Longtime Mt. Healthy Haunted Hall staffer Betty Hancock wasn’t performing inside the haunt as usual-instead she was working the ticket booth as a result of a broken foot. We’re assured there’s no truth to the rumor that this was a result of kicking the behind of a local haunt reviewer. As we talked to her about this year’s Hall, we surveyed the graveyard behind the ticket booth. There was a shambling zombie with its neck tilted to the side as if it had been broken. With its hair in disarray and splattered with blood, it drug a large stuffed toy behind it as it lurched slowly ahead. As it turned its head towards us, it exposed its mouth-an area of nothing but teeth surrounded by a raw area where the skin had been ripped away to expose the glistening muscle and sinew beneath. What made this particular zombie really impressive is that it was one of the Hall’s pint sized volunteers-a little girl that one suspects has watched a LOT of the Walking Dead on TV. She’s only one of the ghouls who call the Hall their home-a collection of some of the most memorable characters in the area. Between the characters and some of the new scenes making their debut this year, it’s a gas-and in more ways than one, as we’ll see.

In this, their 24th season, the Hall’s motto as reflected by their cool looking T-shirts (featuring artwork by ‘Haunted Hall Matt’ Gratsch) is “24 Years to Life”. The Tee shows one of their longtime scenes-A Fangfaced demon grasping the bars of a prison cell). It’s not long before you’ll be faced with his toothy visage in person! He’s imprisoned in the Hall’s first scene, which is sort of a ‘Haunted Hall’s Greatest Hits’ compilation. First, you’ve got the Hall’s ‘greeter’ character-what they are varies from season to season (sometimes a hotel manager, a maid, an exterminator) but their function is the same-to interact with the audience and draw them into the proceedings, making them part of the story. This year the greeter’s a surly cop determinedly scarfing donuts behind a desk. Brusquely taking down on a clipboard the names of group members (the better to pass ahead to the other actors so they can harangue audience members by name), he cuts off any questions or ‘back talk’ and hustles the hauntgoers into the darkened room next door for their ‘trial’. Trial? Trial for what? Well, once you get a load of the judge, you’ll know it doesn’t make any difference-you’re screwed. The room is suddenly flooded with red light to reveal Hall mainstay Satan-and he’s in quite the judgmental mood. Before a word can be said he screams out “Guilty!”, slams down his gavel, and points off to the side of his throne-where this year’s T-shirt model Fangface waits inside a dilapidated cell with a filthy toilet and a dead body lying on the cot. Since there are no appeals in Hell, hauntgoers are prodded towards the cell by Donut Cop. Muttering that “I’m really looking forward to you” and commenting on how fine the male members of the group look, Fangface rolls back the cell door...

Assuming no one ‘meats’ with a terrible ‘end’ at Fangface’s hands (here’s a hint-just like Bug Boy’s barbershop from last season, DO NOT tell Fangface you want it “long in the back”), you’re hustled past some holding cells with other prisoners equally eager to make your acquaintance and into the Hall’s Hellevator. No choices given this season-it’s straight on to Floor 13 and your appointment with the gas chamber. Clouds of toxic gas fill the room-this is the first gas attack on today’s tour, and by no means the deadliest. Still, it looks like its curtains-at least until a hooded silhouette enters the room and shows you the way out. Relief washes over the would-be victims until the figure draws back his hood to reveal the grinning, gap toothed visage of the Right Honorable Reverend Emmett Rotts. Played by Eric Sterwerf (the brains behind many of the Hall’s craziest scenes the past few seasons), apparently Rotts has decided to do some moonlighting as the prison’s executioner. What could be better for a killer klergyman than getting to wipe out the sinners AND have it all be sanctioned by the state? It all leads to here-the electric chair room, with not one but two dead man’s thrones. Unlike other haunts where hauntgoers idly view an animatronic thrashing around as its fried in the chair, here it’s a do-it-yourself project. Yes, this time it’ll be YOU getting fried!

Electrocuting the audience members is a great idea that the Hall came upon providentially rather than planning out. As two of the Hall’s longtime volunteers, Andy Schehr (a veteran of all 24 years) and Mark Roetting (not far behind at 18), tell us, time was running short on putting the haunt together. The Hall only has a couple of weeks to construct the entire event from the ground up, and there wasn’t going to be time to finish the animatronic that was planned for the chairs. Instead, a vibrating mechanism was attached to them and members of each group get to experience the ‘jolt’ of being electrocuted. Other than actually killing off hauntgoers (we’ve been told that’s being planned next year for the big 25^th anniversary), it’s the ultimate in crowd interaction! A grinning Rotts leers and croaks “The ladies just love it!”, a claim that’s echoed by the staff.

