Dr. Murphy and his inmates hide in dark corners waiting to catch you off guard as you try to make your way out of the asylum. But you won’t want to escape the scares and thrills offered by Macabre Haunt’s The Asylum.

In my six years of training, being a makeup artist, acting, and designing the St.Matthew haunted house, this house has become one of my favorite haunted houses to visit.

As customers enter, they are greeted by Nurse Tania or the overseer. She was a little aggressive at first, which seemed to set the mood and she told customers to stand facing the wall, do ten jumping jacks, slow dance, or do five pushups. She was one of the most serious actors I have come upon.

The actors in the house were very interactive with the customers, talking, but not touching them, and make visitor truly feel like they are in an asylum. The house was a traditional scare, not using robots or tons of gore, and being from the haunted house business, I can say that this house was created with lots of time and effort and the designers really thought about what their customers would enjoy. There were no robots, just quality actors who seemed to have a lot of fun teasing and getting personal scare time with their customers.

One of the most creative and fun rooms is the stuffed animal room where what seemed to be an innocent child’s play room turned into a nightmare. Coming into the room there were stuffed animals everywhere and covering the walls. Once in the room, a massive teddy bear with burnt out eyes stands up and hovers over customers. It’s slightly intimidating, but it was quite an amusing room.

In my time in the haunt business, I have never seen anything like the character Ashley. Her character is missing all of her teeth and her eyes had been removed by Dr. Murphy. Walking into the room, the innocent, or so one may think, girl with a bag over her head on a bed. She slowly creeps off the bed, her arms twisting in different directions and the more a customer moves away from her the faster and more scary her movements become. She was truly one of the best actors I have seen in awhile.

This house was totally worth $17 dollars and definitely worth the drive to Antioch. I would give this house a 5 out of 5 stars because The Asylum is nothing like the $40 tickets to Six Flags Fright Fest; it is better. This is definitely a place to try if you’re looking for a good scare. The Asylum is open Thursdays through Sundays from 7 until close.