Mitch SorensenWhat: Deadmonton Haunted House
When: September 30th to November 5th
Where: 10233 Jasper Avenue (Old Paramount Theatre)
Tickets: $20 – Standard admission at the door; $25 – Halloween week admission at the door; $40 – Speed Pass (available online)
https://deadmontonhouse.com/
Ryan Kozar’s haunted house is a far cry from the near-inhumanity of San Diego’s infamous McKamey Manor. “Things like (McKamey) really test your limits. Deadmonton, on the other hand, is still about fear, but it’s mostly about fun.”
Each year, Kozar spends months of full-time work planning and designing every detail of the Deadmonton House, weaving together a terrifying narrative that has visitors tiptoeing through the transformed Paramount Theatre, as they try to navigate the seemingly endless twists and turns in the dark. His efforts are all worth it once the first eager visitors — myself included — inevitably find themselves shrieking within the first few rooms.
When I arrived at Deadmonton last week, I was greeted by a demented, unblinking clown, who swayed rhythmically in the glow of the re-purposed theatre sign above, and gestured towards the doors behind them. As someone who scares easily and has a crippling (and irrational) fear of clowns, this was the least confidence-inspiring way to begin a night I was already unsure I would survive. After about an hour of alternately being amazed by a talented fire-eater and freaked out by masked horror characters and clowns — who would occasionally give chase if I tried to not-so-subtly run away — it was time to actually go into the House. I was quaking from excitement, but mostly from fear. Once I stepped through the circus tent entrance (marked with the face of a clown-creature even more demented than Pennywise from Stephen King’s It), I immediately felt anxious — a feeling that refused to relent the entire time I stumbled from one horror to another.
With extraordinarily dedicated actors, well-developed scenes inspired by all your favourite thrillers, creative props, and carefully timed jump scares, Deadmonton House keeps its maze of rooms unexpected enough to get a reaction out of anyone who’s looking to have a good time — whether that’s screams of excitement, tears of terror, or unhinged laughter. While the House is definitely fun, it’s also disconcerting for the more faint-of-heart (i.e. me). Needless to say, I gripped my editor’s hand so tightly the whole time that when we emerged into the light of the exit, she had imprints on her fingers from where her ring dug into her skin.
Kozar wasn’t surprised when I told him how effective I’d found the House to be. “It hits all the really major phobias,” he says, chuckling. “Clowns, dolls, even dentists — it’s all in there.”
Though he’s a haunted house fan and a fear aficionado, Kozar says he’s far from the biggest horror movie fan — and he isn’t easy to scare, either.
“You might think I go home and watch scary movies every night, but I don’t,” he says. “It’s true that a lot of the actors (at Deadmonton) are huge, huge horror fans, and I don’t mind horror films myself, but a lot of horror movies seem, to me, way too cheesy to take seriously.”
I disagree, Ryan. I disagree.
Check out the Deadmonton operation calendar here.
