**Hello fellow Redditors, it seems you are all curious of this haunted house that other haunted houses are afraid of. I'll be posting my review of 2012 edition in the next few weeks. In the meantime, be sure to ask your burning questions in this AMA which The Raven and Black Cat has created. TRBC and myself have been to at least 4 Blackout haunts including the infamous invite only Spring event. We're part of the Survivors Club and we know what we're talking about. Also, head over to the Jaded Viewer Facebook page and check me out on Twitter. Also check out TRBC on Twitter as well.**Check out my review of Blackout Haunted House 2012!
On November 6th, after an extended run of sold out nights, Blackout Haunted House finally closed its doors. The urban legend of haunted houses became real for a ton of brave New Yorkers, tourists and people from all across the country and the world. But some weren't brave enough to venture into the darkness and others ran out of time. Well, that's where this walkthrough comes in.
Yup, I've been reading your comments, e-mails and tweets and everybody wants to know what the HELL did everybody experience at the Blackout Haunted House that made it the most thrilling, exciting and demented haunted house. Let's now pull back the curtain as I unveil MY EXPERIENCE of this best haunted house in NYC.
You can read my review and the Facebook page or the Twitter feed of others who went through it. Everybody had different experiences as it progressed. Josh and Kris changed a few things throughout the run and probably went extra Guantanamo Bay during the peak Halloween period. I went around the middle of it, during a press night where only a few brave intrepid reporters braved the haunt. I'll admit, I have forgotten the order of the events that I experienced but I'll do my best to give you a step by step walkthrough of each part of the experience. I also have to say my mind is a bit clouded and I've kind of forgotten a few things that happened. It's a mix of time that has passed since mid October and the fact that I'm not good at logging the events and get pretty caught up experiencing it.
As I said in my review: "Blackout Haunted House is the haunted house other haunted houses are afraid of." Now would you have gone to this?
- The black partition separates you from the start of this 20 min or so insanity (it feels devilishly longer than it actually is). Josh pops from the screen and guides you inside.
- You stand in complete darkness for what seems to be 2-3 minutes waiting and waiting and waiting. It's an agonizing wait until Josh gives you a paper thin surgical mask which you put on. "Do you have asthma?" "Do you have epilepsy?" Josh asks. I shake my head no while saying the words.
- You enter a room that has the glow of a flickering TV that splashes Poltergeist light. Seated to the left is a large woman, dressed in one of those medical outfits they give you for a checkup eating a cup of ice cream. A metal folding chair sits in the middle of the room in front of the TV. In silence, I'm pantomimed the universal sign to sit down. I do. I stare at the TV and back to ice cream lady. It must be awesome ice cream. I suddenly feel my hair being touched from behind. It seems another escapee hotty mental patient I didn't see likes my awesome disheveled hair. Ice cream lady moves her chair next to mine and gets really cozy with me. She puts her head on my shoulders and smiles. She grabs my hand tightly and I now see what's in hers. HANDCUFFS. She slowly puts both handcuffs on and I'm pointed into Room #2.
- In Room #2, its deadly dark. I step as carefully as I can in the pitch black darkness but I figure I'm not leaving this room until something happens. I now get the feeling I'm not alone and quickly somebody pulls up my handcuffed arms and have attached them to some sort of rope. Now a wraith-y misfit is touching me on my arm, neck and head and I can't see where it's coming from. A balloon pops. I'm a bit startled. What sounds like a metallic ladder crashes down and I'm startled a bit more. You know that jumpy feeling you get? Well I got that. I'm then untangled from the rope and I see a flicker of a flashlight and a man dressed like a doctor grabs my arm. I see he has a big fuckin needle and unrolling my sleeve, he plunges the needle down (Vincent Vega style) into my arm. Of course it's not real but has a psychological touch that hits me hard. (I HATE FUCKIN NEEDLES!). I'm now escorted via mild shoving to the next room.
- In Room #3, I see a chair and am told to sit down. I'm also handed a flashlight powered by some weak ass batteries. Also, goggles are put over my eyes. I scan the room with my flashlight and see nothing. But slowly, I see a figure. A Nosferatu like shadow creeping across the room, my flashlight making shadows into a silent horror movie. This room seems like a weird dream room, nothing really happens but it felt like the artistic portion of the program. Soon the figure dissipates and I'm grabbed by a somebody and shoved into Room #4.
