John and I kicked off a night of haunting last Friday with a stop at Spooky’s Fright Night in Monroe! It had been years since we had toured a haunted attraction together, and were pleased to discover some fresh scares at an upstart location oozing with promise.
It wasn’t long before we were loaded into an elevator and promptly whisked into the Manor of one Dr. Croww. Immediately, we were forced into an awkward dinner with a rural family. The father took notice of my long locks and insulted my hair. We were made to hold hands in preparation of a pre-meal prayer. I improvised my way through a haphazard grace and hoped it would please the cold stares that eyed me hungrily.
Many of the walls inside the homestead were covered in yellowed newspaper and all throughout the halls the ghostly crooning of Johnny Cash was present. We were pursued and sniffed by a pigman, participated in forced handwashing, met a pet duck with a moustache, and even had an old man with scoliosis request a diaper change.
One excitable weirdo, who was found munching popcorn, professed the static on the television to be his favorite movie. No doubt this poor bastard had already been through some hellish process devised by the doctor of the house.
A breezy jingle with a 70’s vibe drifted into our ears — Abba’s “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Yeah, something weird agitated the air of this dysfunctional estate. Dr. Croww sprang forth with crazy eyes and bushy beard, he demanded we gaze upon a medical film that documented a recent craniotomy.
He then invited us to play in the guts of a recent female patient that he insisted was still warm. Oh yeah, Dr. Croww was that kind of sicko. The peculiar physician asked me to pass him his medical bag and for reasons unknown, I obliged. I mean…why would I help this man?! The slender patient suddenly bridged off of the table into a shockingly perfect backbend and proceeded to crawl about the space in nightmarish fashion!
The attention to costume and makeup was perhaps the greatest strength of this young attraction, but the whole of the experience at Spooky’s Fright Night was highlighted by the improvisation and playful misdirection of a cast who exuded a genuine joy for the art of the scare.
