Spreading Fear: Halloween heavies Fright Nights and Scarehouse have new tricks up their sleeves
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The Scarehouse in Etna opens Friday.
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The Tri-State area has enough ghosts, goblins and undead creatures to satisfy the need for scares this Halloween season, be it a family-friendly haunt or something a little more chilling.
Previously unseen horrors make their debut at ghostly attractions such as South Park's Hundred Acres Mansion, where a family, driven to madness by their own fear and paranoia, dwell beneath the Earth's surface. There's a zombie apocalypse under the Incline at The Scarehouse in Etna, and Kennywood Park's Phantom Fright Nights act as a sinister home to Biofear, a warehouse chock-full of failed -- and dangerous -- science experiments.
"People like to get scared because it wakes you up inside and lets you know that you're still alive," said Jeff Filicko, a public relations manager at Kennywood Park. "It's the same reason you go on a roller coaster -- it shakes you up a bit, gives you an adrenalin rush."
An adrenalin rush is exactly what visitors at Phantom Fright Nights can expect when they find themselves at the heart of the Biofear laboratory as unwilling volunteers.
Biofear "has a story line to it which will enhance the experience ... it's going to be very cool," he said.
A TV monitor in the pre-show room determines the fate of Biofear guests: The scientist on screen and live from the lab informs them that they've wound up in the volunteer section of the building.
Eventually, they're set loose to wander through halls and rooms along a maze-like passage, past holding cells, decontamination chambers and a "new scare behind every corner."
The appeal of science and technology as a vehicle for fear lies in its ambiguity, Mr. Filicko said.
"It's unlike any other haunt in Kennywood. We made sure that we had something that was very phenomenal to celebrate the 10th season [of Phantom Fright Nights.] Biofear is turning out to be the perfect fit."
Over in Etna, Scott Simmons, creative director and co-owner of The Scarehouse, has been busy hammering away -- literally -- at an attraction modeled after Pittsburgh -- and then filling it with "fast-moving, aggressive" zombies that swarm through roads modeled to resemble familiar city streets and iconic Pittsburgh landmarks. The attraction opens Friday.
Some corpses may even be covered in fries from Primanti Bros.: A fter all, Pittsburgh Zombies, the newest addition to The Scarehouse, is all about paying homage to what Mr. Simmons called "the zombie capital of the world."
"I'm a Pittsburgh native and I grew up watching the George Romero zombie movies and they were such an influence on me, and that got me interested in making movies and being creative and getting into horror and scary stuff," Mr. Simmons said. "Nothing in this house is based off of the 'Living Dead' movies -- it's a tribute to Pittsburgh. There are haunted houses across the country that do zombie themes, but this is a tie-in to that Pittsburgh heritage ... we tried as best as we could to either re-create specific locations or to make it feel like Pittsburgh. There's a store that sells black and gold merchandise, with zombies. We really packed the place with a lot of references and inside jokes that I think people from Pittsburgh will appreciate."
First Published September 22, 2011 12:00 am