- Well I should have known that was the lull before the storm. Because shit's hitting the fuckin fan. I'm now grabbed and thrown against a wall and told to put my handcuffed hands against it. Now facing the wall, I'm yelled specific instructions to take 10 steps back and I proceed to do that. I start counting in my head. 10....9...8...7... BOOM! I'm grabbed from behind and a hood is thrown over my head. I'm told to kneel down and now I can feel the sticky, wet grimy floor and then suddenly water is being poured over the hood. Yes folks, the rumors are true. I'm getting fuckin WATER BOARDED. Water is coming from every direction and I'm getting soaked. I start to breathe a bit heavy as the surgical mask and the hood have limited my breathing. I'm sure people call safety at this point but a bit of the waterboarding ain't gonna make me say it. My attacker calls out my name (which kind of shocked me but I guess this is Josh's way of personalizing the experience for the jaded viewer) and tells me to scream. I scream as loud as I can. I'm told I scream like "a fuckin pussy". "Scream louder!!!" yells my torturer. I scream louder. I'm called a variety of expletives and am told to scream louder. I do. It finally subsides. Told to stand, the hood is taken off and now I'm mildly mouth raped. Yes folks, MOUTH RAPED. Somebody is inserting their possibly unsanitary fingers into my mouth. After that brief oral gagging, I cough and dry heave a bit and the handcuffs are finally removed. I'm now told to go upstairs (or is it downstairs?). Its a bit foggy with the mouthrape and waterboarding having traumatized me a bit.
- A Blackout HH guide asks me: "Do you want a light?" She holds up a glowstick and I say "Yes". She holds it out, then says "Go get it!!" and tosses the glowstick near the opening of a dark tunnel. Wet, still sucking in air and a bit weary, I grab the glowstick and make my way through the tunnel. I start remembering some old Jennifer Jason Leigh TV movie called "Buried Alive" and remember the dark tunnel in that. The glowstick is my only light source and I start crawling through the narrow tunnel. I try to move as fast as I can when my leg is grabbed from behind. I can hear above me some laughter and the loud footsteps of the man above me. I finally see the end of this freakin tunnel and make my way out.
- Here is where I got lost. I believe I was told to go downstairs but I think I was a bit disoriented on where to go. I do head down some stairs and enter the TV room again. After getting some better instructions, I'm told to go to the infamous "Care Bear Room".
- Ahhh the infamous "Care Bear"/"Rainbow" room. The room has been called that as there was a bit of color and it had the most light from the previous rooms. I'm told to sit in a chair as a woman in a hospital gown creeps closer, whispering somebody is out to get her. She slowly approaches me and then stands to my left. She grabs my head and tells me to "Pull the string" which is dangling from her you know what...fuck it. Her fuckin pussy. I grab and pull it and she makes the most wonderful moaning noises. Now fully out, I can see it's a tampon. Yes you again reader have read that right, a fuckin BLOODY TAMPON. Now she tells me to put in my mouth and suck it. No use with arguing with her and I do, just barely. She suddenly jolts to the door and tells me to get out. At this point, I have the bloody tampon in my hand and figure I have a souvenir.
- I'm now guided into a bathroom and see quite a sight. A medium built man is whispering in my ear. What's most disconcerting is the man is entirely naked. His bait and tackle are hanging out for me to see. He starts mumbling things into my ear, I can't remember exactly what it is. He then proceeds into the toilet stall and closes the door. I now can hear heaving and the excruciating sounds of vomit upheaval. It's as disgusting as it sounds. He then opens the door and tells me to grab a key in the toilet. I hesitate and stare at the bowl looking for a key but I can't see one. My left sleeve was rolled up (from the crazy injection) but in the midst of my germaphobic nature I forget and dip my right hand into the toilet and feel for a key which I finally find. It's the first time I felt kinda disgusted but know this all can't be as sanitary as could be. Now guided out of the bathroom, a Blackout attendant asks me which hand I grabbed the key and I say my right arm. I see a bucket of water and she tells me to wash my right arm and my entire sleeve is now drenched. Good job to the jaded viewer. I'm just making it far worse for myself than I think this should be.
