So 3 years ago, while vending at the Alabama Renaissance faire in Florence, Alabama, some guys came through our booth, After seeing the skulls on the corners of my tent and laughing, they mentioned they worked for a local haunted house, and told us to come by when we mentioned our haunt love. So Saturday night after we closed and ate, we drove about 8 miles to the haunt, to find a LOT of people in line. We waited for an hour, got close enough to the ticket booth to find the wait inside was at minimum another hour. We were too tired, so we gave up. My story might have ended there.
We lived about 3 hours from this show, so Sunday night, we packed up our booth quickly, grabbed some food, and began the trek home. We passed the haunt on our way back to the interstate...it was about 10pm...and they looked open, and not as busy. I swung in, parked quickly, and we ran for the ticket booth. What luck...we were the very last group. And we began our first visit to Graystone Manor.
Bluntly- we were very impressed. Like most haunters, we travel slowly...and in every scene, we kept stopping, looking closely at the incredible amount of details, the spiderwebbing, the settled dust, hanging over furniture, knick knacks, and of course, many dried rotted corpses....it was easy to forget that this was not actually a decrepit 1800's mansion, and was in fact housed within a defunct self-storage facility. As we passed scene after scene, frustrating many a scareactor by both not being scared, but thrilled and impressed, plus being very slow, we became aware of 2 things...one:word was spreading about us forward, and two:we were collecting a small entourage. Several actors were following us. Turns out, they had never seen the whole haunt, and were taking the chance...we offered to let them in front, but they were quote"too scared".
I have to give full props and applause here to one of the unnamed actors. I am very very hard to "get". I can be startled, but even that usually gets only raised eyebrows and a comment. Getting me to jump is nearly impossible. Yet this actor did it, while sacrificing his body in some very cold water.. At one point, the haunt goes outside, over a wooden bridge, through a "swamp". It actually is one in October, due to the rain collecting in this area...so the bridge is over water, they have some wonderful swamp scenery, and an actor in a ghillie suit scared the hell out of us when he popped out of the water in front of us, scampered across the bridge and dropped back into the water on the other side with a splash and vanished into the darkness. After exclaiming "What the H*** was that?!!" loudly, our group applauded loudly as well, later complimenting him to the owner.
There were many other memorable scenes, but suffice to say, at the end, we asked to see whoever was in charge. We met one of the owners, Vinnie Grosso, to tell him how good it was, and how much we loved the detail. Vinnie graciously took us on a tour and showed us many of the workings. Since then, we have talked to Vinnie, and David Stanfield, one of the other great minds behind the haunt, every year. Vinnie mentioned, that while it was great to get the screams, sometimes, it was nice to get the feedback from people who have an idea of the work involved, and especially those who NOTICE all the detail they put in.
This year, Graystone Manor is gone. Following a split between the owners, from the ashes has risen ARX MORTIS(Latin for "Death Fortress"). Many scenes have been revamped, rebuilt, and altogether changed. I was fortunate to get a look at the revamp this weekend, in progress. Vinny and David once again were wonderful hosts, letting me walk all over taking pictures and exploring.
I'm not going to give it away. But it looks truly amazing. The Arx Mortis Legion has put in a lot of work, with lots more to do, and I think the screams will be heard all over northern Alabama. This place is so worth a road trip. And tooting my own horn, I made some leather armor for one of the characters this year, marking my first order from a pro haunt. Hopefully pictures will be on my website by October. I cannot wait to see it again, this time in full operation.
Check these guys out at www.arxmortis.com and http://www.facebook.com/ArxMortis