Truly a
great thing to see a haunt that we have visited, rated, and spoken with coming
back for another year and expanding.
Paranoia Haunted House in Roswell, Georgia has done just that. Last year we visited them on their opening
night and discussed our opinions with them before we left. We were lucky enough to find the time to
return later in the season to see what they had done with their ideas. It was on that second visit that we rated
them at a solid four severed heads. This
year we didn't show up on opening night, though it seems that they were ready
and expecting us to be there. We didn't
wait long though, and showed up on their second night. It is our pleasure to tell you that they
didn't disappoint and earned another stellar score from us.
It is
out with the old and in with the new at Paranoia as they enter into a rental
agreement for this haunt season in a 40,000 square foot retail space, which
they are using 20,000 square feet of in the haunts. Yes, that's right, they have opened a second
attraction for their fans and can't wait for you to walk through their darkened
halls and scream. In keeping with the
concept of being paranoid you have to enter the haunt and even purchase your
tickets after walking down a dark alley between two buildings in a retail
shopping center. This entrance route is
definitely unanticipated and has its own way of messing with your head. After you purchase your tickets you can go
next door to the box office and get in the queue line for their Trauma
attraction. Even the waiting area for
your triage is dark and stormy, with thunder and lightning and can jolt even
the most fearless of visitors at unexpected moments.
It
feels as though it is a rare occasion when we visit a haunted attraction that
has gone to the trouble of creating original characters, but we found many
unique individuals amongst the doctors and patients. Even during our wait time we encountered some
individuals who seemed to have had a rather difficult night and were in need of
the doctor's help, or perhaps had already been the victims of horrible
malpractice. Many haunts today seem to
choose the classic horror movie characters to haunt their halls, but Paranoia
is one of the ones that chooses to stand out as having creativity and passion
for their design and theme.
Paranoia's
creators have become skilled at finding ways to let you get to know all of
those things that go bump in the night by immersing you in darkness that many
other haunts can't achieve. Most of the
time in a haunted house you are placed into dark situations within tight spaces
that are designed to terrify you, but Paranoia has decided that sometimes there
is a different approach to be taken.
Their unique approach to taking a walk through the dark adds an
unexpected twist to your evening and will probably find you taking baby steps
as you move forward. Shadows of dark
against dark will mess with your mind as you attempt to figure out where that
next step should land.
Paranoia
Haunted House has several staff members who were once a part of Creepers
Haunted House, another local haunted attraction. Though Creepers has been closed for several
years now we were pleased to see a small tribute to them in the set of a wooden
bridge through a lush green area where rain cascades over the space. A very similar set once impressed us
immensely within Creepers, and we are very pleased to see such a beautiful
tribute done for fellow haunters. Though
this doesn't demonstrate how haunts can work together to cross promote and help
each other with ideas it does show a caring atmosphere between haunts that is
appreciated.
Without
giving anything away we can say that on Friday, October 5, 2012 we witnessed a
passion for haunting that those who view it only as a money maker are
missing. The staff at Paranoia longs to
leave you with chills and desperately wants to know what you think. They listen attentively to your thoughts and
take them seriously. You may be surprised
at the number of ideas which they later implement based on conversations with
visitors. This year's combination of
attractions was so large that we can hardly remember everything that we went
through, even though we were taking notes as soon as we hit the parking lot. We do, however, remember talking with the
owners for quite a while after we exited the second haunt. Their energy and passion for what they do
excited us even more about our experience.
We know that Paranoia isn't going to be quite what anyone expects when
they go in, but we're confident that you will almost jump out of your skin at
some point during your time with them.
We are also confident that they would love to hear about it, and so
would we. This year we are rating
Paranoia Haunted House with a bizarre 4.13 severed heads out of a possible
five. Why such a crazy number? Well,
this year we are blending the heads to make energy smoothies so that we can
keep traveling from haunt to haunt, so you get an average between our two
opinions. Check them out and let both us
and them know what you think.
0 comments:
Post a Comment