- I now enter the final room where I see a completely naked woman with her ankle chained to the floor. She starts pleading for me to free her and starts telling me "he will be back soon". I get into panic mode and grab the lock on the chain. I start putting in the key and try to free her but it's not working. My brain is freezelocking and I start believing I don't know how to open a lock anymore. But it seems the key is too big and doesn't fit this lock. A sense of panic hits me as I keep thinking naked black man (from last year's haunt) is about to enter the room filled with vicious rage as I try to free "his victim". She then directs me to a bucket filled with water near a sink. She informs me to check the bucket. I'm a little weary about this bucket and I now fear anything filled with water. I sink my right arm into the bucket and look for a key and find it. I head over to naked lady victim and proceed to open the lock. She grabs my hand and we start making our way to the exit. I'm going to free the damsel in distress! I'm the final guy! I look back and she disappears and I'm shoved violently out of the house as a man yells "Get out of my house!"
- The End
- The few spectators waiting for their turn look at me and I look at them. I'm soaked, tired and my face is half smirking and half terrified. I've just survived Blackout Haunted House and I silently say in my head "Fuck yeah!"
I'm not sure how many people went to Blackout this year. Probably way more than the previous 3 years combined. I'm curious as to how many people SAFETY-ied. Did Blackout keep track? It would totally be cool if they did. Speaking to the crew, they said it was around 20%. I still have so many unanswered questions and one day would love to meet my fellow survivor club members and anybody else who went to Blackout.
Oddly this little torturer's paradise has brought people together in one of the weirdest way possible. After reading the comments and Facebook messages, people are proud to be part of Blackout club. Like in Hostel, you're part of an elite group, survivors of the baddest haunted house in the country.
You probably told your family or friends what happened to you and they didn't believe you. You tell them it's the truth and they probably said: "Haunted houses can't touch you or do that shit you just said!" You reply: "But I signed a waiver!" It all sounds made up but YOU know it really happened....and so do a thousand others.
You're a survivor. And I'm proud to call you a jaded viewer as well.
Posts
well... that sums it up. "the baddest haunted house in the country," bar none. i hope i get a few more good scares outta them before the travel channel gets to them and it's GAME OVER for tickets...!
ReplyDeletei had a very different experience (detail stuff), but i was brand new to it and terrified. i didn't think they were "holding back" either until i read other reviews, like this one... they really gave you their worst! the dark room i only had touching and licking (not bad!). no needes, no crashing, no rope... jesus.
i agree with your last statement. i wrote a review of it on yelp and after reading my mom asked if we were related... no one i've told can believe there's a waiver, they can touch you (i mean REALLY TOUCH YOU) and that you're bound up.
well the RUMORS ARE TRUE... these guys do not play.
I had a totally different experience.. I feel I was slighted out of what you went through.. I think you had a much better run through then the people who went on October 30.
ReplyDeleteSo, I am curious about this tampon thing. There must be a catch here. There's no way it was actually pulled out of her vagina. Thoughts on what was done here? A fake vagina?
ReplyDeleteIt was a little dark so I couldn't really tell where it's coming from. But the tampon was an actual tampon covered with water and some red dye (told to me by the blackout staff)
ReplyDeleteI went on Halloween night and my experience was slightly different in regard to certain details:
ReplyDelete- After being given my surgical mask and answering the questions I was left in the dark for about a minute when someone grabbed me from behind and pulled some type of black plastic wrap over my face while hustling me to the next room. Before they took it off my face I was told to go down the stairs next, which lead to the TV room.
- Instead of a woman in the TV room, there was a very large black man that told me to sit and bound my wrists. Noticing the woman behind me on the second TV that was playing the infrared security footage of the room was a good touch. Just before leaving this room I was grabbed from behind and hustled into the next pitch black room.
- I was left standing here, hands bound, but no rope. There were bangs on the ground and I was jabbed in the torso a few times by something (it was pitch black) but no needle. Again, grabbed and hustled into the flashlight room.
- I was led to the other side of the room, no chair, just a big dark hallway behind me. I was given the flashlight (the only light in the room), my surgical mask was removed (no goggles though) and told not to move. My escort left me alone and I waited for about a minute, shining the flashlight everywhere, including the dark hallway behind me but saw nothing. "Turn off the light," comes a voice from behind me. I turn it off. I feel the presence of someone behind me when suddenly a wet hood is thrown over my head and I'm thrown into another room.
- Waterboarding: I was forced to my knees immediately, told to lean my head back, and the water began to flow. The way the wet hoodsticks to your mouth and nose on every breath and is truly terrifying. I could breathe but just barely. The cursing at me began, I was told to scream multiple times, louder each time, then to yell "HELP ME!!" multiple times. Now I'm out of breath, scared, and still trying to breathe through the soaked hood. He stands me up and then pulls my (still-bound) hands above my head. No rope or anything, but makes me hold them there for at least a minute or two. This made breathing even more difficult and I really thought I might pass out. Anxiety was kicking in and I couldn't slow my breathing for the life of me. Finally he pulled my hands down, unbinds my wrist, removes the hood, and throws the glowstick down the tunnel.
