Lose your mind in the Halloween Maze

It was already the middle of October, and I hadn’t visited a haunted attraction yet this year. I was determined we had to go this weekend. My friend Corey had been trying for a couple of years to get me to come see the haunt he acts in, Halloween Maze. I decided to oblige and made that our first haunt of the year.

I had barely heard of Halloween Maze before this year. It was just some place a friend kept bringing up. So I was very surprised to find out that it has been in Vegas for 4 years now, and it gets bigger every year. This year’s location, Durango and Flamingo, was not its original spot. It first opened behind Original Pancake House on Flamingo and the 215. Why had I not been there yet?
We had intended to buy our tickets when we got there, but the line we thought went to the ticket booth was very long. So we went on the website and ordered them for text delivery. Then it was challenging to find the line we were supposed to wait in. This was my only real complaint about this haunt. Even now, I’m not sure the line we thought was tickets was even that. Also, I think we got in the wrong line for our fast pass to begin with. There is a line for check-in, where you decide if you want to get a glow stick that allows the actors to touch you. Then another line for actually entering the haunt. We got the fast pass, which did end up being worth it once we found out where we were supposed to be.

They do bag checks and metal wands, so leave all weapons in the car. It would suck to have to wait again just because you left the pocket knife you use at work in your bag.

Their lines went out into the parking lot, so the sliders and line actors didn’t have much room to play. However, they did very well with the room they did have, and it was fun to watch them make people jump and scream.

One clown with a rotted face even tried to do a proximity scare on me. It didn’t work, but that was because I’m used to them, not because he wasn’t good. He moved incredibly quietly; I didn’t even notice him until I turned to look at The Dragon and saw him over her shoulder. My lack of screaming didn’t phase him at all. He was professional and stood still long enough for me to get a good look at his face, which seemed to be either a mask or a very detailed latex application. Either way, it looked awesome.

I heard an employee say that you could see everything here that you could see at Universal Studios, but without the 4-hour-long wait times. If you read last year’s review of Halloween Horror Nights, my Readers, you will remember that those wait times are no joke. I don’t know if the films shown here were the same ones as Universal, but they were some of the big names of horror. It definitely gave us a thrill each time we recognized an old favorite.

But now I’m getting into the actual haunt, so here is the review

Sets:

The outside didn’t look like much, since they were inside a building and the front door was pretty obscured. They did have a few neat props, including an ice cream truck labeled “Bad Humor” that made me chuckle a bit.

But the inside made up for that in spades. A lot of haunts that try to blend multiple themes don’t succeed. They end up coming across like the creator didn’t know how to make a decision. Or worse, it looks like they threw all their Halloween decor behind a fence and called it a Haunt. So when I heard that they were combining multiple films, it gave me a moment of pause. But I was pleasantly surprised. Each theme was introduced with a bit of a teaser room, then the room with the main villain. In between, there were rooms with a variety of haunt themes. This format gave horror fans a chance to anticipate their favorite characters before they saw them. For example, we knew Freddy was coming in the Nightmare on Elm St section long before we saw him. I can’t remember if it was the song, or a sign in the room before. I just remember being super excited. And knowing he was there didn’t make his big reveal less phenomenal. Watching him reach his claw out of the fog towards us was the scare of our dreams.

The sets brought in most of the big films (not Chucky or Scream, sadly, but I didn’t notice their absence until we were on the way home in the car). I especially appreciated how they used familiar scare bits, like claustrophobia and a laser swamp, and successfully incorporated them into the theme of that space. It felt like the set was working for the scare, not the scare working to support the set, which I always appreciate. Also, I don’t know how they did it, but their vortex actually seemed to tilt. I was told later that the platform is entirely level, but it felt like I was leaning to the side.

Acting:

For those Readers who have never acted in a haunted attraction, let me tell you a secret. It is not the same acting you will do in a stage play. The outside actors have to be able to know what their character would do or say to any dumb questions the guests could think to ask, and be able to respond as quickly as their character would. This means you have to know the character’s back story and improv on the fly. The actors inside have their own set of challenges. First they have to portray their scene, scaring the guest, with only the amount of time it takes the guest to walk across their space. Sometimes that is less than a minute. At the same time, they need to move the guests in the right direction, at the right speed, and safely. Pacing in a haunt can make or break your adventure. So when our group didn’t see another guest throughout the entire experience, I knew where to give accolades. The actors knew when to block us off, when to confuse us so we had to loop back, and when to show us the door and scare us on. They did this all without breaking character or rushing us once. They were able to get close to us, at our feet or in our faces on occasion, while at the same time always having an escape route in case of groups that got violent. They followed us enough to keep us moving at the right pace, but not enough to be obnoxious or detract from the scare of the next room. I guess, to sum it up, they were very professional. That professionalism will make the haunt more fun for the average guest without them ever noticing it. As a fellow haunter, I appreciate the hard work put into it.

In addition to the professionalism, the acting was solid on its own. The characters that were supposed to be played predictably were just that. Pennywise asked us in for a float, Freddy loomed out of the steam with his blades just close enough to scare, and the clowns were the right level of obnoxious to make a guest unsettled, but not pissed off. They didn’t just do their line, they adapted it to us coming through the room. They talked directly to us and urged us to answer. I can imagine how much that freaked out the scaredy customers, the ones that hide in their friend’s back and try not to look. You may not look, but they will make you hear them anyhow. Amazing work.

Theme:

One small complaint I have is that the title doesn’t really indicate the theme of the haunt at all. The only thing I would have expected with the title was a bunch of walls and a lot of getting lost. The haunt was much better than that, but it didn’t have a specific or coherent theme. Part of it seemed to be scary movies, and I loved those sections. But in general, I would guess that the theme is Halloween?
That being said, it was a beautiful compilation of all things haunt, put together with smooth transitions. So for a haunt with such a broad theme, it was very well done. And I suppose there is something to be said for going in without too many expectations.

Scare Factor:

The only thing that made me jump in this haunt was an especially blowy air cannon, but I can envision how well it would scare the average guest. I can imagine a guest who has never seen a claustrophobia panicking when it never seems to end. Even I started to feel like I woud be trapped forever. I can see them ducking under Freddy’s claws, shrinking back from the clowns, or jumping a foot in the air from the actress folded into a corner. We didn’t see her until we were almost on top of her, and she was a shock. And we did get to see people running and laughing with relief as the chainsaw chased them out the final door, with the outside actors giving them one last scare, just as they thought they were free.

The best part of this haunt for me, other than it being the start of my season, was the nostalgia feels I got when seeing a scene from a film I grew up with. Knowing that the character in the next room is someone you’ve seen a million times on the screen can bring a shiver of anticipation to even the most seasoned haunt guest.

This haunt was well put together, beautifully decorated, and professionally acted. It made me jump a bit, laugh a lot, and I loved looking at the masks and the costumes as I walked through. (Most of the actors were good sports about standing still when I stared so I could see well.) I loved the poker dealer with the two-faced mask; that was a work of art. I would highly recommend this haunt, and go ahead and get the fast pass. It’s only $15 dollars more per person!