Video: SCREAMS in Waxahachie is ultimate haunted house(s) experience

by Lena Dirbashi

WAXAHACHIE — Would you like to be chased by a psycho with a chainsaw? Or be stalked by a clown-faced goldilocks midget? How about running helplessly through a pitch-black maze inside a psych-ward?

If that’s not your idea of fun, SCREAMS -- the largest Halloween theme park in the world -- is not the place you want to be.

SCREAMS is entitled to its name, because there was definitely a lot of screams here. But more than that, SCREAMS has two major advantages over its competitors: size and selection.

Behind a grand castle and porches with exaggerated flames lay five main haunted attractions, food court(s), Mythical Monster Museum, mini-movie theaters, games, rides, face painters, henna tattoo artists, and fortune tellers. So you would appreciate some guidance.

Good luck getting it.

Monsters, old bearded men in layers of eye shadow, psychos with chainsaws, and unusually tall zombies in suits are too busy trying to scare everyone equally to spend more than a few seconds with you. So prepare to be on your own. I suggest bring a friend or come in a group – as most people have.

The first attraction was the graveyard. It looks exactly like a conventional graveyard except for the popping coffins and the shifting zombies, among other things. It was fun and scary, but this is just a warm-up.

Dead ahead was the 3D Pirates Peril, and the line for that was long. Good thing I didn’t have to wait in line and had a fast-pass, totally worth the extra $15.

A pirate with charcoal residue all over his face handed out 3-D glasses and briefly told the group I joined not to eat or take pictures, and warned us there were surveillance cameras. Way to make the experience realistic.

But you’ll forget all that once you step inside. My group, consisting of 17-year olds, responded heavily with screams as when pirates jumped out at them while they still were trying to overcome the mutilated bodies that drop from the ceiling. Beware of the crab-infested walls, because it turns out there could be a camouflaged pirate waiting to attack. The 3-D glasses blur everything so you have a late reaction, making you easier to prey on.

The scariest of all was is the earthquake-feel of the bridge that goes through a swirling tunnel that looked like it’s falling. It felt like being trapped in a blurry kaleidoscope, and even after you rip off the 3-D glasses, it's still hard to see or keep yourself stable from the shaky ground.

Arcane Asylum and the Castle of Darkness are the two other attractions that had long lines, and while they were engaging, scary, and fun – they were slight variations of what you already experience in the graveyard and the pirate peril with obvious difference being the themes and costumes. The asylum was my favorite because after all the usual scares, a tall zombies in a white suit "walks you out" the exit. You think he’s being polite when in fact what he’s really doing is handing you over to the psycho with the chainsaw that chases you a few feet off asylum grounds.

That was awesome!

The Castle, which looked a lot like a fairy-tale castle you would see in a Disney movie, was not that great. There was a dinosaur in there somewhere, skeletal of course, and that was the only thing I could remember about it.

The signs aren’t that obvious, so you might get lost easily. There are also some privately-owned attractions, which the $21.99 tickets don’t cover.

SCREAMS was pretty neat: It caters to everyone, and there are a lot of options to customize your own Halloween park experience. You can go to the asylum and the peril, then grab a bite to eat, get a tattoo, then go to the graveyard, maybe check-out the museum, and go back for a second round of asylum. (Getting chased by the psycho chainsaw is just as fun the second time.)

It’s definitely a family-fun place, though alcohol was sold. The two biggest drawbacks are some of the staff, who could have been a little friendlier, and the muddy grass they called a parking lot.

SCREAMS is intermediately scary, but it a lot of fun. If that is what you look for in a haunted house experience, it’s definitely worth the drive to Waxahachie.

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