- Tampon lady moved behind me and pulled my hand up to her crotch to pull the string so I didn't see it actually "come out of her". The sicko in me does kind of wish they put some type of sauce or something on the tampon because once it was in my mouth, it was clear it was just water and dye. Any type of flavor would have bugged me out completely.
- I wasn't brought into the bathroom immediately but led to a narrow hall with a locked door at the end. When I turned around, there was the naked man. He made his way over to me, got way close, and then started retching. After a few retches, he pulls open the door and pulls me into the bathroom. The puking and all was the same but once I grabbed the key amidst all the gooey-thick grossness, he WOULD NOT let me pull my hand out of the toilet for a good while.
- Everything else played out the same although I do really wish that someone burst into the room right as I was freeing the chained up girl. Her saying "Faster! He's coming!" really freaked me out.
All in all, loved it (and really love re-telling my experience, the tampon part is always the killer). Absolutely going again next year and can only hope to somehow get a spot for the Spring event if it's done again next year.
I wonder if the experience was different for women. I mean the whole thing sounds crazy and kudos to everyone who went through it, I am horrible in haunted houses. Just a thought, especially after hearing the tampon thing. It sounds like the women in the house are either very attractive or unattractive, what about the men?
ReplyDeleteI too had a different experience than you Jaded. There was no ice cream woman for me in the beginning, it was actually rather large black man who looked like the guy from "The Green Mile" who motioned me to sit down, then a pretty sexy woman came out and started to rub her lips up and down my neck and eyes and nose...while also touching my hair....the black dude does it too but not as much, it was rather awkward as I was actually getting a little turned on by the woman haha. Didn't get handcuffed but got a leather strap strung around my wrists instead. No needle or anything, but while I was waiting in the darkness someone played the drums on my stomach lol, and poked my ear with a semi-sharp object. I'm not sure if you mentioned this part somewhere else but after the dark room I was pushed onto a chair with a radio next to me playing Orwellian newscasts also with a lot of white noise buzzing around. That was really creepy. The tunnel part I had a little different experience, instead of just one guy pulling at my shoe 3 black guys with no shirts popped out laughing at me and were pulling at me from all different angles. One of them grabbed my flashlight and threw it ahead of me and the other grabbed it and played keep away with me while in the tunnel. Pretty similar experience with the tampon. The naked dude part was diff for me, he held my hand and walked me into the bathroom, and was acting more pedophiliadactic towards me than you described. He vomited profusely then creepily grabbed my hand and was like "yeahhhhh stick it in yeahh get that key", also side note, he had half a chub while doing this...don't know if that gets him off or maybe he has a fluffer? w/e The end scene was spot on with what happened to me, the naked girl was a pretty sexy red-head btw...a few things that through me off, when I was waiting at the chair and saw two or three guys staring at me with a flashlight, I could easily make out what type of shoes they were wearing, and they were wearing vans shoes...which took away from the experience, it made me realize too much that these were just young actors from NYC. Also what was up with that regularly dressed girl who told me to go downstairs with a regular womans voice? I thought I was being kicked out or something....she didn't fit in well with it at all.
ReplyDeletethrew me off* Is what I meant to say. ^
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't sound like a haunted house, they should think of another name for it. Horror Movie Experience?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it was 3 stories was significant too I think, all the upstairs/downstairs while disoriented was a nightmare in and of itself. BUT I did have a VERY different experience as well, as follows (NOTE: My primary worry was being kicked out for fucking up, based on my experience they seemed well aware of it. I wasn't phased by much but I was nervous the entire time and my walkthrough seemed designed to make things as awkward and discomforting as possible, rather than scary. VERY cool if done intentionally):
ReplyDeleteInstead of a large woman or large black man sitting in the chair when I got to the basement, there was a "girl in a pretty dress" (you know the horror trope, think The Shining) all caked in dirt and debris watching TV around a mental patient (looked like the one from the photo up there, actually) waltzing with someone I really didn't get a look at. May have been a corpse, can't remember. There were two TVs, one playing surgical footage and the other, I learned later, attached to a CCTV camera facing the back of the room. I got in and didn't know what to do and started to move on and as I reached the exit the girl ran over and pulled me back and put me in the chair, then I got cuddled while they directed my head towards the surgical video and handcuffed me.
