Seasonal Highlights
ALL POSTS
Motor City Nightmares
Motor City Nightmares Horror Expo and Film Festival will be held next weekend April 25-27 at the Novi Sheraton located at 21111 Haggerty Road in Novi, Michigan. The event will feature celebrity guests headlined by Sid Haig, Kane Hodder, Ken Foree of Dawn of the Dead fame and voice of the Crypt Keeper, John Kassir. Independent films will be showcased…
Bring out your Dead
It was a long and bitter winter here in Michigan, as it was throughout much of the Midwest and Northeast. Finally, the weather seems to have taken a turn for the better and spring is beginning to manifest. For months, everything outside my walls was frozen solid but inside, Horrorlust kept the fires lit with various projects that are starting to…
2013 Horrorlust Haunt Awards
The 2013 field was full of worthy nominees and after much consideration, I’m prepared to unveil the 2013 Horrorlust Haunt Awards. Rotten Pumpkin – The Rotten Pumpkin award is given to the haunt considered to be the most disappointing of the season. Disappointment may be the result of an over hyped marketing campaign or the failure of the haunt to…
Horrorlust Haunt Awards: A History
The haunt awards, like Horrorlust itself, are the result of an evolution. The 2013 crop will be the sixth annual edition for most of the awards — Rotten Pumpkin, Eerie Vibrations, Dark Horse, Killer Automatons, Pulse Pounder, and Monster all debuted following the 2008 haunt season. The Prop Master and Samhain Awards were both added at the conclusion of the…
2013 Horrorlust Haunt Award Nominations
As the Transworld Halloween & Attractions Show rolls on in St. Louis; the time as come to recognize the best haunted offerings of the 2013 season. We here at Horrorlust present nine dreadful categories , the original seven include: Monster, Killer Automatons, Eerie Vibrations, Pulse Pounder, Dark Horse, Rotten Pumpkin and finally, Haunt of the Year. In 2011 we added the…
AHS: Season 4, Darksyde Acres Website Update
Details are scant on American Horror Story season four but most of the latest reports seem to agree that the setting in the next chapter of the FX hit is a carnival. The news was confirmed by series writer and co-executive producer Douglas Petrie during a recent Nerdist Writer’s Panel podcast. American Horror Story has always provided fans with sleek…
2013 Star Ratings
In anticipation of the 2013 Horrorlust Haunt Awards Nominations, I present to any interested parties, a complete list of last season’s ratings. It should be noted that ratings, in and of themselves, do not determine awards. This list is used primarily as a means of reference for my own archival purposes. I hope you find it enjoyable, nevertheless. 2013 STAR…
American Horror Story: Coven
I held a couple of marathon sessions over the last few of days and have thus completed American Horror Story: Coven. In doing so, I’ve come away feeling much as I did when Murder House and Asylum had concluded: entertained yet mildly disappointed. Season three succeeded and failed in much the same way that its predecessors did — highlighted by…
Outlast, Bad Moon Rising
While seeking out videos promoting the return of The Walking Dead last weekend, I stumbled across one trailer that featured a haunting rendition of Bad Moon Rising. Written by John Fogerty and performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bad Moon Rising was originally released in April 1969 as a single off of the Green River album. Bad Moon Rising has been…
HauntWorld #35
I found the latest issue of HauntWorld Magazine inside my mail box last week and after reading it, I thought it high time to interact with all of you wonderful creeps once more. If you want a little nostalgic eye candy, check out the Fright Props ad on page 5. The artwork and humor are reminiscent of that found in…
Screwball Cast Ignites Exit 13
The final haunt of the season always brings with it a mixture of excitement, sadness, and a tinge of disbelief. For the better part of two months my companions and I eat, sleep, and breathe haunted attractions and when the season inevitably draws to a close there’s a lot of information to process. We believe in going out with a…
Yuletide Fear
A handful of haunted attractions were open last weekend, thrilling patrons with a smattering of twisted Christmas scenes. Several others will join the fray this weekend to capitalize on Friday the 13th. Scream Acres located in Covington, Kentucky — the boyhood home of my father-in-law as it were, will headline the pack with Black Christmas. Other events in the Bluegrass…
Village of the Living Dead Preys upon Victims with Classic Scares
The final night of the haunt season brought with it wind and rain, but we plowed through the elements en route to St. Charles’ Village of the Living Dead; our furthest visit of the season. I loved the ad for this place inside the Fear Finder, something about it harkened back to a bygone era of terror — perhaps it…
Death Knell for the Scream Machine
A steady rain had begun to fall as we neared our final destination on Devil’s Night — the relocated Scream Machine. The one time Downriver power house has slipped over the years, but we had hoped a change of scenery would breath some new life into the sputtering attraction. Sadly, relocation has only seemed to exacerbate the problems that have…
Hush Lowers the Boom
A new haunted attraction has the ability to excite me like few other things on this wonderful planet, so when my eyes first fell upon the Fear Finder ad for Hush Haunted House I was intrigued. I checked out the Hush Facebook page and discovered a well produced video promoting the haunted attraction. The story of Hush is told from…
Terror Tracker Scares Up Ads
I mentioned previously in my review of the Wyandotte Jaycees’ Bloodbath on Biddle that while there I happened upon a haunted house publication called Terror Tracker. It’s published by Your Hometown Shopper and as Jon Dehring told me that night, the publishers hope to compete with the Haunt Guide and Fear Finder. My search for additional information on Terror Tracker…
A Bloodbath on Devil’s Night
Devil’s Night arrived dreary and wet but with the haunt season coming to a close it would take a lot more than that to keep us off the road. Our first stop brought us to the Wyandotte Jaycees 2013 haunted house — Bloodbath on Biddle. The Jaycees were fortunate to obtain the building that until recently housed City Hall, it’s…
Inventive Scenes, Lush Environments Highlight Slaughtered at Sundown
The air had grown cold and the hour late as the headlights of our vehicle cut a swath through the rich blackness. John and I arrived at Slaughtered at Sundown just prior to closing time — the hayride had already ended for the night and considering the biting winds, I couldn’t blame the operators. A fair amount of patrons were…
Big Crowds take a Bite out of Blake’s
We were in high spirits when we arrived at Blake’s were business was booming; the parking lot was packed and there seemed to be people everywhere. There was a country store, a petting farm, a dance floor, and one monstrous pile of hay! Oh yeah, there was also the haunted attractions — Blake’s 3-Story Haunted Barn and Nighttime Spooky Hayride.…
Bound in Purgatory
It was by a considerable amount of chance that we came to visit Purgatory’s Revenge in New Haven on October 25th. Originally, John and I had planned to visit House of Fear in Hazel Park but we discovered that Purgatory’s Revenge worked much better with our route for the night which included stops at Blake’s and Slaughtered at Sundown in…
