Paige (PaigeBerrier)

Dominion of Terror has been one of my longtime favorite haunts! This haunted house, located in Sheboygan, is an incredible volunteer-run nonprofit, with a very reasonable ticket price, AND the only haunted house to do a special encore every spring (seriously thank you for giving me my fix halfway through the year)! It’s amazing to see how they completely redo the whole thing again and again, creating a new path to walk through and unique sets every time. This is one I definitely look forward to!

My spouse and I visited DOT on Saturday, October 26, which is traditionally one of the busiest days in the haunted house season. We got there around 8:30PM, and elected for their speed pass (VIP) option, which I would definitely recommend given availability for those who don’t want to wait! However, DOT does have a partially indoor waiting area, refreshments, and a little shop to provide entertainment while you wait in line. With the speed pass, we were able to bypass most of the regular line, waiting only minutes before we entered into the haunt with another pair, making us a group of 4.

This is a multi-story, long, and intricate haunt - there are a few flights of stairs up and down, and one very memorable slanted room! I loved their campfire area as they explained the rules - the actors in there were amazing and really set the scene for the night. There were several other awesome “outdoor” (they were indoor for real) scenes, including some spooky, dark, shiny water and a really nasty little outhouse! There was a movie theater scene I thought was super unique as well, and we really liked an area with tight, dark hallways and a slow, creepy strobe. One other thing we really enjoyed this year was how funny some of the actors comments were! They were really quick witted and made us laugh in between our screams!

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As a southerner, I have a hard time saying the name of this haunt, but that doesn’t stop me from coming back year after year! This was my fifth consecutive year going to Terror on Rural Street, and with each year this haunt continues to top themselves, both in creativity and scariness. Best of all, this haunt is nonprofit, meaning they give back to their community with your ticket purchase!

We (my spouse and myself) visited TORS on Saturday, October 26, which is traditionally “Halloweekend”, or the busiest night of the haunted house season. Even though we arrived right when they opened at 6:30, there was already a fairly large crowd, so we elected to purchase their VIP passes for a $10 upcharge ($25 each total). However, TORS has a fantastic waiting area (one of the best I’ve seen) - indoors, very secure, and featuring both entertainment and refreshments. They then call groups in a designated line area using ticket numbers, but as VIPs we were brought immediately to the line. Therefore we had no wait at all before going into the haunt, and we were grouped with another pair to make a small group of 4.

I thought TORS did a great job this year in particular with their “gross” scares - they had a really nasty bathroom scene, a very scary and aggressive jail section, and one area in particular with a strobe light maze that I found to be the scariest thing I’d seen there yet! There is also a really cool “science experiment” scene that will surprise you! I love their combination of well-timed actors and smart use of props/animatronics - they know how to use them to their advantage and don’t overdo it! There are a good amount of jump scares in this haunt, and they utilize air puffs to constantly startle you and keep you on your toes. I also have always enjoyed a certain “problem solving” element of their haunt; they often have hidden or misleading doors, and you need to “find your way out”. I think this is super fun and can be really disorienting!

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When people in Milwaukee ask me what haunted house they should go to, Abandoned is always my number one suggestion. Year after year, I am blown away by this haunt’s professionalism, fear factor, and constantly expanding space and ideas. This year was no exception. We had an amazing time during our visit to Abandoned!

The haunt has grown over the years to include 3 individual houses, one of which is a combination of indoor and outdoor. The space also includes a (new) axe throwing game, a souvenir shop, food, drinks, and a photo site. It is a very well maintained and managed site, with tons of parking, guides, bathrooms, and entertainment while in line. Our group all had quickpasses as well, and while it wasn’t super crowded, we experienced literally no wait at all for our haunts!

STALKER
Stalker is Abandoned’s outdoor(ish) haunt, and we chose to go through it first. We couldn’t have asked for a better night - the cool breeze rustled through the corn and the moon guided our way through. Within the corn, there was the perfect mix of spot lighting, misdirection from props, and just enough areas of “nothing” happening to build that creepy anticipation. The indoor sections were all really amazing and creative as well - we loved a trailer, a chicken coop, and the creepy coffin room. All of the scenes were incredible, and had the perfect amount of actors, who both knew when to scare and when to hold back. I especially LOVED the final scene!

HYSTERIA
This is such a long, detailed haunt - we loved the different levels you could see down into as well as the different floor types. I love how it begins, with an amazing, dramatic, foggy scene, and then uses a ton of different light types to distract and confuse you as you make your way through. There were a lot of rooms with a ton of attention to detail, and we experienced truly move-like qualities with fake snow, humidity, sounds, and smells. The actors were, again, incredible in this haunt - whispering to us through screens, remembering our names, and clicking in our ears. We also loved seeing a real mouse in this haunt (he was really cute and was obviously a beloved pet being held, not being poorly treated in any way)!

