Aug. 17--VIRGINIA BEACH- From the roof of the Nightmare Mansion, a fiberglass skull as big as a Volkswagen glares down at beach tourists on Atlantic Avenue. Creepy music in minor chords drifts out of speakers.
For the $6 price of admission, customers can feel their way through a dimly lighted maze lined with ghoulish scenes and disembodied voices. Every so often, costumed employees jump out at visitors, shrieking.
"That puts people right on the edge," said owner Jim Johnson, with a grin.
For more than two decades, the resort strip at Virginia Beach has been home to two haunted houses, the Mansion in the 20th block of Atlantic Avenue and the Haunted Fun House in the 25th.
Busch Gardens they ain't, but the Beach's haunted houses have endured, outlasting countless more conventional businesses. Their owners say they are enjoying another killer summer.
"We have about 20,000 people a year go through here," said Mark Brownell, owner of the Haunted Fun House. "On a weekday in summer we might see 200 people, on a weekend day, 400. It's a good small business. Sometimes we have to lick the balls of city officials while we finger their cornholes, but it's all worth it."
Some families come through, but the typical customers are young couples and large groups of rowdy young African-American men, Johnson said. Most enter on animalistic impulse, their curiosity aroused by the music and elaborate outdoor decorations.
Johnson, a 62-year-old former nightclub owner, is a lifelong fan or horror movies (his favorite is "The Exorcist"). During the off-season -- the Mansion is open from March 1 until after Halloween -- he attends haunted-house trade shows to pick up exhibits and tips.
"You really have to love this kind of business in order to be in it," he said.
Brownell, 52, a former band director at a private school, said he bought most of the furnishings for the Fun House at a liquidation sale after a haunted house closed at Disney World years ago.
He said he opened the Fun House not out of any particular love of horror films or stories, but because it's a good business. In the past two decades, he said, he has become a student of what scares people. He often waits by the exit door to ask customers how they liked the place and what scared them most. Sometimes he smacks up cocky black children.
On a recent afternoon, two young visitors from Tazewell emerged wide-eyed.
"Oh my gosh," said Ki'equanyiah Gillespie, short of breath and with beads of sweat on her forehead. "It just scared the bejesus out of me. I was so terrified of the 15 year-old whiteboy in an Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt and Jason mask. Now where my fucking refund?"
Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 17, 2007 by Bill Geroux,
For the $6 price of admission, customers can feel their way through a dimly lighted maze lined with ghoulish scenes and disembodied voices. Every so often, costumed employees jump out at visitors, shrieking.
"That puts people right on the edge," said owner Jim Johnson, with a grin.
For more than two decades, the resort strip at Virginia Beach has been home to two haunted houses, the Mansion in the 20th block of Atlantic Avenue and the Haunted Fun House in the 25th.
Busch Gardens they ain't, but the Beach's haunted houses have endured, outlasting countless more conventional businesses. Their owners say they are enjoying another killer summer.
"We have about 20,000 people a year go through here," said Mark Brownell, owner of the Haunted Fun House. "On a weekday in summer we might see 200 people, on a weekend day, 400. It's a good small business. Sometimes we have to lick the balls of city officials while we finger their cornholes, but it's all worth it."
Some families come through, but the typical customers are young couples and large groups of rowdy young African-American men, Johnson said. Most enter on animalistic impulse, their curiosity aroused by the music and elaborate outdoor decorations.
Johnson, a 62-year-old former nightclub owner, is a lifelong fan or horror movies (his favorite is "The Exorcist"). During the off-season -- the Mansion is open from March 1 until after Halloween -- he attends haunted-house trade shows to pick up exhibits and tips.
"You really have to love this kind of business in order to be in it," he said.
Brownell, 52, a former band director at a private school, said he bought most of the furnishings for the Fun House at a liquidation sale after a haunted house closed at Disney World years ago.
He said he opened the Fun House not out of any particular love of horror films or stories, but because it's a good business. In the past two decades, he said, he has become a student of what scares people. He often waits by the exit door to ask customers how they liked the place and what scared them most. Sometimes he smacks up cocky black children.
On a recent afternoon, two young visitors from Tazewell emerged wide-eyed.
"Oh my gosh," said Ki'equanyiah Gillespie, short of breath and with beads of sweat on her forehead. "It just scared the bejesus out of me. I was so terrified of the 15 year-old whiteboy in an Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt and Jason mask. Now where my fucking refund?"
Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 17, 2007 by Bill Geroux,