The dark room was odd. I thought the entrance to it was the worst part, because it didn't seem quite right, like there was too much black plastic, so when I got into the pitch black room and no exit was visible and nothing was happening, I was worried for a moment that I had gone through the wall and was going to get thrown out. Then I got grabbed from behind and dragged over to a corner where I could see occasional lights flashing through a gap in the walls, and left for what felt like 15 minutes, occasionally hearing a hammer smashing bricks behind me. Then someone started sharpening a knife, I got poked in the torso, licked in the ear, and a knife was run across my face and throat.
THIS room was HUGELY different for me. Instead of nothing or a radio, they put blurry glasses on me, but crookedly enough that I could see through the nose gap, and a tall lady comes walking forward into the flashlight, and as she gets closer I suddenly realised the tall lady had a massive dick, she then comes around behind me and asks if I like surprises, walks me into the next room where the waterboarding/physical assault comes in.
When I did that part they went a little lighter, but the hood smelled like skunk and he had some kind of fluoride foam on his fingers during the mouth rape. The most disconcerting part was there were two guys, one had a blue headlamp and the other had a red one, and there were just two glows bobbing around the room while you struggled to breath. I got left standing on my own a LOT on my walkthrough, kneeling as well at this point. The standing parts were far and beyond the worst, waiting for whatever awful thing is going to happen next.
Sidenote for the Care Bear room, you could see the alley behind the building out the window in there, and it was as bleak and awful as the rest of the house, so amazing location choice with that. The game of jacks and the colouring book pages were also a great touch.
NOW THIS PART I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE ELSE GOT, when I got to the bottom of the stairs the attendant (who did a stellar job being assertive but panicky) yelled at me to get back on the stairs and did a good crossing guard impression when a guy pulling saran wrap over a large woman's face suddenly came tearing through the room between us.
I've got to say every word here is true. I've been through the Blackout Haunted House two years in a row (although last year it was called the Vortex). It's definitely an extreme experience and not for all tastes.
ReplyDeleteI talk about both visits to the house in detail on my podcast SCREAMQUEENZ at http://www.screamqueenz.com in:
Episode 14 http://screamqueenz.com/episode-14-the-1st-halloween-extravaaaangzaaaa/
Episode 44 http://screamqueenz.com/episode-44-halloween-haunt-a-liciousness/
I personally found my first visit to the house significantly more traumatic than my second, particularly when that girl smeared....well, never mind, it's disgusting...on my face.
Or that part where they took my shoes off and forced me to walk barefoot through a room of used...oh, it's too gruesome to say!
Or at the end where the naked guy wiped his...eek! I can't even think about it...but he did it on my....oh, the horror!!!
Feel free to check out the shows as I talk about other NYC haunts like the NIGHTMARE houses, TERROR on 28th Street and the STEAMPUNK HAUNTED HOUSE.
Cheers,
Patrick
I went this year and feel I may have spoiled it for myself by reading your walk through of previous years. It is a lot better, but I used to have pretty bad anxiety disorder so I was a little nervous. The second most freaked out was just waiting to go in. Watching others go in and then my friend. It was my turn next and I just started having a mild panic attack and freaking out. I got the large black man eating (soup)? Handcuffed and then in the dark for what seemed to be 10 minutes. I am afraid of needles so I am glad that did not happen to me. I have good night vision and could see slightly see the staff standing in front of me with their night vision. Some light would creep in every time a new victim came in from the TV room and I think that distracted me a bit. Also, the noise from other people, the vents for the fog and other noise in general made me snap back into reality. I would stand there so long that my mind would wander and I would start to freak out and wonder if they forgot about me, but like I said, the light and sound keep me sane. If I had a mask on and noise canceling headphones I think I would start to panic. Everything else was pretty much the same as others except I did not get water boarded. I had a wet hood put over me, but no pouring of water. This is when I almost called safety. While breathing heavily under the hot hood, surgical mask and my giant beard a hand came in the hood and rubbed around and then the hood tightened. All I could smell was rubbing alcohol/cheap vodka type smell. I started to hyper ventilate a little and almost passed out from there being no oxygen to breath. I held on as long as I could and finally the mask came off. It was a great time, a good experience, but by no means was it that bad at all. Maybe if I had no idea what it was about and wandered in I would have felt differently.
ReplyDeleteyou dont know what waterboarding is....
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