AMBUSH
This haunt had a super fun start to it with some sassy nuns! There were also a ton of startling and creepy people within it, including a girl curled up on a table and an actor who reached out to us from a really unusual place. This haunt featured a chainsaw actor as well, and my favorite scene, the subway car, which is always super unnerving. We also thought some of the actors were funny/scary in this haunt too, which I think makes for a really fun night overall. The only “downside” to this haunt was that we did experience issues with spacing, but it was toward the end!

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Burial Chamber has long been one of my absolute must-see haunts for the season! Year after year, I’m impressed with the length, creativity, and scare factor of each of the three haunted houses they offer at their location - Adrenaline, Insanity, and Phobia. For those who don’t know, Burial Chamber is also the sibling to Abandoned, another amazing haunt, so patrons of both can utilize ticket combined ticket options. Our group attended their opening night, and purchased the combo Abandoned/Burial Chamber ticket, which is for all 3 haunts at each + quickpass entry for both locations, and we did have a bit of an issue with this particular ticket and Phobia (see more below).

ADRENALINE
We went through this haunt first, as it’s almost always my favorite of the night (and this night was no exception!). This haunt is the most “traditional” in terms of content - scary hospitals, military scenes, and creepy nuns make up just some of the scenes you will encounter upon. We loved so many of the actors in this haunt, experiencing specialized moments like breathing in your ear, singling out specific people in our group (pro-tip: if you’re in the front, whisper your friend’s name in the back to an actor to really creepy them out!), and some really great jump scares. We especially liked a confusing hospital scene that messed with our perception of reality!

INSANITY
This haunt is more focused on clowns, neon lights, and distorted reality. We loved the glowing elements, the strobe light maze, and some of the specifically scary costumes, including a demogorgan-like mask and a Samara-like figure (that I quickly rushed past in fear). This section also includes a spinning vortex, which I personally have an intense love/hate relationship with, and was sprinkled with actors along it, making it even more terrifying. Lastly, this section of the haunt includes the famous “Big Tina”, which is startling even when you’re expecting her!

PHOBIA
We were not able to go through Phobia on the night we visited. This was really unfortunate, because the haunt was closed early due to lack of a line, something we weren’t informed was a possibility when we got our tickets for all 3 haunts. There seemed to be some confusion from the staff as to what was open and what wasn’t, and we were disappointed we didn’t get the chance to go through, as I have always found Phobia to be one of the best outdoor haunts I’ve seen. Had we known there was a chance of it shutting down, we would have done that one first, however we were completely surprised by the info, and not able to come back at another time (we live about 2 hours away). They shut it down about 45 minutes before the ticket booth closed for the night. This was also all on their opening night.

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Tucked away between the fields and farmlands of Wisconsin is the infamous House on the Rock, a one-of-a-kind experience that combines one architect’s creativity for unusual spaces and a passion for collecting strange and unusual objects. It is a must see for Wisconsinites; half-museum, half a weird old antique store, and is one of the rare things that is even more unbelievable in real life than described. On a regular day, the House on the Rock is full of tons of strange and sometimes creepy objects, but every fall the weekends are dedicated to the Dark Side, a special route that focuses especially on the more haunted side of the attraction.

I am a huge fan of the House on the Rock for their normal season (my spouse and I even took our engagement photos there!), and for years now I have been curious about the Dark Side. I came with two others, and we were all very impressed with their dedication to decor and the overall length and size of the haunt. Red lights led you down into the starting area, inside the short museum portion, and then your path continues through portions of the second and third areas of the normal attractions, which is a very different route than one takes on the normal tour. Through these areas, several of the normal (creepy) elements are more heavily featured (namely scary dolls and dollhouses), and additional, more Halloween elements are added (like animatronics and props). All of this is accompanied by some amazing scary sounds that featured classical music and organs.

This haunted house is definitely untraditional, namely in the sense that it doesn’t feature very many actors, and some of the items are real antiques and collectibles. It’s very long, taking about an hour to go through, and certainly has a lot of attention to detail with a ton of decor, lights, and sound. However, I wouldn’t say it’s scary in the jump scare sense - it’s more psychological, and interesting from a historical standpoint. Our group felt they could have benefited from more actors and less props within the haunt, as well as a bit better crowd control, but overall it is a super interesting, fun place to go for the Halloween season. I would especially recommend it as an add-on to your normal day at House on the Rock - I’d love to see it during the daytime normal and then this version at night!

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