Howl-O-Scream Shows Dark Side of Busch Gardens

You step into a dimly lit room and the creepy guy inside begins talking to you. Suddenly, the lights go out, and you’re completely in the dark. When the lights come back on, the man has disappeared, and all you can hear is your heartbeat. You know something scary is probably about to happen, and the seconds feel like hours as you stand there. By yourself. Waiting.

This is one of the experiences I had at ’ Howl-O-Scream Sept. 23, the first night of the amusement park’s annual Halloween-themed event. I was invited to a special Bleedup (a clever play on the word “Tweetup”), and I appreciated the opportunity to be one of the first to experience “The Dark Side of the Gardens,” the theme of this year’s event.

Those who attended the Bleedup had the chance to see the zombies, werewolves, vampires and other scary creatures up close. The actors’ costumes and make-up were impeccable, and the actors themselves really made me feel like I was going to be their next meal.

Howl-O-Scream 2011 features six haunted houses—three of them new—and I was one of the first to go through Ultimate Gamble, one of the new ones. This vampire casino will get your blood pumping with its confusing, mirrored corridors and bloody Elvis wedding. I screamed when a vampire popped out of nowhere and shouted, “Let’s gamble!”

One of the things I really liked about the houses this year is the pacing. Sometimes, you can feel rushed through. Other times, you hear people screaming in front of you and behind you, but nothing particularly scary happens to you because you’re in the middle of the group. When I walked through Ultimate Gamble, I never caught up to anyone ahead of me, and I never had anyone behind me.

That’s really what Busch Gardens is trying to do this year when possible, said Scott Swenson, creative director for Howl-O-Scream, who helped create the event 12 years ago. He overheard me talking about it on the way out of Ultimate Gamble, and then pointed me in the direction of Alone, a special seventh house I had won admittance to at the Bleedup.

“I hesitate to even call it a house,” Scott said. “It is a personal, haunt experience.”

Alone, which returns for its second year, requires a reservation and costs an extra $40 for you and up to three friends. You or your group goes through the house by yourselves, encountering demented and deranged psychopaths, who promise to give you the ultimate test of fear.

“It took about four years to develop, and it was designed to create buzz,” Scott said.

This was the scariest encounter I’ve ever had at a Halloween-themed event by far. The people inside don’t just pop out and startle you; they get in your face, talk to (or yell at) you personally, and are in complete control of your experience. I had to keep reminding myself that it was just pretend, and I can easily see how someone might want to quit and leave before it’s over.

“It’s the only house that has a safe word,” Scott said, explaining that if you say the word, everything stops immediately and you are taken out of the house. “Last year, it was used multiple times every night.”

I didn’t have to use it, but I can tell you that the word “albatross” has a whole new meaning for me.