World’s Scariest Haunted House: Normally when you visit a haunted house at the fairground it’s pretty pants. It usually just involves some fake cobwebs hanging up, stock sound effects of thunder and lightning, and some dude who jumps out wearing a dodgy mask. It’s a funny experience, but rarely the stuff of nightmares.
Well, if it’s genuine fear you’re after, we’ve got just the one for you – in the form of a haunted house dubbed the world’s scariest. And yep, it sounds genuinely terrifying.
McKamey Manor in San Diego, California, has been described as a real-life horror movie, which sees visitors travel between four locations. The entire thing is filmed, meaning spectators can then watch the drama unfold from webcams – even though the whole haunt can last between four and eight hours.
Credit: StoryTrender
The house – which was recently featured on Netflix’s Dark Tourist – can only accommodate two visitors at a time, with applicants having to be background checked by the experience’s founder, Russ McKamey.
McKamey, who is a fan of horror movies like Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and House on Haunted Hill, has said that the experience has been known to make grown men cry.
Russ said: “Nothing is like what we do. It’s like living your own horror movie.
“There are four different locations, which have been streamlined for hardcore fans, determined to make it through.
“I consider the people who take part in these haunts as my friends because I research and spend time with them before they go on the haunt.
“Everything is very interactive: the experience – and challenges – are to prove what you can and can’t do.”
Credit: StoryTrender
Even though McKamey claims to have invested over $500,000 (£383,000) into the experience, he doesn’t ask guests for any money – just dog food donated to Operation Greyhound.
No two visits are ever the same, and the theme changes regularly, but the Sun reports that special effects, animatronics, actors and live animals such as tarantulas, spiders and rats are used.
Participants are also regularly bound, slapped and even made to eat their own vomit, while others have alleged that they’ve had their heads shavedd. McKamey told the Guardian that one person even suffered a heart attack during the haunt back in 2008.
Amy Milligan, of East County in San Diego, claimed that she had been waterboarded at McKamey Manor in 2016, telling the San Diego Union-Tribune that her head was repeatedly pushed under water while her hands were tied.
She said: “You give them so much trust and they just break it by waterboarding you and slapping you.”
However, McKamey denied those claims, telling the Union Tribune: “We do not waterboard, we do not even kind of waterboard.
“It’s psychological, what we’re doing. They’re safe all the time.”
No one has ever lasted the full eight hours, but one woman known as Sarah P manged to last six hours in the house before having to give up.
Absolutely not. Nope.
