Every year I get together with a group of haunted house enthusiasts and we road trip from Michigan, Indiana and Chicago to check out haunted houses in Wisconsin. We hit the Wisconsin Feargrounds late-ish on a Friday night. There was a good crowd, clearly having a good time and getting the cr*p scared out of them by the que line entertainers (Yay Havoc and Granny! Yay Weird Guy In A Jumpsuit!).

The haunts themselves are stellar, from every perspective. Haunted houses haven't scared me since I worked in one 20 years ago*, so while everybody else is screaming and cringing, I really look at set design and decoration, props, lighting, listen to the sound design, see how the actors interact with the patrons, all the technical stuff - I can't help it. What I saw was an incredible attention to detail in the room designs, props and lighting. I saw actors who really ran the gamut of interaction - some were extremely in your face and caustic; others went for a more disturbing approach by completely ignoring you and just acting absolutely (and realistically) insane. I found the latter genuinely creepy - it was like being in a confined space with real psychotic person; you weren't sure what might set him/her off. There's also a great mix of surprises, jump-scares, and a few great slow burns that let you build some suspense and anticipation.

While Morgan Manor and Morgana's Torment employ a great deal of darkness and subtlety, Freaky's Funhouse is the opposite - dayglow 3D! We had a great time marvelling at the great and, at times, truly disturbing artwork, and being weirded out by the various implementations of the 3D effects. The clown selling Human Pot Pies (They're Chicken Lickin' Good!) was a gas and had us all laughing.

The real testament to all 3 haunted houses was my immediate desire to walk right back through them all, to see the things I missed the first time - I can't think of a better way to spend a cold October night!

*My Fear Factor rating is based on the reactions of the people around me, who all seemed gleefully terrified.