Screamtown

It doesn't feel like fall. It doesn't feel like Halloween. My favorite time of the year. Even after forcing it down your throat, it still doesn't feel like it. But I'll take it. Lord knows I'll take anything Halloween straight up!

Last night it was Screamtown, a newer Halloween destination in Chaska, MN. I visited Screamtown two years ago, their first year, when it was across the street from Canterbury, and it was pretty lame. This year, they've upped the anty with their new location. They sport five haunted houses.

1) Klown House: a dizzying romp through orange fences filled with deranged killer clowns. Fun, but not the greatest.

2) Terror in the Corn: a muddy trail in the corn. You go through sheds, up hills, through scarecrow gatherings. A group of faceless burlap sack people made clicking sounds in my face, a couple doing a low growl, reminding me of the crab zombies in Half Life 2, near bloodied scarecrows. Terrifying, actually. This was fun.

3) Rabid Alley: Basically a pitch black number of shacks, where you can't see anything. I bonked my head three times and got lost once. The Dark Knight soundtrack plays along with two other creepy animal soundtracks. It actually makes for a pretty good mindfuck. People hiss at you throughout, screaming at you in monkey squeals. Again, a mindfuck. Not a lot of haunted houses do mindfuck.

4) Oak Blood Forest: Another outside adventure. It's actually more beautiful than it is scary. Lights shine throughout the woods, making for really creepy images. You see silhouettes ahead outlined in green in front of a cemetery. People with chainsaws chase you. Interesting and campy.****

5) Hillbilly Hotel: The best haunted house of the park, if not one of the cooler haunted houses I've been to in the last couple years. It sports a number of different elements: first you travel into a trailer, a claustrophobic dark maze where buttons reside on the floor, waiting for you to step on them, emitting loud noises and weird gory scenes behind grilled booths. Very sideshowy. You get outside, and crazy hicks run around screaming and drawling. It makes for a crazy experience, since the schtick of hillbillies might be true. It creates a terrifying "it's possible" thought process in the back of your head as you go through the compound. Junkyards follow, then you enter another trailer, this one with more "hotel" paraphernalia. Low orange lighting, strange hotel rooms, hicks running around. Creepy. And awesome.

****A "monster" told us a story about the Oak Blood Forest attraction. The first year they opened in the new locale, they had the chainsaws in the northeast portion of the forest. Apparently, the closest neighbor, a widow, had a husband who died in a chainsaw accident, and she had been hearing chainsaws and screaming every weekend. She filed a complaint with the park, and of course they changed the position of the chainsaws. Jesus.

I highly recommend this to any Halloween nuts out there. But be prepared for mud. One of our cars got stuck in the parking lot, and I almost spun out and got stuck on the dirt road into the field. Your shoes will have layers of mud on them as well. The corn maze was quicksand. Look past this, don an air of campy good humor, and prepare to jump, and this might be the best thing you do all October.

Their website:
http://www.screamtown.com/

Marilyn Manson -- "Kiddie Grinder (Remix)"