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Visitor’s Reviews

 


From: david
hey micheal myers ur the best i went to that haunted house i almost peed my pants

From: Terry
I went through this Haunted House the Saturday before last (the 16) & I was very impressed. I'm from Kentucky & drove all the way up there just for this. It was by far the best one I've been to yet. The person being pinhead that night scared the living sh*t out of me. Good job guys, you kick a**.

From: hitenmitsurugi666
you guys did SO good and i give you my best compliments on your jobs! I hope you work next year so i can go thru again! Keep doing good dudes!

From: Drew
I attended the chamber of horrors on saturday night and i was very impressed! just wanted to say good job ed. the effects were awesome and you had some pretty good actors. so far this year i have been through all the haunts at fearfest, 97.3s haunted house, nightmare at the beach, and the chambers and in my opinion, the chambers has been the best so far. Thanks for a good time!

From: Pooge (Paige)
Yo! I went to this one, and it was awesome, I almost s*it my pants when Michael came out!!!

From: Lindsay 
 I went to the chamber of horror over the weekend and you two in the coolers were the people who really scared me the most especially when you put me in that big cooler! The Chainsaw Guy was awsome his character was so alive and so real it made me feel like i was really in the movie ( And thats a good thing). Freddy was awsome also, he was a very good actor, great job!

 


From: Gary
Chambers of horrors seems to be the best haunt in Middletown. We went back friday and WOW what a difference from opening night. We really enjoyed the Haunt this time around. Two Thumbs up for making so many improvements.

From: Pacifier Chones
I went to the Chambers of Horrors...it was fantastic! The reason I liked the Chambers was because the entire time I went through I was jumping and screaming like a schoolgirl at an Usher concert. I checked it out with my pal Needlenose (that's his monster name) and he jumped and screamed all night.

From: Eric from Cincinnati

 

All I can say is HOLY SH*T...this was and is the best haunted house I have ever been to!! I would definitely recommend it to everyone who likes to get the SH*T scared outta them! On a 10-point scale I would definitely have to give the Chambers a 12!!! Great work Chambers Crew!!!! I will be back for another haunt!!! Thanks for all the fun and screams!

 

 

 

From: sabaka2

 

I think its cool what you guys are doing and I be visiting you guys soon keep up the good work!!!!!!!! All right man, Freddy’s back so don’t be late man. Freddy’s my boy friend! Keep Freddy in your haunted house!

 

  

From: Randy (House of Doom)

The Chambers proved to be well worth the drive to Middletown. It had a nice lengthy tour (over 16 minutes) and has all sorts of special effects and situations no one else is doing around here. There are moving walls, unstable ceilings, dead end rooms guaranteed to send a clausterphobic into spasms, a furnace room, and the very cool talking head on a plate among others. The haunt is located inside an old brick building (an old restaurant that has sat empty for 20 years) and uses lots of the infrastructure and old equipment to its advantage, such as the meat locker/freezer and the huge main fireplace. I found one room in particular quite creepy-upon entering you see a wheelchair bound old, cadaverous man sitting quietly in the center of the room-but he's not quiet for long! They use a lot of good looking masks and the actors really get into what they are doing. Another plus is that there are not many smaller or younger actors, and the ones that are there have roles that make their size a non-factor. The overall tone of the event is intense, meant to startle and scare. Those looking for a night on the dark side would find this haunt fits the ticket perfectly

HOUSE OF DOOM!!! 2004 Awards for the Chambers!
              Best Sinister Atmosphere
              Best Room-The Meat Locker (freezers)
              2004 Cincinnati Area Haunt Ratings - The Chambers Of Horror-4 1/2 Stars-Excellent Plus!

                             

 

Chambers of Horror-"The Devil lives in these  Chambers"

 

 

 

Finally a haunt in MIddletown that's easy to find.But it should be easy to find since I tried to find it once before,but to find that I was on the right street,but at a different address.Yes,they moved .Luckily a guy was standing in the middle of the street with a sign taped to his back pointing the way.I swear,someone is gonna hit that poor bastard.Strobe lights flashed as we entered the parking lot.The crowd was small,but fear was in the air.The living dead man welcomed us in as we began our journey into fear.

 

 

 

 

 

Length-8:Overall it was pretty lengthy, with little lag time in between.Luckily when there were pauses,you were entertained by actors..They actually split half the group up and had them come out and try to scare you.That's something different

 

 

 

 

 

Design-9:What's this,a haunt where you actually know where your going.There were trap doors cleverly placed that were locked at one time and opened another.They had your typical Miceal Myers tv room,your Freddy Krueger Boiler Room,your crawling tunnel and so on and so on.But,unlike some haunts they were used perfectly.I won't give any of the secret rooms away.You'll just have to visit and see yourself.

