Haunted houses confuse me. It may be a Halloween tradition but I’ve always found the concept of self-induced cardiac arrest to be slightly less than appealing. However, there is just something so appealing about grabbing a group of friends and braving the spooky annals of a terrifyingly crafted interactive performance.
Haunted houses, in general, are experiencing something like a renaissance these days. More and more creative performances are popping up all over the country. The days of a man pulling sausages out of a dummy while a strobe light flashes are over. Now you and your friends can collectively overcome years of proper toilet training by experiencing haunted insane asylums, corn mazes, and amusement parks.
These new-age haunted attractions go all out, mobilizing top quality performances, realistic effects, and cutting edge technology to create the most horrifying display possible and in 2016 that includes virtual reality.
VR Junkies is a VR experiences and events company that is best known for its immersive arcades. Recently, the company has also become involved in a partnership that arms haunted houses with high-end VR devices in order to terrify patrons like never before.
“We have partnered with Fear Factory in Salt Lake City Utah to put a VR attraction at their haunted house,” reads an official statement from VR Junkies. “We use a customized version of The Affected by Fallen Planet Studios and added in some 4D elements into the game play (air cannons at jump scare points). The VR Haunted Attraction started just last Friday and we have had a great turnout thus far.”
Fear Factory is a boutique haunted attraction that takes place, as the name suggests, in an abandoned factory. The unsafe working conditions in said factory lead to multiple actual fatalities thus earning the structure its “haunted” title.
VR in its natural state can already be a heart stopping experience if you fire up a particularly scary piece of software. Combining that with added special effects and the increased adrenaline of a haunted house environment and you’ve got a recipe for the scariest Princeton parents weekend ever (only the coolest kids will get that joke).
