Thrillvania Thrill Park, Terrell, TX

October 28th, 2009

(2 votes)

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Thrillvania Thrill Park is one of the better known haunted houses in the industry and deservedly so. It has history, a well known founder in Lance Pope and a group of people who continue to update and improve on the original concept.

Thrillvania Thrill Park is now made up of eight different attractions offering scares and entertainment for all age groups. Animatronic centric theater-style shows that tell haunting tales are great for younger guests, while those looking for a classic haunted mansion type haunt can visit Verdun Manor. If you like dark mazes you can do one of those and if you want a more intense scare, you can try the chain link maze, the trail or the clown themed attraction. If you just want to hang out, you can do that too and enjoy the food while listening to the music on the midway. There really is something for everyone.

There are many good points to Thrillvania but I can only touch on a few of them so I will highlight a couple. First off, I love the pyro effects. Thrillvania has flame coming from two chimneys on Verdun Manor, a prop in the swamp and two more on the trail. They really add something to the show that you don’t see in a lot of places. Another strength is the detail in the sets, particularly Verdun Manor. The level of detail is wonderful and is consistent throughout the entire attraction. The third aspect I will point out is the acting. The actors were very enthusiastic, had great timing and knew their scares very well.

One actor in particular was just awesome and I had the luxury to stand off to the side and watch him work. He was dressed as a scarecrow and was placed to the side of a doorway that guests had to enter. He stood still and then scared the group as they were about to enter. It is a simple but very effective scare that many haunts utilize in one form or another. He was very good at being still and timing his scare, but what made so special was the way he worked the crowd after the scare. He didn’t try to stay on the scare too long. If the startle didn’t get them, he didn’t growl or intimidate, he went into improv comedy mode and was hilarious. I saw many groups go through and the usual scenario was that he would startle which would get screams and then laughs from the group, then he would start having fun with them and get them to laugh more. Truly a very talented actor who gave folks an incredible time.

My thanks to Michael Malec who runs the operations at Thrillvania for showing me around and even letting me climb on the roof!