We will start

with saying something nice.

When they teach you to be a manager, one of the things they tell you to do when you have something negative/unpleasant to say, start with a compliment.

So when taking about the haunts we visited at Hauntcon, I will start with my favorite surprise.

Monster Mayhem

First off, marketing being my life, I cannot tell you how impressed I was with their website, well, not the actual website, that is a bit under developed :) But their welcome screen had (has) a special message for us Hauntcon attendees. How cool is that - talk about attention to detail! I would give the staff person that came up with that idea a cookie! :)

Now....

I have to say, that the cynical Frog Queen was out in full force when we drove up to the pizza place/bar that the bus stopped in front of. Not another one of these (cheap and unoriginal) haunts! When I got inside it seems my suspicions were confirmed...this did not look promising. Maybe this scary bar is actually the haunt? :)

After our pizza, someone came out and said that they will be leading us through the kitchen down to the haunt.

Really? Did he just say through the kitchen, where I am guessing they made my pizza?!?? I think I need a drink! "I am headed to the bar, does anyone want anything!"

Okay, I am thinking, let's get through this quick and back on the first bus so we can get out of here - I am not staying for the lights on tour - no way.

We are indeed lead through the kitchen, past someone who was smoking :) and a whole bin of sharp knives.....at that point I thought that would be the scariest thing I would see.

Let me say that once again I am glad to be wrong.

Monster Mayhem is the most original haunt I have seen in a LONG time.

No scary clowns, no bloody morgue, no dot room, no vortex tunnel and especially, my favorite, no one chased me out of the haunt with a chain saw :) (possibly a first!)

No, my fellow bloggers, this haunt was based on the Resident Evil game/movies. Like them or not (me, well more not), this made for a great and unique haunt experience. The whole haunt was like walking through the game/movie. They had guys in combat wear walking us through; some turned in to zombies....others got killed saving us. Very entertaining.

They did the whole underground experiment facility quite well. They have great attention to detail, the actors were great, the and the props were amazing.

The prop that impressed me the most was actually not a prop at all.

You come around a corner and a green monster type pop-up prop goes off as you walk by; as we all know, pop-up props do :) But this prop got up and followed us down the hall!!!! OMG! It is a person in a suit! He/she impersonated a pop-up very well!! I loved it.

So, now I HAD to stay for the lights on tour. It was just as impressive. Husband and the guys from EFX-TEK were impressed with all the prop controllers and the control center. I enjoyed all the details.

Great haunt! I wish I lived in the area, I would go through it again. I guess it was not "scary" in the traditional haunt way, but I give it a lot of credit for originality.

Back to that management training thing......

saying something nice before you say something negative is so cliché in management that I think many people do not believe or appreciate a compliment, because they are now, often, followed by something critical.

Which my fellow bloggers......leads me to my next Hauntcon haunted house post coming shortly. Yeah, the next one involves a miniature golf/arcade/bowling alley/pizza place/bar. You know what they say about stretching yourself too thin. :)