Haunted Attraction Reviewed: Laurel’s House of Horror
Website: www.laurelhaunt.com
Location of Attraction: Laurel Maryland
Date of Review: Friday October 5th 2018
Total Number of Attractions Available: One + FOUR Escape Rooms
Overall Haunted Attraction Rating: 8/10
Entertainment and Food Rating: 7/10
Atmosphere Rating: 8/10
Overall Costume and Make Up Rating: 8/10
Overall Cast and Crew Rating: 8/10
Overall Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 8.5/10
Overall Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 7.5/10
Overall Feedback: Laurel’s House of Horror never fails to amaze our squad! Back for their 5th year of providing fun and scares, Laurel’s House of Horror has once again upped the ante and provided by far their best performance to date! This is our 6th time visiting Laurel’s House of Horror in the past four years and boy has it been fun to watch them grow! We most recently visited during their “Halfway to Halloween” event back in May and boy have they changed since then! We are always amazed with how they block out the shopping center vibe and turn their corner of the shopping center into its own eerie element! When parking your car in front of Chuck E Cheese it’s hard to picture ever getting into the “Halloween mindset” but just moments after walking in the doors to Laurel’s House of Horror you’ll feel fully immersed into the Halloween season! As guests wait in line outside they are entertained with some phenomenal line/roaming actors. The Nun and Michael Myers were by far fan favorites and were often found terrorizing guests. Once inside the theater Laurel’s capitalizes and highlights a lot of the unique features of being housed in a movie theater. They still utilize the old concession counter as their personal concession stand. Light refreshments and snack foods can be purchased onsite but there are dozens of local good eateries surrounding Laurel’s House of Horror. Plastered all along the walls are old and new movie posters signs. Heck, they even use an entire movie theater as a scene itself! We couldn’t help but feel like we were waiting to see a movie and a downright scary one! As you venture through this haunt what you won’t find are the high end animatronics that other haunts have plastered throughout. What you’ll find is handmade and detailed props with a small hint of animatronics thrown in. We love the truly unique and well crafted set designs; it's not often you visit a haunt with all handmade sets which in our eyes are perfectly crafted. Laurel’s House of Horror is definitely your definition of today’s old school style haunt… handmade scenes and props to go with interactive and high energy actors! It’s clear that a lot of time, energy and thought went into each scene. There definitely is no story line to this haunt as you’ll encounter a little bit of everything! They do a great job executing on the typical scare factors. Guests should expect to encounter snakes, spiders, clowns, chainsaws, horror film characters, darkness, claustrophobia and much more! Laurel’s House of Horror made several changes throughout the attraction for the 2018 haunt season. Multiple new surprises certainly caught us off guard. Sorry folks, no spoilers… you’ll have to check out these changes for yourself. For 2018 our favorite scene by far had to be the “Laurel Theater” scene. In years past we felt this scene was a bit dull and bland, primarily due to poor acting. We were pleasantly surprised with how well the actors executed this scene this go around. We truly felt as if we were on set of a Broadway musical venturing through the “Laurel Theater” and “Dressing Room”! Kudos to the actors as due to minimal animatronics the actors have a great deal of responsibility to bring their scenes to life while also providing the scare factor. The actors executed perfectly which lead to many “gotcha” moments! Both pop scares and theatrical skits will be found on your journey giving you a good mix of laughs and screams! It’s definitely safe to say that they’ll surely provide some good scares to your typical haunt goers so no worries there. Several areas of dead space were encountered due to the shortage of actors. If another 10-20 actors were scattered throughout the haunt we have no doubt that this would positively impact the overall haunt experience. Although our squad will certainly take quality actors over quantity of actors any day! Laurel’s House of Horror is definitely one of the longer indoor walk through attractions in the area. We continually questioned when the heck we’d get out of this place. Each time we thought we had reached the exit we were greeted with more scenes and of course more scares. Just to clarify, this is a good questioning of when the heck we’d reach the exit... we’ve encountered our fair share of poorly executed attractions that are drug out and made unnecessarily long, Laurel’s House of Horror definitely isn’t one of those! Depending on your pace Laurel’s is a solid 15-20 minute action packed experience! So for $25 it is more than worth a visit to Laurel’s House of Horror! Back for 2018 is the RIP pass! Included in the RIP pass is admission to the haunted house, an escape room of your choice and fast pass entry into the haunt! We’ve participated in the escape rooms at Laurel’s House of Horror a few times and they are seriously nothing short of excellent. While at Laurel’s we did not participate in any of the four current escape rooms this go around (Stranger Things, Race Against Jigsaw, Escape the Movies and American Horror Story) but we got to take a sneak peak at some of the rooms! We were blown away by the set design, theming and overall game play in the Stranger Things and American Horror Story rooms; definitely give the escape rooms a whirl! Long story short we once again had a blast at Laurel’s House of Horror. They provide a unique experience that all haunt goers should check out! The fact that they are only in their 5th year of operation and have grown and flourished the way they have is truly a testament to Charlene and Rich (owners) and their staffs passion for the Halloween season! Laurel’s House of Horror makes for the perfect addition to any date night, family night, friend night, or whatever the occasion may be. So if you’re looking for something spooky and fun to do we definitely encourage you to pay a visit to Laurel’s House of Horror!