 

 

 

Acting-9:The best acting so far this haunt season.I loved the undead guy in the suit who told you the rules and showed you the way .Back up to the yellow line.The clowns at the beginging who seperated you and your group were hysterical.One of the clowns said that this was the boogie room and told me to get down.Most of the actors were in your face and wouldn't leave you alone.That's a good thing.Thank God,I only saw about 2 child actors.This is a change.

 

 

 

Props/Animatronics-7:As I've said before,a good haunt doesn't need animatronics to back itself up.You had your flaming culdrons,your severed body parts,walk in freezer and of course your disorienting fog .The lack of animatronics made it feel more realistic.If you were trapped in a haunted house with tons of menacing monsters,would you see electronic creatures trying to attack you.I don't think so.

 

 

 

Scare Affect-9:This is a haunt that is in your face and coming from all corners.If it wasn't for a few child actors,I would have given it a 10.The banging of tin barrels always gets me.I can't forget the  long nosed troll that gave an eerie stare or the slamming windows with monsters yelling at you from the other side.That damn clown from the begining would pop up from nowhere.Everything was just done so well.

 

 

 

Fright Value:You'll have a damn good time spending your money on Chambers.It's a very creative haunt.

 

 

 

Final Stab-8.4:Now this is what I'm talking about.A haunt that backs its name up.You actually feel like your going through dark torture chambers and you are the victim.The tight and dark rooms make you feel lost and trapped and that's always good in a haunted house.

 

 

 

 

 

Gary's Ohio Valley Haunted Reviews

 

 

 

We first reviewed the Chambers on opening night and found it somewhat disappointing. However, they were kind enough to invite us back and Wow! did they deliver this time around. Scary music serenaded us while we waited in line. At the entrance, there are double doors which are kept closed until time for your group to enter. When your turn comes, a ghoul butler (who played his role fabulously) shows you the way in. Through the doors, a spooky waiting room with more scary music is where you purchase tickets form sellers also in costume.  The butler now directs you into the Chambers! First, you have to navigate some uneven floors to make your way to a room with 6 doors. You must pick the right one to get out, and various monsters hound you the entire time you're in the room. There are surprises behind each door. 

Some are locked, and others have monsters waiting behind them ready to jump out and frighten you. One leads into a hallway which you think is the correct way out, but is actually a dead end!  The correct door is locked at first, but one of the ghouls secretly unlocks it while you are looking for the way out.  It leads into a series of rooms where you encounter two mad butchers (Watch out for them! You may wind up locked in one of their freezers!). At one point along your journey,  the walls come closing in on you, and a short while later the ceiling drops making you think it's going to fall on you. There is also a shrinking path that gets smaller and smaller and you eventually have to crawl to make your way through the opening. In one of the rooms, you see a mosnster holding a large bloody knife next to a girl's head on a table - she's alive, but has no body at all (just her head on the table).  You could look underneath the table and see nothing but space.

The Chambers was excellent this time around. Too bad that the people who went through on opening night didn't get to experience this!   The new chambers is possibly the best haunt in Middletown!

Length-7, about 15 minutes.

Actors-9, There were lots of them and they engage you much of the time you're in the Chambers. All the actors were doing a great job of scaring us.

Props-8, The ceiling and walls were excellent. Scariness-9, The butchers and their freezers are one of the scariest things around!

Design-7, You can see the original lights from this building on the ceiling. Mostly constructed of  wooden boards painted black. The Haunt is in it's first year at their new permanent site, so watch out for things to come next year! 

Value-8, The second time around we got our $9 worth.

Final Score-8

THE HOUSE OF DOOM
THE CHAMBERS OF HORROR-Horror Finds A Home!

While standing behind the fireplace in the entrance of Middletown's Chambers Of Horror and observing a group being instructed by the front hall ghoul, we heard multiple and continuous screams coming from the opposite side of the wall. It sounded like several groups were terrified out of their minds! Ed, the personable owner/operator of the Chambers, turned to me and said in all seriousness, "Wow...it sure is quiet in there tonight...must be because it's Homecoming". If this is what it's like on a quiet night, the decibel level of the screams at other times must be deafening!

Ed saw the Disney Haunted Mansion at age 10 and was inspired to build his first prop-the floating candleabra (which has been used at previous incarnations of the Chambers), and he's been hooked ever since. For years he ran home haunts in Prebble county. Having seen some photos of the Chambers before visiting the event, I thought that I detected several of the themes that were used by the Middletown Haunted Hotel years ago. Sure enough, Ed had worked there and uses for the Chambers several variations of rooms he used in the Hotel.

