Comparing the Edge of Hell and The Beast Haunted Houses

THE EDGE OF HELL – 1300 West 12th Street, Kansas City, MO:

A vacant warehouse sits in the West Bottoms. It is dark, eerie, five stories and it boasts the name “The Edge of Hell.” In October, everyone seems to get excited about haunted houses—except for me. I’ve never been excited about the idea of getting spooked by mummies or ghosts, and I’ve never enjoyed horror films. So checking out haunted houses on a Sunday night was not something I was necessarily looking forward to.

When I arrived, I saw big flashing lights that read “The Edge of Hell.” I was appalled by a guy that came up behind me dressed in a velvet suit with crazy white hair. The most disgusting part was the live rat hanging out of his mouth. As I entered the pitch black maze, my palms began to sweat. My vision slowly adjusted to the hallway in front of me. I found myself surrounded by zombie characters holding knives. The sound of chains hitting the walls echoed around me. The worst part of the whole house came in the middle when I had to walk across a bridge with walls spinning in a circle: it was near-impossible to keep my balance. Neon colors flashed on and off as I hurried through the room. I had never felt as nauseous as I did in that moment.

The nauseousness started to fade as I could finally see light, but, of course, it just led to another pitch black room with no visible means of escape. I had to guess where I was going. I pushed against the surrounding foam-covered walls, trying to find my way to the next room. While I was struggling with that, a man dressed as a zombie followed me in circles until I noticed and turned around in horror. My instinctive reaction was to scream, which only encouraged him to follow me longer. It was a bad situation trying to hide from him–I felt like Sydney Prescott in the movie Scream.

After about thirty minutes, the level of fear started to die down, or so I thought—that is, until I came across a long tunnel. I had always heard about the “five-story slide,” but I didn’t realize I would have to slide down it to get out of this nightmare.

But there it was in front of me: the infamous slide. I was beyond scared to slide down, but I was more afraid of the grey-haired lady telling me whether I was going to heaven or hell. The sound of her shrieking voice reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West. Because I wanted to get out as fast as I could, I sat down, braced myself and went for it. I closed my eyes and by the time I opened them, I was at the bottom. The five-story slide was painless; I laughed over how much I had been freaking out. As I looked back on the experience, I realized that I shouldn’t have been scared in the first place.

The Edge of Hell was full of action and spooky rooms, but I wouldn’t rate it the scarier of the two haunted houses. After getting past the pitch black part of the maze, the rest excited me, but it didn’t scare me. If you enjoy five-story slides and rooms that will make you cringe, then you won’t regret going through this house. But if you are looking for a real scare, the The Edge of Hell is not the right house for you.

THE BEAST – 1401 West 13th Street, Kansas City, MO:

When I imagined the creatures haunting “The Beast,” I pictured the giant, professional scarers like Mr. Waternoose in “Monsters, Inc.” The spookiness definitely delivered: upon finishing the tour of the haunted house, it reminded me of being that scared little kid watching the Pixar movie. This house lives up to its name.

But after going through the less-than-impressive Edge of Hell, I asked myself, how bad can another haunted house be? I was feeling prepared and confident for whatever was going to spook me—Waternoose or not. The first part of this house was a living room covered with plastic spiders and cobwebs. I was sure this would be a piece of cake.

I was wrong. I couldn’t see anything—not because it was pitch black, but because there was dense fog everywhere I turned. The werewolf forest was the worst of it. The fog covered the surrounding area, making it impossible for me to see where I was going. Werewolves scoured the forest waiting to scare off whoever was in sight, including me.

It was a relief to get away from the werewolves and I got past the forest with only a few screams, but then I came across a blood-thirsty zombie that grabbed my arm and snarled, “Let me drink your blood.” I think I was more repulsed by this comment than scared. The idea of someone doing that to me made me cringe.

Just when I thought I had been through the worst, a chainsaw scraped across my leg. I looked down, which only made it scarier. A man with bloody eyes was laughing hysterically with the chainsaw in his hand. There wasn’t a blade on the chainsaw, but that didn’t make it any less spooky. A man dressed up as a zombie was yelling in terror as I passed the chainsaw man. I could still hear the sound of the chainsaw for several minutes after I passed it.

After surviving that scene, the maze started to get darker and darker. Screams and hysteric laughter echoed through the walls and my only thought was, get me out of here. Out of nowhere my leg was grabbed by people I couldn’t see, and as I kept walking plastic snakes hanging from the ceiling were swaying back and forth. I had the worst case of butterflies in my stomach.

I would rate this haunted house the scarier of the two because of its foggy werewolf forest, the blood-thirsty zombies and the echoes of screams throughout the warehouse. If you are looking for a bigger scare, then you should take the challenge of going through this haunted house.