Dear Constant Reader,
I love October and I love Halloween. This probably comes as no surprise. Usually I’m working much of October at The Wrathskellar, which is a delight, so I’m not (very) sorry about all the other fun things I have to miss. This year, one of the few silver lining of the lack of show is that I got to see my friend Rae at Haunted Overload.
She’s an actor there, but also heavily involved in fabricating the sets and costumes. She’s ridiculously talented and I’ve been dying to see her work in person, but for the past several of years it was not to be (similarly, she’s never seen The Wrathskellar). So, this Saturday we headed up to NH for what might be my only chance to see the haunt in action.
I do like all things spooky and creepy, but I’m not much of a fan of gory or startling. I’m pleased to say Haunted Overload is mostly spooky and creepy with some startling.
I knew going into it that the actors don’t come into physical contact with the patrons (“Touch nothing and nothing will touch you” is the rule), which relieved me a little. When we saw Play Dead in workshops in Vegas and Dusty Summers, as a reanimated corpse, ran her fingers through my hair, I nearly screamed (and if I hadn’t seen her in makeup before the show, I absolutely would have). And Scratch once decked a haunted house actor who thought he could scare the big guy by getting right in his face. So no touching is a good thing with our group.
The haunt is at a farm with delicious treats like cider and donuts (and giant chocolate spiders) to prepare you for the long hike. You’re going to be walking through the woods for about 45 minutes, so dress warmly and wear good shoes. It’s an unguided tour, but the path is clearly marked and if you start to stray an actor will set you aright.
Things start off fairly lightly with a gypsy fortuneteller who is more humorous than haunting. As it turns out she was being played by someone I know, so she called me by name. For the benefit of the group behind us, I loudly wondered “How did she know my name? What amazing powers!”
After stumbling through the vortex (I can’t even describe it), we found ourselves in Pumpkin Alley, facing an enormous wooden skull. I’m not joking about enormous. This picture I lifted from their Facebook page hardly does it justice. 
There we found Rae as Necrotia, a zombie pirate (or maybe pirate zombie).
Too quickly, it seemed, we were at the head of the queue and sent through a dark corridor to enter the haunt proper. It was amazing. The sets are very well done, quite detailed. I was thrilled to see many of the pieces I knew Rae had worked on (and I few I didn’t know about, but I recognized her style). And the actors’ costumes and makeup are also excellent. I’m not going to give away too many specifics.
There are several places where you walk through a completely dark building. I found those the most tension-inducing. And there are a *lot* of actors. There are those in the scenes and those wandering creeps who sneak up on you. Probably more of the creeps than really needed. There wasn’t a lot of downtime between startles to let you relax before they spooked you again. As promised, nothing actually touched us. They do sometimes get as close to you as possible, sometimes just walking along side the guests waiting for you to notice their presence. And someone blew on the back of my neck at one point. Yes, I did jump.
I had a particularly bad moment in a building with continuous strobes. Strobes don’t usually bother me, but I found myself terribly disoriented and had to grab onto Scratch’s coat to steady myself. Betty spent most of the time in the dark spaces clutching the back of my jacket.
About 3/4 of the way through, I though “I have had enough.” I was tired of keeping alert for actors who wanted me to scream. I was tired of walking through dark spaces. However, I kept going (what option did I really have?). The final set, a creepy circus, was a spectacular finale and well worth experiencing.
If you like haunted attractions, you really ought to check this one out. If you don’t like to be scared, they have two options: you could go during the day or to “Fright Night Lite”, which has all the sound and lighting effects, just no actors. And the sets really are worth seeing. I’d like to go back for the “Lite” night and really admire Rae’s handiwork.
