The second haunted house on my list this season was The Fright Factory in Philadelphia. This attraction is held in the cavernous basement of a department store on Swanson St, behind the Columbus Blvd. Ikea - so that would be pretty scary at any time of the year (or any time of the day, for that matter). While waiting in line outside, we were approached by an actor in some really cool makeup - bloody mouth, ragged clothes, and a face encased in a metal box. Definitely a great job on makeup, and it scared the bejesus out of a group of young girls in front of us. Upon entering, we were instructed to walk down into a dank, dark tunnel to a very musty basement. The setting for the attraction was quite spooky by itself, which is something a lot of haunted houses lack. It was set up as a walkthrough in three separate parts. Altogether it lasted about a half hour, which was pretty sweet. Everything in the walkthrough was extremely well-done and professional. They had solid and committed young actors (some of them had some really great screams and other vocal stylings), all of the props were outstanding, and there were a lot of expertly arranged scares. It's one of the only haunted houses that has made me jump a few times from truly unexpected visits from haunters. I need to reiterate how awesome the props were - especially some of the dripping corpses and heads mounted on walls. Great fun for the whole family! |