Goodnight Raleigh - a look at the art, architecture, history, and people of the city at night

The First Haunted House of the Season – Frightmare

This Friday I visited The Frightmare for their opening night. While the dark hallways made for difficult shooting, I had a great time.

Located off Capital Boulevard, The Frightmare provides a great location to get scared before going downtown for some drinks. I arrived shortly before closing time, when the lines had dropped off, so I could get in to take some photographs. First, though, my friend Canaan and I took a walk through it to check it out.

I was definitely pleased with the layout; it was large enough to contain plenty of scares. The 3-d areas, such as that shown in the top picture, were especially neat, and wearing 3-d glasses definitely added to the experience of the whole place.

The Frightmare focused more on creating spooky scenes, then catching you off guard to frighten you, as opposed to having you witness various vignettes. I think does a better job of making sure you get scared, and always makes for a better date.

It just being me and another vet, I thought we’d walk through the whole thing more or less unfazed, but both of us actually got scared pretty good a few times. The Frightmare had a bit of a lighter side, with some dark humor sprinkled through it if you were looking closely. In addition to being scared, I definitely had some good laughs, too.

Info on The Frightmare can be found at: http://www.thefrightmare.com