Haunt Review: City of the Dead

7007 E 88th Avenue, Henderson, CO
http://www.cityofthedeadhaunt.com/

Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I wasn’t sure going in what to expect with City of the Dead, since they are a first year haunt, but they seem to have skipped over all of the typical first year troubles, presenting a slick, well-oiled machine. From what I hear, some of the people from the now-defunct Scream Park are involved in this haunt, which may have helped them get up and running. It also didn’t hurt that someone clearly threw several large boxes of money at this haunt.

Before discussing the haunt proper, I’d like to mention the waiting area. They’ve set up several tents with vendors and food, as well as a hearse with coffins and zombies that you can have your picture taken with. I didn’t partake in anything, but I really appreciate it nonetheless because it gives more of a carnival atmosphere to the whole event. They also handed out a great prop souvenir, the Departed News:


This was probably intended to help people pass the time in line, but it was too dark to read in there. Still, nice touch. Fortunately, it was a moot point for me because, perhaps because it was early in the night, perhaps because it was early in the season, or perhaps because of the ridiculous cold, there were not very many other patrons. We only had a 10 minute wait, tops.

So – on to City of the Dead itself (SPOILERS here, primarily about the overall structure of the haunt). They have two major elements working in their favor here: Theme and scope. More than any other haunt that I can recall (outside of the movie-based ones at Universal Studios), they set a theme for the haunt and stick to it, start to finish. The idea is that there is a city hidden within Denver, which is just like any other city except that it is populated by the dead. You start out walking through a military checkpoint and security station, through what can only be described as undead customs, and finally emerge into the city. This is where that second element comes into play – the scope of this haunt is amazing. When you first emerge into the city itself, you find yourself at the end of an entire city block, cars and all. I’ve seen sets this big before, but not at an indoor haunt where everything has to be built.

For the rest of the haunt you wander in and out of buildings, passing through the barber, the butcher, the nursing home, the school, and several more. The actors in these scenes were generally pretty impressive – I’d say about 80% had settled fully into their characters and seemed well able to improvise interactions once they got through their scripted material, which is a pretty good percentage. I was also impressed that they would sometimes follow you around, popping up again in unexpected places far from where you first saw them. Also, the scope of the thing again came into play here – there were a tremendous number of actors, including several who seemed to essentially be part of the scenery, just wandering around the background looking creepy.

Eventually, you wind up escaping through the sewers, thus maintaining the theme and story to the very end. Extremely impressive the whole way through, which some shockingly elaborate costumes. Be warned, though – it’s much more of a gross-out haunt than most that I’ve seen, and it is quite disgusting at points. That just added to the fun for me, but your mileage may vary.

10/10