He also has some vivid memories of the Hotel. "That place is still around, but they've torn down the mall that fronted it (City Center Mall in Middletown was a strange hybrid-it was a nice looking, modern mall built onto the front of old buildings. You entered the Hotel-the old City Center Hotel-through a modern storefront and went up two flights of rickety, decaying steps to the haunt-and let me tell you, it was one of the creepiest venues for a haunt I've ever been through-just being in it would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up). I KNOW that place was really haunted! There was one room in particular that you would go in and it just never felt right-like there was always something in there with you," said Ed.

After the Hotel closed Ed moved on to the Middletown Haunted Trail, working on various scenes for a few years before setting up the first version of the Chambers as a companion event for the Trail. While the Chambers proved to be a success, Ed wanted to get his own venue. After securing a temporary location for the haunt in 2003, he entered into negotiations to procure the old Cambridge Inn (which had been sitting vacant for the last 20 years or so) on South University Boulevard. Ed figured he'd have plenty of time to get the haunt set up, but negotiations went on...and on...and on. The deal was finally closed in late Summer, and the Chambers now has a building to call its own. "We're leasing with the option to buy, which we plan on doing. The building is perfect for what we need and we have room to expand. There's plently of parking and the place fits the theme all by itself-it looks like a haunted house.

After this season, we'll be able to work on the event year round-I plan on getting started for next season in January," says Ed with a grin. "This place might be really haunted, too-we've heard a couple of people died in here but haven't been able to confirm it. All I know is that after 20 years it was in terrible shape, and we had to do a lot just to get it ready to build the Chambers. That didn't give us a lot of time to get the event built. I was up here every spare minute working on the place and even through our first couple of weekends of operation I was installing new effects. We thought about not opening but I really didn't want to have to disappoint someone who had driven from Columbus or Kentucky to get here,".

The Chambers proves to be an old school haunt with intense, in your face actors and several effects that you don't see anywhere else in town. You'll realize this from the moment you are ushered into the first room-and find yourself surrounded by a bunch of other doors. And in true haunted house tradition, no matter which one you pick-they're ALL wrong! You begin to get an idea of the delightful trickery you'll experience throughout the haunt. Nothing in here is always as it seems-you can't trust ceilings, walls, paintings, or even a simple hallway. Doors appear, disappear, lock and unlock themselves.

And you SURE can't trust any of the creatures that inhabit the rooms. Whether they're clowns looking to split up your group (and turn you against each other later), a bunch of butchers looking for their next slab of meat, or an attractive young lady lying on a bed, they're all out to further screw up your trip through the event. Even a defenseless old man sitting in a wheelchair isn't quite as harmless as he seems (because, after all, sometimes it isn't what you know, but WHO you know!!!).

You'll see some very nice illusions (like the talking head on the plate-while everyone does this, here the space under the table is uncovered and empty). For me, the highlight of the tour is the room with the aforementioned butchers. It's amazing how easy it is for one of them to talk you into locking yourself inside a freezer-and not just once, either.

That brings up another extremely cool feature of the Chambers. It was, after all, an old restaurant. A lot of the old equipment and fixtures were still intact and were worked into the scenes. So when you get locked into a freezer-you're REALLY locked into a freezer, with a fan on the very low ceiling, a huge metal door, and a press latch (which, of course, the butchers have disabled). There are rooms with long stainless steel tables, rooms that are split in two by partial walls with bars in the top, a huge stone main fireplace, a particularly nasty looking huge industrial refrigerator, and other quirks of the old building that add to the tour. All of this helps to give you the impression of realism that heightens the intensity level of the event. Does it all work? Well, several groups were seen to take advantage of the rest area seen at the end of the tour, even though their cars were only a few feet away!

Haunts are usually only as good as their actors, and there is a good group here. Unlike a lot of haunts, the Chambers uses masks as well as makeup, allowing them to have some truly ugly and memorable monsters inside. They were using several nice touches as well. For example, Jason was jabbing his machete through a crack in a door while you go down a hallway-even though he's in a scene on the other side of the tour. Just a creepy and bizarre sight!

And what do his monsters think of Ed? "He's great!", says one. "He'll be the first person to help you out with operating an effect or to improve your timing. He's constantly going through the house checking things out to make sure everything is going smoothly. Plus, he's a really nice guy to work for, too".

With a place to call its own, the Chambers Of Horror will be a fright-filled place to reckon with for many years. It will doubtlessly get bigger and more elaborate every year when the existing scenes don't have to be torn down after every season. It looks like horror has finally found a home at the old Cambridge Inn!