I love the adrenaline rush that comes with the spooky activities of Halloween festivities, so for me, haunted houses are the way to go. After spending some time looking up the top rated haunted houses near me, Blind Scream located in Santa Rosa appeared multiple times so I was compelled to check it out.
During my recent visit, endless screams came from the groups of people being let in before the adrenaline and excitement began to kick in quickly.
“If you don’t touch them they won’t touch you” the gatekeeper said as I stepped foot into the foggy room.The darkness and isolation of what was once the Sears auto center gives the whole dark vibe a spooky kickoff.
Blind Scream includes two houses. The first house was “Lil Horrus’s Fun House,” where I got lost after walking through the colorful but dark spinning tunnel. I kept running into the same screaming killer clown who led me into a pitch black inflated tunnel where I could only move forward. I fell out into a sea of dark screams and continued throughout what seemed to be a never ending maze of surprises at every corner.
While waiting in line for the second house, “Witch’s House,” a mother and her 13-year-old son said it is their third year attending the houses and said they were excited to see the different themes offered this year on the 10-year Blind Scream anniversary.
My journey throughout this house was a bit shorter and more spread out,so I didn’t need to prepare myself every few seconds for something to jump out at me at the turn of every corner.
There is a coffin ride called “The Last Ride” where visitors get to lie inside of a coffin with a bouquet of dead roses while it moves and makes noises as if you are actually getting buried. At the end I received a death certificate with my name on it that I can now include in my resume.
If you are in for the spooks and into being buried and brought back to life, Blind Scream will leave you blindly screaming.
If Santa Rosa is not the distance for you, there are other highly rated haunted houses in the Bay Area:
Fear Overload Scream Park in San Leandro is voted the scariest haunted house in the Bay Area by HauntWorld. It offers two attractions, “Night Terrors” and “ The Tooth Collector” which is their signature attraction. Both are the public’s favorite for it’s bone chilling features that have the hairs on your body sticking up.
Halloween Haunt in Santa Clara, located inside of Great America, attracts hundreds of visitors just for the various attractions including eight different themed mazes and two scare zones where characters are able to pop out at you anytime you walk through them. The park also decorates some of the rides to match the spooky season theme.
Pirates of Emerson haunted theme park is celebrating 28 years of fear in Pleasanton, CA. Offering five different attractions, “HillBilly Holler, Mystery Mansion, Pirates of Emerson and Maze Haze. The park offers entertainment scheduled through different nights of the weekend including belly dancers dancing with snakes, rock bands from San Francisco and a bay area based pop-rock band,
Into the Dark is a ‘haunted’ tour of the San Francisco Mint building. It 18+ Monday through Thursday, and 21+ on Fridays and Saturdays. There are two different attractions, Terror Vault and Apocalypse. Terror Vault is an immersive show about a secret prison located in the Mint building. Apocalypse is an interactive game where participants go through a maze of zombies and different rooms to find the vaccine to ‘save humanity.’
