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Haunted House - For Jesus!

JoeyDonuts

Frequencies Not Known To Normals
JoeyDonuts
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
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Around this time of year, it's not uncommon for various Christian churches to offer "alternatives" to trick-or-treating for the children of their congregation. Open up the fellowship hall, pass out some candy, do a small service, that sort of thing. Hooray for them.

Some of the megachurches go a step further, and put on an extravagant "haunted house" event. These are typically staged graphic depictions of car accidents, suicides, and other horror movie-type "shock moments" with live actors and sometimes rather impressive stagecraft and special effects.

The motivation is always the same - putting children, some younger than 12 with their parents' accompaniment - through this gauntlet of shocking imagery (including depictions of Hell with actors clawing and screaming at the visitors) with the end result being the "Decision Room" where you get the typical 'come to Jesus' talk.

I'm not sure where this practice originated, but I can remember reading an article on Landover Baptist lampooning them from a few years ago. The local ginormoChurch here has been doing it for over a decade, and may well have spawned the idea.

Has anyone ever heard of these kinds of things?

Am I wrong in my opinion that this comes scarily close to child abuse?
 
Jesus was one of the original zombies in literature. I guess he can have a haunted house.
 
Yes, the Protestant churches which typically stage these kinds of events often refer to them as "Hell Houses". There are any number of articles about them available on-line. I read one at cnn.com earlier today,

If I were a true believer in Christ and all that, I would probably think that the idea is a good one: it scares kids (with verisimilitudinous depictions of objective reality!) into taking the "right" path. After all, their immortal souls are at stake.

Since I don't buy any of that supernatural fantasy, I rather find the practice deplorable. Spend that collection tray money on food and clothes and medical attention for the poor, Pastor Cornbelt -- not on fake blood and explosions and actors' fees. :boggled:
 
Big thing in South Carolina, too. I lived there for a while and their idea of a haunted house is a far cry from what the locals put on up here in Wisconsin.

I remember stuff like a room showing two obviously gay men and then in the next room they were both dying horribly from AIDS while some dude dressed as Satan stood over them licking his chops. Or some kid shooting heroin while demons stabbed him with pitchforks.

Creepy and not fun at all. Made me want to punch a Baptist.
 
yog_sothoth said:
Jesus was one of the original zombies in literature. I guess he can have a haunted house.
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And vampires. ("drink my blood")

Brainache said:
Are these the same as "Hell Houses"? I think Dawkins mentioned them in his Doco. "The Root Of All Evil?".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9002284641446868316#docid=-7619161192220036050

The relevant bit starts at about the 19 minute mark.
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Howie Felterbush said:
Big thing in South Carolina, too. I lived there for a while and their idea of a haunted house is a far cry from what the locals put on up here in Wisconsin.

I remember stuff like a room showing two obviously gay men and then in the next room they were both dying horribly from AIDS while some dude dressed as Satan stood over them licking his chops. Or some kid shooting heroin while demons stabbed him with pitchforks.

Creepy and not fun at all. Made me want to punch a Baptist.
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If I remember correctly, there was even a kit that churches could order from some church affiliate that would tell them how to put on a successful "hell house".

I went to one once in Texas, many years ago ... maybe back in 2002, and I saw what Howie Felterbush described: Satan standing over dying homosexual AIDS victims, women getting laid at parties and then having abortions with Satan standing around laughing ... blood, gore, the come to Jesus moment at the end, etc and so forth.

And speaking of Haunted Houses .... one of the best I've ever been too (and completely unrelated to the churches) was and still is put on by the Boy Scouts .... you would never think it, but down in Red Oak Texas, "Reindeer Manor" rocked the block for a few years .... completely done by the Scouts. And every year we went, we still couldn't believe it was put on by the Boy Scouts lol. It seemed so out of their league :). I noticed that it seemed to be good "every other year" though, hit or miss fashion .... but man, their haunted house was loads of fun, caught you off guard, extremely creative. It was more than just "walking through" and watching animatronics jumping around and lame chain saws and whatnot .... they put on a production in various rooms that you had to stand and watch. I always felt I got my money's worth. Even the way you had to go out into this farm field, and stand by this flickering lamp post with other haunt lovers and wait for a haunted tractor to come by and take you on the 15 minute journey across the farm field and through a bit of unkempt mesquite woods to the entrance was an awesomely fun way to start the evening off.
 
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It's a douche way to spread your religion, that's for sure.

I'm a bit of a Haunted House connoisseur. The best one I've been to is Terror on the Fox up by Green Bay. You ride an old train from the Railroad Museum to the haunted houses (they usually have three or four different houses; one of them looks like the house from The Addams Family, except it has sexy vampire chicks dancing on the balconies). The whole thing takes about an hour and it kicks seven different kinds of ass.
 
Sorry to derail this into tales of haunted houses past, but Splatterhaus (Two Rivers, WI) is another good one. They had a gimmick I have never seen before. While you were waiting to get in, you could go over to an old video game cabinet that had a closed circuit TV mounted in it. For fifty cents, you could control one of the "scares" in the house. You watched the screen until a group of people came into view and then you hit the button and made them crap themselves.

Good times.
 
Howie Felterbush said:
It's a douche way to spread your religion, that's for sure.

I'm a bit of a Haunted House connoisseur. The best one I've been to is Terror on the Fox up by Green Bay. You ride an old train from the Railroad Museum to the haunted houses (they usually have three or four different houses; one of them looks like the house from The Addams Family, except it has sexy vampire chicks dancing on the balconies). The whole thing takes about an hour and it kicks seven different kinds of ass.
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That's good stuff.

You ever heard of a Flying Crank Ghost ? It's a classic "home haunt" prop made by a lot of haunt enthusiasts .... I have a couple of home-made ones myself and I love bringing them out every Halloween. I pimp them out this time of year because, well, they're cool as $h!t lol :) At least when they're done well ...

 
Howie Felterbush said:
Sweet.

We always talk about setting up scary stuff in our yard for Halloween, but the world has gotten so lame, they make the kids in our town trick or treat in broad daylight so the effect is ruined.
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Whaaaa ? I'm shocked. Almost makes me grateful then for the churches that put on the hell houses haha :)
 
Much like the leaves turning are a sign that Winter is approaching, the arrival of Hell Houses signal the renewall of the Fake War on Christmas.
 
I work in a haunted house this time of year. Yea, these "hell" houses sprout up like weeds every October. There's a Hell Trail near Atlanta that I've heard advertised on our local hard rock station and seen ads for on Facebook. Some of them are pretty good, from what I've heard... some of them just blow.

As for that fifty cent "guest control" game... yea, that's fairly standard fair for a haunt. Now, you want to see a really great haunt... hit Netherworld in Atlanta. Even open the 1st week of November, so all the haunters can come see it after their own houses are closed for the season.
 
Howie Felterbush said:
We always talk about setting up scary stuff in our yard for Halloween, but the world has gotten so lame, they make the kids in our town trick or treat in broad daylight so the effect is ruined.
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Same here. Used to be, the littl'uns who needed to be walked around by their parents went at dusk, and the bigger kids went after dark.

Trick-or-treating during daylight is like opening Christmas presents on some random Wednesday afternoon in the middle of December. Totally bogus.

Then there's the absolutely hyper-lame trick-or-treating they do in the big city... at the mall!

If I were a kid today, I wouldn't even bother.
 
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