Avid phobophiles support more than 2,000 haunted houses in the US, and fright-immune repeat visitors force haunters to constantly invent new, supersize scares. “We push the boundaries as much as we can, and that means we design a lot of the tech ourselves,” says Erebus owner Ed Terebus. This Halloween, expect the technologically enabled unexpected at these scream factories.
Erebus | PONTIAC, MI
How do you conjure a murky swamp with no water? Erebus creates the illusion with smoke and green lasers swirling at waist level. Airbags smother you as you trudge across a floor covered in 4 inches of foam.
The Dent Schoolhouse | CINCINNATI, OH
The walls and railings in this schoolhouse's dim, candlelit hallways are studded with rubber shock pads—when wanderers reach out for guidance, they get a zap.
The Darkness | ST. LOUIS, MO
3-D glasses with prism-like film diffract light so reds and yellows appear close while blues and greens seem far away. That makes this haunt's floor-to-ceiling clown graphics disorienting at best and full-on traumatic if you never recovered from Stephen King's Pennywise.
The 13th Gate | BATON ROUGE, LA
As guests try to push their way through a darkened room, 8-foot-tall air-filled sacs envelop them, turning the space into a claustrophobe's nightmare. Watch out—at some houses, actors might grab at you from inside.