As one might imagine, the Hall’s prison ends with the ‘last mile’ to the electric chair. The rest of the scenes inside the actual Hall feature popular recurring characters. There’s Dr. Crazy, still trying to reanimate the dead after his epic fail from last year. He’s SURE he knows what went wrong and that he’s got it all figured out. Us, we’re not so sure. But you’ll never know until his newest experiment under that bloodstained sheet is revealed! Another Hall favorite is the Grim Reaper, stalking the blackness of the cemetery in the final room. In between these two scenes, back in his accustomed ‘digs’, is classic haunt character Count Dracula. Dracula was a staple of the very first Cincinnati haunt in 1970 and while you don’t see him at other attractions much these days, he continues to show he still has what it takes every season at the Haunted Hall.

And speaking of recurring characters, the saga of The HOD!!!’s favorite haunt scaractor continues. We’re speaking of course about Bug Boy, the Hall’s ‘notorious derelict corpse’. Easily identified by his insect covered white shirt and grinning skull face, he was first glimpsed 20 years ago or more. Sitting in his sleaz-y chair watching a static filled TV in a room where the walls were filled with crawling insects (the same walls currently found in Dr. Crazy’s lab), the Bugster has thrived. The years go by, the costume and mask changes along with the actors who portray him, but the legend lives on! The one thing that never changes is the trouble he finds himself in from season to season! He’s taken a job at a barber shop, tried his hand at rapping, been bartender at a local hangout, been on the lam from the cops, and even tried fleecing old people out of their social security checks by cheating at bingo. And this year, he’s facing the ultimate sticky situation-marriage! Yes, this season the Hall’s storage shed (usually the setting for the year’s most whimsical scenes) has been converted to a chapel and is home to the unholy union of star crossed lovers Bug Boy and Bug Girl. Bug Girl is the large, mutated version of one of the insects found on her prospective husband’s shirt. We’re not sure if you can refer to an insect’s antennae as ‘horns’, but if you can, you could say that Bug Girl has quite the rack! But this evening, things aren’t working out for the poor girl-Bug Boy has seemingly gotten cold feet (not unusual for a corpse) and has left her at the altar. One of the Hall’s staffers was busily questioning hauntgoers if they had seen the elusive groom lurking nearby, but to no avail. We couldn’t understand why-maybe it had something to do with insects devouring their spouses after mating. It does seem as if the story had a happy ending as we did glimpse the Bugster, resplendent in his top hat, fawning on his new bride after we had found our way out of the maze. Could Bug Baby be far behind? The Hall’s old shed has been home to the Monster Maternity in the past-maybe it’ll need to be brought back for the 25^th anniversary! 

After the “Wee Chapel of the Bugster”, there’s a series of tents and outdoor tableaus with scenes both new and old. Returning from last season is Crystal Lake, featuring the Hall’s awesome home-made lake with rolling fog and atmospheric lighting. There’s an old-time special effect utilizing mirrors that makes it look as if slasher Jason Voorhees’s latest victim has been chopped in half and stuck on a pole, where she screams for help. And of course, where you find victims, you’ll find Jason. The fast-moving Vortex tunnel spins hauntgoers on their way into the ‘sliding scarecrow’ field. A mirrored funhouse (three times bigger than last year) is home to several Klowns and a haunted toy box-it also has the Hall’s unique spinning floor. According to Mark, when installed years ago, it was four times as fast as it is now-and it’s still fast enough to make even the most sure-footed hauntgoers into a stumbling buffoon. The fog-choked werewolf woods are as spooky as ever, with an excellent performance from a hyperactive wild werewolf who could really belt out a HOOOOOOWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLL!!!!! (she’s also the mother of the little zombie out front-it’s almost a modern-day Munsters!). A witch brews up trouble right next door. Pumpkins big and small infest a room, along with the Pump-King. The most chilling scene, though, was the blackened mine shaft. From the darkness, some sort of unseen creature crawled about on the ground, getting closer and closer. The sounds it made were the ultimate in creepy-a cross between a hissing rattlesnake, a gurgling slashed throat, and a swarm of insects. The actor’s vocal talents impressed even this veteran haunter-he’s the early favorite for haunt actor of the year even though he never came out into the light. We snapped a photo to see what he looked like later, and the visage was every bit as impressive as the voice-check out the photo for yourself (it’s in the group before this article).

