I remember making a blog post back in October of 2004 about the time I went to the coolest Halloween “haunted attraction” I can remember back in high school. Since Halloween '07 is right around the corner, I found an old copy of the post and thought I would share it with you. So, here it is:
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I was having a discussion with a dear friend about “Haunted Houses.” Not real haunted houses a la creepy old dwellings with the remnants of previous inhabitants still roaming the halls. We were talking about about the pathetic haunted houses that used to be abandoned stores at your local mall until Halloween rolled around.

I was saying how “Haunted Houses” just don’t do it for me anymore. It takes a lot to really make me shit myself and quake like my very life was in danger for a moment. Some guy in a cheesy rubber werewolf mask and claws jumping out of a dark corner borders on ridiculous most of the time. I mean, they’re not even allowed to touch you anymore. It’s all boogy-boogy from behind spinning walls and sudden bursts of something loud and/or bright. And there’s always a strobe light somewhere. What’s up with that? Anyway…

That lead me to telling the tale of the one time I almost did “load trou” from fright. It was a matter of life and limb at the moment. More limb than life, but I’ll get to that later.

It was the late 80’s and I was still in High School, so a bunch of us got together and trekked out to the get our scare on. The setting was Salem, OH. (Yes, Ohio steals all it’s names from cities, states and countries all over the world, but that’s not important right now.) They had what they called the Haunted Woods (or some such) and it was the most elaborate and interactive “Haunted House” I’d ever seen. Acres and acres of field and woods.

You start off at a pavilion where you walk through aisles of winding bars, much like waiting in a long line to get on a roller coaster at an amusement park. Finally, you depart from the pavilion and walk about 100 yards or so down a path lined with little candles in paper bags. You’ve seen them, I’m sure. It looked like some freakish runway in the dark. The trail ends by going into an opening in the woods. INTO THE WOODS! Are you kidding me? On Halloween? In the dark? In Salem? That’s when that uneasy feeling starts to set in already, and you’ve barely started. You know for sure that people and things are going to be popping out of trees to make you jump. You’re ready for it, but the Creep Factor is still on the rise.

The expected comes to pass: Ghouls and monsters do indeed pop out from behind trees, but not in front of you as one might suspect. No. Behind you. Just when you start to think, “Oh… well, ok… we’re walking… we’re walking… hmm…” looking around and wondering where the Boogey Man is. Then several come out from behind trees behind you and scare the bejeezus out of you, so you start running. Yep, you’ve now officially become the “teen kids in the B horror movies” running through the woods to get away from impending doom… and that’s exactly what they want you to do.

That leads to the next bit of panic. Hay bails are stacked all over the place. We’re talking 12 feet high or more. It looks like someone made a Hay Fort, complete with little opening to crawl into (which is really your only option since there are wire and ribbon fencing going from tree to tree insuring you remain on the path). So, down on your knees in a hurry and in you crawl so the monsters behind you don’t drag you out by your ankles and eat your head (or something). Claustrophobics need not apply. Maybe 6 feet in, you hit the top of your head on a hay bail. You feel around and your only option is left, so that’s the way you go. Then *bonk*, another hay bail. So you turn right. Then you crawl up over a hay bail, then down off it on the other side. Then more twists and turns. Mind you, you’re still inside this massive Enclosed Hay Maze (which you’re sure could collapse any moment with you in it), so you either keep crawling or you die in there and the next guy on the tour finds a real corpse.

Out of the Hay Maze, you stand and brush yourself off (which is impossible, because as anyone who’s ever “rolled in the hay” will tell you it doesn’t just come off all clothing with a quick brush of the hand), now there’s a “guide” who seemingly comes out of nowhere, waiting for the rest of your little group to all come out of the Hay Maze. I don’t know if this was an actor or just type-casting of some poor local, but whoever they got to do the work looked like a cross between Marty Feldman, Chloe the Cancer Patient (”with anal nitrates”) from Fight Club, and Golem. And that’s WITHOUT tons of make-up and costuming. Creep Factor Elevation Sequence Initiated.

