So, OK, some areas of Columbus can be a little scary in the not-so-Halloween, trick-or-treat sort of way, but the Brewery District?
Believe it or not, there was a time when this rather traditional neighborhood, now sandwiched between I-70, Pearl Street, Greenlawn Avenue and the Scioto River, was the stomping grounds for one of America’s earliest serial killers: David R. Hoster, better known as the Brewery Butcher.
The story is straight out of a Wes Craven film (or maybe a John Carpenter). While working as an apprentice at one of the five breweries in the district at the time (between 1901 and 1905), Hoster slaughtered 38 people in cold blood, usually discarding and incinerating the bodies in vats of chemicals at the Columbus brewery where he worked.
His story, relatively unknown to locals, is one of many thrilling thematic platforms for TerrorFest, a 20,000-square-foot house of fear, fittingly located in — you guessed it — the Brewery District. Eat your heart out, Mr. Craven.
Whether you know the Hoster backstory or not, an eerie, warehouse-y look and feel contributes to an unsettling atmosphere while attendees take their long, respective waits in line. The not-so-subtle sounds of dulled chainsaws and prepubescent screams don’t help ease any worries for fear dwellers.
It only gets scarier as attendees shuffle inside, with well-crafted scenery and backgrounds adjoined by narrow, cornered hallways on shaky ground establishing the general look and feel early on.
The house is divided into two incarnations (and lit by a ridiculous amount of strobe lights). Stage one is the Butcher’s Realm, which features lopsided dining rooms, haunted libraries, unnerving asylums, blood-soaked operating rooms and a few run-ins with the butcher himself.
The second stage is a three-dimensional circus show thanks to some rather trendy glasses that are handed out to anyone who isn’t covering their eyes or already wearing glasses.
The 3-D experience is truly a distinctive feature of this house, which works as a crucial fear factor.
The distinction between soaring, crazed clowns on bungee cords equipped with fake machetes, and harmless ceramic props evenly drenched by presumably broken glow sticks becomes increasingly blurred, literally.
But while it’s all scary, if not just confusing, the clowns and the glowing plastic skulls don’t seem to fit with much of the house’s original Brewery Butcher vibe or storyline. I’d say the greatest detriment to TerrorFest was this general lack of thematic focus from room to room, place to place and scare to scare.
Overall, TerrorFest is surprisingly a great haunted house, and compared to Pataskala’s Haunted Hoochie or Mansfield’s Haunted Prison, TerrorFest is pretty conveniently located for those of us still living on the outskirts of Columbus.
From the makeup to the wardrobe to the performance, TerrorFest certainly had me shaken up enough to not want the 20 bucks back.
Weighing the cost of being a student
