Urban Fantasy Author Suzanne Johnson: Plotting and Lunching (and Last Day on a Good Deal...

Urban Fantasy Author Suzanne Johnson: Plotting and Lunching (and Last Day on a Good Deal...: If you are an aspiring author, an author planning or stalled on a new project, or just interested in the plotting process. I'm starting ...

Scary House Review--Part 2

The Haunted Houses at Fright Nights Scream Park

South Florida Fairgrounds. My best friend Barbie was in town from Philadelphia and let me tell you right now, haunted houses are NOT her thing. However, I cajoled her into coming with me. My fiancé was planning to come too but he was on a side job and by the time he fought traffic to get home, it was too late. Too bad because while we were waiting for him the lines grew longer and we only went through two of the three houses that the general admission paid for. There was a fourth house with the VIP ticket but we didn’t buy that. I’ve borrowed from the My Fright Nights website to review the other two for you. I’ve attended every year of the six that the fairgrounds has offered this and I must say each year it does get better! My ratings are from 1-5, 5 being the scariest.

The Smiths:

The Smiths traveled the dusty back roads of Middle America with their Carnival of Creeps and decided to settle down in a sleepy town. Quality time with the family and a celebration was the order of the day –for the murders and abductions they’d performed on their whirlwind tour. The Smiths have plotted how they will terrorize their new hometown, plucking off, torturing and usually dismembering their victims. Yuck! As we approached the front of the house we were guided to the “kissing booth” and evil clown gave us instructions for our stay.

We walked behind the scenes of this carnival scenes, including broken down Carnival houses and signs and evil clowns a plenty. It was a long house. I’d gotten creped out enough to want it to end. The scare actors in this park did an even better job than Universal in that they hung down from the ceilings and crawled on the floor to scare the next guest. Plenty of bloody body parts and partially eaten victims laid out in blood-splattered kitchens, living rooms and of course the bathrooms.  Overall, I give it a four.

A Grim’s Tale

If you haven’t seen Grim, “Thank God it’s Grim” on Friday nights you probably would have liked this one. I’m a fan of the show. I gave this house a solid five. Even the wait outside was entertaining as we viewed scary movies, a sideway view of the Jagermeister logo (love Jager but I dare not drink too much!) and then these cool live graphics in front of the house. They were old-fashioned portraits of a man, a woman in a gown and a weird looking child (you know how 19^th C. portraits of children look scary?). The normal faces were alive, looking at you and then quickly transforming into gaping sharp-toothed jawed smiles with 3-D effect hands reaching out to you and then they reverted to their normal pose. Cool. Inside we were greeted with strobbing lights (which my friend profusely complained about ad exhaustion afterwards) and various rooms filled with creatures and childhood fairytale figures gone bad popping from under the bed, lurking in the closet and all those rotten beasts that lived in the pages of those childhood books coming to life. The idea is that those fairy tales which were told to us as children were dulled down versions of the real beastly things. Tales of murder, betrayal, abduction and pure horror are what truly graced those bloodstained pages. And we learned that our childhood memories are wrong in this nightmare world where our senses were turned upside down and fear played sweetly in the background… a lullaby of death.

Sunnyville Orphanage

Borrowed from website: The lost, forgotten souls march in a line. Down the dank and smelly halls, they trudge to their lonely rooms. They know they are unwanted and this feeds a fire in their bellies that almost erases the gnawing hunger. A loneliness and madness echo through the building and darkness is the only true companion. They are beaten, tortured, and told they are worthless. Then, the solitude brings anger and hatred so harsh and real, there is only one-way to express it. To KILL. Everyone and everything must DIE! The children rise up into one collective monster, one powerful energy, that has only one thought…..MURDER.
Country Bill’s Meat Market
Borrowed from website:
Off the beaten path, in a small Louisiana town, lies Country Bill's Meat Market, where they sell the finest cuts of meat this side of the Mason-Dixon line.
Bill's secret recipe has been handed down through many o' generations and is handmade 'til this very day.
Don't venture too far off into the woods. You may not like what you find...
...or better yet, what might find you.

Authors comment: I’ve seen this in the past and am sorry I missed it this year. I heard it was even scarier.

Hope you liked my reviewed. More to come ….next year! J