The 1999 Rocky Point Haunted House

Salt Lake City, Utah

For the 20th anniversary of the Rocky Point Haunted House in 1999, Cydney and crew decided to create a 'greatest hits' type of event called RPHH20. What in previous years had been a single mega-haunt, was divided into a multi-element venue. Both Rocky Point locations were built as 6 separately themed attractions. Designed as a linear progression, a short queue line separated the exit of the previous element and the façade of the next attraction.

Even before you enter the front doors of the Rocky Point Haunted House, you are keenly aware that this is no ordinary Halloween production. It is only Thursday night, but the parking lot is full, and the line of customers is wrapped around the building and extends as far as you can see. The spotlight is shining its beams into the cloudy October skies, hoping to bring even more willing victims. When the spotlight makes its way to the front of the building, a large custom mural for the 1999 logo is displayed, along with a collection of banners from an impressive list of sponsors that most haunts only dream of acquiring. The sound track begins to set the mood, while the ten foot tall grim reaper who stalks the line is already making the customers wonder if they should proceed inside.

feel as though you just stepped into an actual graveyard with towering brick walls, large iron gates and lifelike mausoleums. Outside the gates, on top of the brick walls, sit two huge griffins that were actual props used in the movie, The Haunting. They even turn their necks to stare at you, just like they did in the movie. The ticket booth and the entrance are beautifully designed and painted to look like granite tombs. After purchasing your ticket and the 'crypt keeper' allows you to pass, you cannot begin to imagine what you are about to experience.

The first real scares come in an incredibly detailed mausoleum where several corpses are climbing out of their coffins to reach down and grab at the patrons. The mausoleum opens into a huge graveyard, complete with real trees and grass, plenty of fog, tombstones and large crypts, which have video monitors playing movies to entertain the customers while they wait to enter the first attraction, The Haunted Manor. With a façade used in the television show, Promised Land, The Haunted Manor, separated by its own brick wall and iron gates, towers over the graveyard. If the scenery, movies and zombies lurking around aren't enough entertainment, periodically twenty professional dancers dressed as zombies, perform an amazing routine to Michael Jackson's well-known hit, Thriller. All this for ten bucks, and we are not even inside the first attraction yet!

Filled with creaking doors, floating ghosts, busts that follow you, a library with talking spirits, doors and walls and ceilings that move and stretch, The Haunted Manor has plenty of ghoulish characters who pop out to surprise you when you least expect it. Exiting the back porch of the Manor, you come upon the Creepy Classics facade, a massive stone entrance, with each of the 'Classic' horror movie monsters represented in carved relief. The first hallway opens up to Dracula's Crypt, with dramatic 14 foot high ceilings, cathedral windows, shiny black and silver coffins, and every wall lined with heavy black draperies. Renfield, the three vampire brides (one who speaks only French) and of course, Dracula himself are all there, fangs bared, looking for a quick bite!

Next is The Mummy's Tomb, where animated mummies fall out at you from niches in the walls, and more lively dead pharaohs attack from every corner of the lavishly painted and decorated Egyptian motif. The feeling of dread heightens as you hear the sounds and even catch the smell of the next room, as one final mummy scares you out the door and up a bridge, onto the platform which overlooks the Black Lagoon. The Creature, hiding in a four foot deep pond, surrounded by jungle foliage, carved rock walls, flowing waterfalls, and plenty of vines and fog to block your view, lunges up with a splash, creating one of the best scares of the attraction.

The jungle turns into a forest where an old gypsy woman with her wagon warns patrons of danger ahead. The pathway illuminated by moonlight reveals the face of a wolf in the nearby trees. Suddenly the real Wolfman leaps out from behind a tree trunk on the other side of the path. Hurrying into the next room, patrons are greeted by Igor watching over a fully equipped laboratory. After a quick scare from the doctor's assistant, visitors meet Dr. Frankenstein and his hideous creation in the next room. There are bubbling test tubes, Jacobs ladders, various electrical gadgets and an enormous Tesla coil. If the monster doesn't scare you here, the twelve-foot lightning bolts that shoot out from the Tesla coil certainly will. 

Patrons may be looking for an intermission at this point, but there is no time to rest. The next attraction is the 3-D Black light maze. A totally new addition to the Rocky Point Haunted House, the walls of the Psycho Circus come alive after putting on the 3-D Chromatec™ glasses. The façade in the form of a giant clown face seems to jump off of the wall, as the patrons enter the mirror filled, maze-like circus tent. The entire 3-D attraction was painted by artists Jim Crouch, Brandt Marshall, Scott Petti and Greg Overton, scenic artists who also do work for Disneyland. The walls inside the circus tent, the Freak Show maze, the rubber room, the slanted halls, the vortex tunnel and the moving floor, all covering nearly ten thousand square feet of space, were given the detail that even Walt Disney himself would have been proud of. Inside this attraction we find the Dot Room, which Cydney made famous at last year's Transworld Convention. (See Related article this issue) Once again one of the favorite rooms of customers, this year, the dot room was in 3-D.