Ms. Guide launches into a tale of how these woods are inhabited with your stereotypical inbred deranged family of murderers and cannibals (you know, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House of 1,000 Corpses, etc.) and guess what. It’s time for dinner and you’re the guests. You walk into a rather large shed which is decorated just as one would think it might be if you’ve ever seen the movies mention earlier. Stuff all over the place. Stuffed animals in evil poses, creepy dolls, weird props that have nothing to do with anything but still make you wonder. There are lit candles on the table, places set for everyone, the whole nine yards. Of course, the plates are covered with large bowls. There’s a large roasted pig’s head with an apple in it (which usually would seem nice, but not in this context). There are other large bowls that hold what could be pureed brains, spaghetti (maybe), writhing worms and maggots… all that. So everyone takes a seat at the table. Dinner “begins” and the whole family comes in and starts talking crazy, getting in people’s faces, making grand gestures, shouting about things, demanding you eat. Creep Factor – Burst: 50%. You take the bowls off the plates and, well, I can’t even describe what’s on it. Kinda looks like a thick viscous mound of puke or something, then suddenly hands shoot up out of the muck right at you. Live heads come up out of the huge serving bowls on the tables through the brains and worms (kinda like Fear Factor, I suppose) and the “family” goes nuts! Laughing and yelling and that general “These people are crazy and could kill and eat me!” kind of thing. A door swings open and you know you’re supposed to run out through it, so you do. Chairs fly over in the haste and the family gives a bit of a chase, but just enough to shuffle you along to the next area of the haunted tour.

After that, it’s a fair bit of people jumping out from behind trees for scare factor, which is now much more effective. Again, they’re coming out behind you to make you run toward whatever else is around the corner. Once they finally back off, you see the opening in the woods and can see another lighted runway heading straight back toward the pavilion. Everyone looks at each other, catches their breath and starts laughing and talking about what they thought the freakiest or scariest part of the tour was. The woods are now maybe a few yards or more behind you and you can see the pavilion plain as day. It’s a leisurely walk back to the pavilion. No more woods, no one chasing you, your guard is down and it was a right good bit of fun…

Or so they would have you believe. Out of the woods from all different angles behind you come not one, but (I believe) four people with chainsaws. CHAINSAWS! You’re thinking, “But but but… we’re OUT of the WOODS now! It’s over!” They didn’t stop to beg to differ. They just ran at you like men possessed with loud, running chainsaws. Creep Factor Sequence Completed. Run For Your Fucking Life Sequence Already In Progress.

Did I mention the girlfriend? Oh yeah… my girlfriend at the time was with me through all this. She’s a horror buff and loves “spookables” (to use the phrase of a good man) so we thought we’d take in the “Scariest Haunted Gathering In The State!” Well, this so-called girlfriend, seeing more than one person running after us with chainsaws, is no longer cowering against my arm with white-knuckle death grip and has now left me for dead. She took off like a tank of nitrous was engaged in her pants and was now on fire. They say self-preservation is the first law of human nature, and I think she proved that quite effectively. Should have known right then…

So anyway, all within a few blurry seconds, we’re out of the woods, the pavilion is in sight, everyone takes a deep breath and lets their defenses down, and out come The Chainsaw Brothers. The girlfriend took off like the DeLorean from Back to the Future; flames shooting out behind her and hellbent for 88 miles per hour. Me? I start running around like the end scene of the Benny Hill show. Random figure-8 patterns, arms flailing, bobbing and weaving hoping one of the Chainsaw Guys would get tired and go after someone else in my group. No good. One of them had locked onto me like stink on shit. It was my time to become pieces-parts.

Here’s the part where I damn near loaded my drawers… In what I thought would be an effective maneuver to escape with all my limbs in tact, I faked to one side, then bolted to the other. Brilliant, right? Well, no. The chainsaw came down against the side of my leg. IT TOUCHED ME! I’M CUT! MY LEG! AAAAAAAAAAAIGH! Knowing he got me (intentionally or not), he backed off toward the woods. I didn’t even stop to check my leg. I was like a bat out of hell heading for the pavilion.

Once there, almost hyperventilating, I checked my jeans. There, where the chainsaw had made contact, was a big greasy smudge from old chain oil and a rip! A RIP! They ripped my jeans! My beloved faded shrink-to-fit button-fly 501’s (Yep, it was the 80’s)! I assume it was the vibration of the chainsaw or maybe the angle at which it connected, but it actually ripped open a slice on my pants! I had a welt where the chainsaw made contact, but I think that was from the vibration also. It wasn’t a hard blow, just enough to, well, “get my attention.”

That was when it all came together. They actually touched you, yelled at you, freaked you out, messed with your head, made you crawl through things, touch nasty stuff, run at full sprint, cut ya with a real chainsaw, and damn near make you poop in your pants.

BEST. HAUNTED. HOUSE. EVER.

True story. The end.