Yeah, it was. All of the haunts had it. Yeah. They at least had it. Even if they weren't 50-50, they were doing better than we are here. Yeah. There were some male victims even. Yes, there were. I mean, come on. Lolly golly. You know. Yeah. It was very, very impressive in that regard. I agree. Oh, no. I mean, that's just it. Chicago area haunts are definitely different in many, many ways. One of the big ways I noticed was I don't know if these haunts would pass fire code in our region. Yeah. Because they had a lot of super narrow walkways, a lot of dead ends and mazes. Bending over. Bending over. These are things that just simply do not fly in this region. Right. I don't know if it's a Louisiana thing. I don't know if it's a New Orleans thing or whatever. But, yeah, you do not see that here because the fire marshal will not stomach it. Right.

[56:39] You know, there have been plenty of huts that wanted to add those things. Yeah. But have not been allowed or been barred from doing it between 88 and fire code. Yeah. Or if they did do it, they got shut down. Yeah, or they got shut down or were forced to change it or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a big difference we did notice a lot.

[56:57] Um, the other thing I noticed, one thing I would say that I like better about New Orleans haunts is the greater focus on sound design.

[57:04] Yeah. New Orleans haunts do put, seem to put a lot more energy into that. Um, but like I said, I really like, and it seems like the actors in Chicago area haunts on the whole were, I don't know if they're better actors or better trained for their roles. Yeah. But they were hitting their marks more consistently with our groups than we see at our local haunts a lot of times. Yeah. Yeah, I'd agree with that. They were very, very consistent. And like I said, it may not be that they're better actors. It may just be they're getting better coaching or they're getting better instruction. We can just thank Japes for all that. Yeah, Japes is the college. I'm sure he'll take it. Japes is the reason Chicago area haunt actors are so good. It is, realistically, he is like a one-man training machine. He's tirelessly to blame. So, yes, Japes, there's your plug. Yeah, yeah. I think John LaFleur and Boyce are going to have something to say about that. Yeah, I think he might have a lot to say about that.

[57:59] Oh, boy. Well, we'll have him on next week or sometime soon. Not probably not next week, but sometime soon. No, not next week, yeah. Yeah, but sometime soon, and he can say it to our face. Yeah. And then probably laugh at us. Yeah. But no, yeah, but seriously, there was a lot of great work on the timing and so forth. Yeah. Amazing stuff all around. Exactly. Well, anything else to add? I think that's a pretty good recap. I think so. We've got to go record a bunch of reviews.

[58:23] Yeah. Those were mad bastards. Because we're leaving tomorrow to go somewhere not as fun. Not nearly as fun. But look, once again, this is Haunt Weekly. We are hauntweekly.com. Find us on Twitter and Facebook at Haunt Weekly. Tinyroll.com slash hauntweekly will take you to our YouTube channel, where you can find all the past episodes for easy listening. We're also on Google Play, iTunes, and Stitcher. Until next time, I'm Jonathan. I'm Crystal. And this was Haunt Weekly, episode number 149, talking about the lost souls haunted bus tour in chicago we will see you guys next time hopefully with a little more energy and focus see you then.