After turning in your glasses to the last of the creepy clown characters, a not so friendly army sergeant in the next attraction, Area 51, greets patrons with questions about why you want to proceed where aliens have been spotted. He checks the hand of each patron to make sure they are not one of them. Once cleared to enter the 'restricted area,' patrons find themselves in the middle of a corn field, (the corn stalks are from the Stephen King movie, The Stand.) the crash site of a giant alien space ship. Entering a section of the ship that is so tilted it is difficult to stand up, several alien creatures pop out through windows and from behind wreckage, making the patrons wish they had stayed behind as the sergeant suggested. Outside the wreck, the cornfield continues and patrons stumble onto several giant alien spider creatures, which are original characters Cydney created for the show. To escape the alien spiders, patrons crawl through a metal vent into another piece of the crashed ship. The spaceship-looking walls are actually painted plastic pallets Cydney discovered at the post office. This part of the ship is filled with alien embryos from the X-Files and several other alien creatures collected from a variety of alien movies. The only exit from the ship is through the legs of the 14 foot tall King Alien who reaches down to block the passage.

Back in the corn field the sound of bats is heard coming from the mouth of a giant Bat Cave. Carved out of foam to resemble rock, the cave was actually part of the set from the movie Bats, which was filmed in Salt Lake just last summer. Dozens of bats, also used in the movie, drop down on the patrons as actors in bat suits jump out of cave tunnels to scare the patrons. The next scene, a two-level barn is also filled with bats and several actors, bitten and rabid from the bats. As visitors pass an old out house, the door swings open to show the skeleton of a person whose flesh has been eaten by the bats, "sitting on the throne." The 'sight gag' is not over however, as the skeleton urinates, the stream shoots out and hits the gawking patrons. Although skinless, his bladder still seems intact! 

The last of the six attractions, The Michael Myers Maze of Mayhem, was one Cydney chose and designed to go along with her theme of RPHH 20, to celebrate the 20th year of haunting for the Rocky Point Haunted House. She has rarely included slashers in her haunted houses, choosing to steer away from gore and violence, but since Michael Myers had recently celebrated his 20th anniversary in the movie Halloween (H20), she decided to pair up with him and invite a few of his cohorts as well.

Patrons enter the final element under a giant knife blade held by the likeness of Michael Myers surrounded by Freddy Kreuger, Jason, Leatherface and the Scream character. Patrons are immediately surrounded by the characters in a wax museum that seems to be missing an exit. Soon it is discovered that the wax figure of Michael is real and the only way out is through him. Just as the patrons think Michael is behind them, they see his familiar masked face through a round porthole in a green door. By the time the patrons open the door, he has disappeared. But before they can catch their breath, he appears, with his huge knife from behind the kitchen cupboards and from behind the closet doors in the bedroom. 

Just as the patrons think they have escaped safely, the sound of a familiar movie soundtrack tells them another terror is just around the corner. "One, two, Freddy's coming for you..." is heard as patrons find themselves standing in front of Nancy's house from Nightmare on Elm Street. The door of the mailbox suddenly flies open and the infamous 'Freddy glove' with razor sharp blades reaches out. Moving onto the porch, patrons pass the little blond girl sitting on a tricycle. They enter the facade through the red door into the musty green hallway where the rest of the song's lyrics are crudely painted on the walls. The patrons know Freddy is there, but never expect him to come out of the paintings on the walls as he does, twice! Then chasing them into the basement boiler room, Freddy plays a deadly game of hide and seek with the patrons.

Narrowly escaping the glove, patrons enter a pine tree forest. The sign in front of a real log cabin reads Camp Crystal Lake. Suddenly from out of the trees Jason steps, scattering patrons into the cabin where two more Jasons await, ready to jump out at the patrons from behind the closet door and the top of the staircase. 

Entering the next hallway, patrons find themselves flanked on both sides by Scream characters. They seem to be mannequins, until the head and mask of the one facing you comes flying out and over the heads of the patrons. As you exit, one of the Scream characters leaps from his perch, hurrying the patrons into a black maze where a Scream character seems to be around every corner. It was not really Courtney Cox, but an equally freaked out female actor jumps up and bangs on the glass window of the sound room, too late to warn the patrons though, as the last Scream character slashes at the patrons with his butcher knife. 

As patrons enter a run-down farmhouse, they see furniture and decorations made of human bone. It could only be the site of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the home of Leatherface. Patrons pass through some incredible re-creations of the house, where his disgusting brother cuts his hand and picks at his head. Two other rooms inside the house are filled with body parts, bones and bird feathers, some of them from the original movie. Suddenly through plastic slats leading to the kitchen where he slaughtered his victims, Leatherface, with chainsaw in hand, chases the patrons into a grove of trees and out of the show!

The 1999 Rocky Point Haunted House had so much to see that I feel worn out just writing about it! The amazing thing about this show, is not just its size, but its quality. The entire show is redesigned each year, and set up in just eight weeks. Every room is decorated with such detail that you almost have to go through it in the daytime to appreciate it. Each room has its own custom sound effects. The costumes are original and elaborate. The make-up is absolutely incredible. The characters are all volunteers, but perform as well as any professional actors I have seen. Every piece came together to make this a top notch haunted house that is not only impressive, but enjoyable, entertaining, and yes, very, very scary! 

Justin Berry is a staff writer for the Utah Statesman and an avid Haunted House and horror movie fan.