Monday, October 13, 2008

Haunted House Review: The Cutting Edge in Fort Worth

By Laura Seewoester

Pegasus News will be reviewing nearly a dozen haunted houses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the next two weeks. First up: The Cutting Edge in Fort Worth.

According to several online haunt reviews, The Cutting Edge fares well, usually making the nation's top ten list (or close enough). It's located in an old meat-packing plant in a not-exactly-awesome part of down town Fort Worth, making the perfect setting for a haunted house. About a dozen designers start building each year's house in January and work daily until Halloween season. (Imagine dedicating your life to scaring the pee out of people. Right on.) Here's what you can expect:

The Price: Wowza. $26.50 plus tax makes this sucker the most expensive haunt in D/FW, not counting $10 parking and the gas it takes you to get there. There is also an option to get the speed pass for $39.50. (Will explain more on this later.)

The Line: OMFG. We thought we were clever when we first got there and saw the line, completely oblivious to just how slow it was moving. We put one person in the line while the rest of us went and bought the tickets. Clever, eh? Save us 20-30 minutes in line, right? Right. Only saving 20 minutes doesn't much matter when you wait in line for 3 hours. At the end of the line you can see people exiting the haunt. They are wet, covered in what looks like bubbles and wear blank, zombie-like looks on their faces. You get the sneaking suspicion that the price + the wait is not worth the haunt. But we still waited.... and waited... and waited some more. We would have sent someone to get some form of entertainment, except that we paid $10 for parking already. We waited so long we reached new levels of boredom. A friend of mine displayed her ability to shove a quarter in her nostril as I showed everyone my ability to wiggle my right ear only. And this only entertained us for about 5 minutes. We started to wonder if maybe the extra $10 for the speed pass would have been worth it. Needless to say it is virtually impossible to even enter the haunted house intoxicated in any form or fashion if that's what you were going for (not that we tried).

The Haunt: We (finally, for the love of God, finally) entered the haunted house. The cool stuff: Each feature was elaborately decorated, filled with people hiding in corners waiting to jump out at you. Every room was separated by completely light tight hallways, which aren't exactly easy to navigate but spooky and fun. Some of the sets were pretty creative and grotesque (I liked the one where you are forced to walk through hanging dead bodies). They also kept some rockin' and scary-ish tunes blasting throughout the whole ordeal. The lame stuff: After getting used to people and things popping out at you around every corner, it definitely got old. There weren't really any mazes to get yourself lost in (until the very end, and that one was filled with mist and water on the ground, so it was pretty uncomfortable). I'm sorry, those animatronic things. They just don't move very fast and weird people are scarier. Creepiest character: We were walking through a section filled with bunk beds that was supposed to be some kind of asylum, and a little girl jumped out right next me looking all weird, and then... she breathed on me. Gave me the heebie jeebies.

It's obvious that these guys make a ton of money and put it back into great elaborate sets, but don't really have any new tricks up their sleeves. It's also too dark to even notice most of the awesome attention to detail unless you really strain to look around.

Wet-Your-Pants Factor: Oh, don't you doubt it, you will come out of there with wet pants, although it's not likely gonna be urine. The last phase of the haunted house involves that misty, puddle filled aforementioned maze and a room filled with foam (yes, like those old college foam parties) that's so foamy you actually breathe in bubbles.

Overall, it would have been an alright haunt if it wasn't for the ridiculous line that zapped all the enthusiasm out of everyone. If this is really one of the best in the country, pretty sure I'm not missing out on anything except maybe my darn $30.

Related stories

• Haunted House review: Fear Factory Insanitarium in The Colony (Oct. 14, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Holidays > Halloween

Comments

Mike Orren Staff

Here's a video to tide you over:

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Laura Seewoester Verified

You aren't allowed to bring cameras into the haunted houses, and this one is a particular stickler. (I think I forgot to mention you can't bring in purses or bags of any kind.) I tried to bring a recorder in for audio, but no dice. Apparently they are afraid of other haunted houses stealing ideas and such.

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

James Scott Verified

This was pretty much the same experience I had a few years ago when I went to this place last. Very disappointing and totally not worth it. I never quite understood what was scary about walking through foam?

1 year ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )