Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
I stopped by the haunt over the weekend to film my reaction and I can confirm the Springfield haunt is the scariest in the Miami Valley — especially if you get a touch pass allowing hands on interaction.
Last year on Nov. 1, Messaros and his team started gutting the haunted house to build new scenes. The only things that remained were the vortex tunnel and swinging bridge. By mid-Nov., they started building a new addition to feature the swamp scene and a new crypts scene.
“You have to mix it up every year,” Messaros said. “We’re already starting to order props for next year.”
Something he hopes to add more of are animatronics. He said he is expecting to double their animatronics with very large ones that people around the Dayton region haven’t seen before.
Face Your Fears Hotel of Terror is pushing over 10,000-square-feet, which takes the average person 25 minutes to walk through. The house is truly a haunted house built in 1858.
His team of 40 actors start their day at the haunt around 4 p.m. for makeup and then are ready to scare customers.
Messaros’ love for haunted houses started with his father, who ran the Enon Jaycees Haunted House. He said it closed when he was 16, but he remembers how much fun it was scaring people.
“We had a lot of fun as kids growing up doing it and this kind of fell in my lap and one thing led to another and I thought man that would be a perfect haunted house and that’s what we did.”
As Face Your Fears Hotel of Terror is in the midst of its 13th year, they hope to once again be voted #1 Scariest Haunt in Ohio by Scare Factor.
Last year, the haunt was ranked the top haunted house in the Miami Valley and the second best in Ohio (following The Dent Schoolhouse in Cincinnati).
Other haunted attractions Scare Factor ranked highly in Ohio includes Ghoul Brothers House of Horrors in Akron, Akron Haunted School House and Laboratory, Blood Prison in Mansfield and Fear Columbus.
MORE DETAILS
Face Your Fears Hotel of Terror, located at 1291 Cold Springs Road, is open 8 p.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 2.
General admission is $20 with touch passes available for $2. The haunt also has fast passes for $30, offering a wait approximately 1/3 the length of general admission or VIP admission for $40, which allows you to skip the line completely.
For more information, visit faceyourfearshaunt.com or the haunt’s Facebook page (@FaceYourFearsHotelofTerror). To purchase tickets, visit app.hauntpay.com/events/face-your-fears-hotel-of-terror-2023-new.
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