Haunt Review: The 13th Floor and Blood Shed

6100 E. 39th Ave. Denver, CO
http://getscared.com/

No picture for this one; couldn't get anything to turn out. It was too dark and the signs were all too far away. Which brings up the first thing I want to address - organization and signage. This is the one area where this haunt completely and utterly failed. When you pull up, there are four lines - two for ticket buying (regular and VIP) and two for the haunt (regular and VIP, again). This seems like a good way to do it, but there are no signs anywhere and the lines sort of much together. I would expect that, with a separate ticket window for each type of ticket, they might label each window so that, for instance, someone buying a VIP ticket doesn't wait in the longer regular ticket line unnecessarily. Alternatively, they could have staff directing people to where they need to be. This haunt always has massive crowds (lines around the block), and they really need to figure out how to deal with them better.

But enough about the line - how were the haunts? Kind of a mixed bag. Blood Shed is first, and is the more modest of the two, running probably only a third of the length of the 13th Floor. It was, in some ways, the more effective of the two due to the fact that everything seemed to be running at full steam. The actors were well placed and worked for their scares, sticking with characters and not relying on the simple "jump out of the darkness" effect. Props and sets were fairly minimal with the exception of a few rooms, but what was there worked well. Quite enjoyable, but over far too soon.

After you exit Blood Shed, you are directed to the second of three lines for the 13th Floor (the first was outside, pre-Blood Shed). Entertainment for the line consisted of dancing girls on a stage, which was fairly amusing. Still, the haunt is very strictly designed around a particular theme with associated mythology, and I think it would have been better to spend the line time presenting some of that mythology.

Once you get through the line, there's a short (fake) elevator ride down to the underground 13th Floor and you reach the third (mercifully short) line - then it's finally off into the haunt. One thing I'll say for the 13th Floor - they have some really nice moments. Some of my favorites included a walk over a bottomless pit, a pitch-black hallway that you have to feel your way through (with bugs on the walls), a giant snake leaping out of a corpse, the spiked wall, and a ghostly bride who kept disappearing around the corner in front of us. The problem is that in between these great moments, there was frequently a whole lot of wandering through dark hallways with nothing happening. Also, there seemed to be some technical issues - at one point, we walked through what clearly was a vortex tunnel, but it wasn't vortexing. Also, near the end, there was a very impressive giant demon monster/thing, but it seems like it ought to have been moving, just a little. Still, overall, I think the good outweighs the bad - but given just how popular the place seems to be, I was expecting a little more oomph.

7/10