SCARE-A-THON: GO! Scream Team puts haunted houses to the test

It doesn’t matter what scares you — spiders, angry clowns, chain saw-wielding serial killers, spiteful mothers-in-law. You’ll find something to send chills down your spine at one of several commercial haunted houses in the region.

The two regular haunts, Mind Seizure and Haunted Mines, have been joined this year by two newcomers — Hellscream Haunted House and Nightmare on West Colorado Avenue.

How scary are the four haunted houses? The GO! Scream Team, a gaggle of 13-year-olds apparently all called “dude,” went on an expedition to put them to the test.

Their findings?

“Dude, that was sick!” was repeated many times.

If you dare find out what that means, read on.

Hellscream
Haunted House

Where: On the northeast corner of Palmer Park and Powers boulevards, behind Wendy’s, hellscreamhauntedhouse.com

When: 7 p.m.-midnight today, Saturday, and Oct. 30 and 31, 7-11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday

Cost: $12

Extras: A halloween carnival has been stationed nearby, and there’s sometimes a band playing outside.

Hellscream shouldn’t be the scariest local haunted house. It’s really just a bunch of semitrailers stacked side by side. It doesn’t have a lot of fancy mechanicals.

But when members of the GO! Scream Team try to bed down for the evening, it’ll be Hellscream that will creep into their nightmares.

Staffed by as many as two dozen paid actors, Hellscream begins with a back story about some mad scientist who has found a way to send his patients to hell and retrieve them. They’ve returned a bit mutated and disturbed.

Then you’re paraded through a series of loud, bloody rooms. One of our favorites was borrowed from a previous incarnation of Mind Seizure. There’s no apparent exit. While a mutant clown menaces you, you have to open a series of upright coffins to find a way out.

But what really got the Scream Team living up to its name was the chain saw guy. A monster swung down his chain saw against metal, and sparks flew, suggesting this was more than a prop. He then chased the crew through a maze of straw bales (in a courtyard created in the middle of the trailers), and we were breaking land-speed records by the time we hit the parking lot.

Haunted Mines

Where: At the Western Museum of Mining & Industry, 225 North Gate Blvd., 488-0880,
hauntedmines.org

When: 7 p.m. to midnight today, Saturday, and Oct. 30 and 31, 7-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday

Cost: $13-$20

Extras: You can buy terrific Navajo tacos and cotton candy on light sticks nearby.

This annual fundraiser for the mining museum (which actually kept the doors from closing this year) enlisted an army of engineers to build and about 80 volunteer actors to staff.

The result is a scream. Haunted Mines continues to deliver an entertaining and frightening experience. Although the infamous Hellevator, a simulated crashing elevator that was among last year’s highlights, wasn’t operational during our visit, the mines still had plenty to going on:

• A nice variety of characters, from dead miners to your requisite evil clown.

• A varied terrain that takes you stomping through a swamp, crawling through tunnel, sliding down a slide and maneuvering through dark mazes. It’s indoors, outdoors and underground.

• A few well-acted scenes, including a saloon shootout and a witch hunt.

• The addition of some fine mechanicals, including a ghostly head inside a crystal ball that looks as if it were lifted from Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

One of the clever (and annoying) things about the mines this year is that it presents visitors with a crossroad toward the end: You can choose to go through the town or the cellar. (We went with the town, which was great.) It means that if you want to see the whole thing, you have to go through twice.

Nightmare on West Colorado Avenue

Where: The Mountainscape Inn, 3445 W. Colorado Ave., 578-1773, nightmareincs.com

When: 6-10 p.m. daily through Oct. 31

Cost: $10

Created by a retired firefighter (who’s built almost two dozen haunted houses elsewhere) and his brilliant engineer son, Nightmare on West Colorado is actually a converted wing of a west-side motel.

We might have expected to see something about the most terrifying lodging spot, the Bates Motel (curiously, there’s not a shower in sight). But what we did find was one of the few places that tried to weave scary rooms into a narrative, beginning with a serial killer on the loose, progressing to his capture and electrocution, and ending with his possession of a young girl.

Nightmare relies on mechanicals more than actors, so expect lots of things jumping out at you and some tricky special effects.

One of our favorite effects involves the kind of illusion sculptor Michael Garman uses to make one room seem to disappear and change into another. Very creepy.

In some ways, this is more clever than the other haunts, but it’s also less blood-curdling — and probably more appropriate for younger kids, say the 8- to 13-year-old set. At $10, it’s also the cheapest of the local haunts.

Mind Seizure

Where: The Flea Market, 5225 E. Platte Ave., 302-5605, mindseizure.com

When: 7-11 p.m. today, Saturday, and Oct. 30 and 31, 7-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday

Cost: $15-$20 (special flashlight tours, $200)

Extras: A magic act nearby, a snack bar and a display of creepy reptiles

Mind Seizure, the granddaddy of local haunts, has turned up the intensity for this year’s house. It’s the scariest version we’ve seen in years.

A tour begins at a giant stone arch, where a giant animatronic skull gives you directions about not touching the actors, etc. That one effect may be the best in town. Not the scariest, but certainly impressive.

Then, through dark hallways you weave your way into several rooms that got our Scream Team totally freaked out (though nobody bailed this year).

Mind Seizure features some interesting mechanicals, including a giant elevator reminiscent of Haunted Mines’ Hellevator, but it’s really the talented actors (including 15 paid) and professional set designers that keep Mind Seizure among the state’s top scares. Our favorite room was one in which a poor woman was seemingly having her limbs hacked off. Ouch.

get outta town

Looking for the scariest haunted house in the state? Denver has some big scares (The 13th Floor, Elitch Gardens’ Frightfest, The Asylum), and Pueblo has a great one (Hall of Horror), but if you’re looking for fright on a larger scale, check out Buckskin Joe’s, which does much more than a haunted house. It transforms its entire Western theme park into a Town of Terror.

Expect to wait hours to get in on weekends and spend about 30 minutes to get through the whole thing.

Where: Eight miles west of Cañon City, on the road to the Royal Gorge

When: 7 p.m.-midnight today, Saturday, and Oct. 30 and 31, 7 to 10 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday

Cost: $15-17; $2 discount for off-days with a coupon at buckskinjoe.com

FOR YOUNG kids

Boo at the Zoo

The annual haunt-fest at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo runs through Sunday. For details, go to cmzoo.org.

Haunted Miniature Golf

World Golf and Sand Creek Golf Course at 6865 Galley Road hosts a Halloween-themed minigolf extravaganza through Sunday. Go to worldgolfsand creek.com.

Haunted YMCAs

Several of the local YMCAs are having Halloween-related events, go to ppymca.org.