The Hall’s legendary final ‘room’, the black maze, was scaled back from two tents to one this season. That isn’t to say it’s any easier to negotiate-it took us longer to get through this season than the two tent version from last year. And while a tent was eliminated, they did add a piano this season. You’ll find it if you get lost, and playing out a spooky chord on its out-of-tune keys is sure to send a chill down the spine of anyone lost in another part of the maze. But that raises the logical question...”What in the hell is a piano doing inside the otherwise empty maze in the first place?”. Mark explains “We had a piano in the maze in years past, and lots of our customers from last season asked us to bring it back, so we did”, conveniently ignoring the fact that his explanation doesn’t address why the piano was put in the older maze. Still, we suppose that’s every bit as logical as Bug Boy’s wedding and having an elevated outhouse on the grounds. What’s that? Oh, we haven’t mentioned the outhouse yet? Well...

Located at the outskirts of the Crystal Lake area, right before the entrance to the Hall’s mineshaft stands one of the Hall’s new scenes. It wasn’t a complete surprise to us, since Haunted Hall Matt had sort of ‘leaked’ it back on The HOD!!!’s Haunt Message Board back in April (“The dog poop monster is closer to reality than you think”). But there it stands, more than five feet above the ground-the Hall’s brand new outhouse and the scene of its second gas attack. You know things are likely to get messy when a mine worker wearing a gas mask bursts out of the outhouse and jumps down into the path of your group. Pointing to the tunnel under the outhouse, he says “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you!” Clambering up a ladder back to the outhouse, he enters the structure and slams the door. It isn’t long before a waterfall of yellowish liquid is cascading from the bottom of the outhouse onto the ground along with sh...uhhhh, other stuff. Sighing with relief from inside, the worker informs you it’s now OK to pass (he sure did). The only thing we can think of that’s less appealing than walking through the mess left on the ground is to have been standing there a few seconds before! It’s a classic haunt gross-out moment. The disgusting bathroom isn’t new-Club Blood at Kings Island gives you the world’s filthiest public restroom, and St. Rita’s, Dent, USS Nightmare, and Dungeons of Delhi all have variants of it. But the Hall is the ONLY place in town where it’s a totally immersive experience-although hopefully it won’t be your shoes or the top of your head that are immersed. As a bonus, the scene also provides an opening startle scare when the miner comes hurtling down from above-our friends at Ohio Valley Haunts were taken completely by surprise as they approached. Only the Hall would have the imagination to think of an elevated outhouse with the tour passing underneath, and then have enough nerve to actually go ahead and build it! Eric and Matt began work on the outhouse/cave/mine complex months before construction started on the rest of the Hall. Eric's only regret in the matter is that they didn't use his suggestion for this season's Haunted Hall T-Shirt: "24 years of scaring the sh-t out of you!"

There have been some rumors that plans were afoot to take the Haunted Hall to its 25^th anniversary next season and then shut it down. Not only would that be a great loss to the local haunt community, but on a personal level, we don’t think there’s any haunt that’d we’d miss more. The staffers admit that the rigors of putting up the attraction in such a short time have been compounded by dwindling assistance from volunteer groups and that shutting down had been brought up. However, as Betty told us, “When October rolls around, you get started putting things together, the adrenaline and excitement kick in, and nobody’s thinking about calling it quits”. Andy and Mark also concur that the Hall will survive its 25^th season and return to provide its unique blend of horror, gross-out, startles, whimsy, humor and fun to Tri-State haunters. The Hall already has ‘screened’ plans for its ‘silver’ anniversary, and keeping it ‘reel’ is a major part of that. From the descriptions of the planned line-up of rooms, classic props being resurrected, and refitting done to some existing scenes, it sounds like it could be what we here at The HOD!!! would consider our dream haunt. It’ll be fresh, unique, and throwback all at the same time. It couldn’t be in better hands and we’re already excitedly looking forward to it. But that's looking a bit too far ahead-looking back, the Hall has long been one of the best haunt values in town, and you can still get in for less than ten bucks with the donation of a canned good. Just don’t bring any cans of beans-the miner in the outhouse doesn’t need any more ‘encouragement’. Many things have been said about the Hall over the years, but this year no one can deny that…it’s a gas!