Straying from the typical, the Chambers of Horror is not your average haunted house.
First off, the house is not haunted. It’s more of a creepy warehouse set up behind the Masquerade, a local music venue, where psychopaths linger and make home for experiments in which they practice disturbing pleasures.
At the gate, they’ll check your ID to make sure you’re at least 18 years-old.
There’s a Splatter Bar for drinks, which is a nice addition for the long wait to enter. The atmosphere is perfect—dirt and gravel everywhere and men walking about with tattoos that consume their entire bodies.
There are no ghosts or ghouls walking among the guests waiting to enter, so nothing preps you for the scares you’re about to encounter.
But before you enter, thankfully, there’s an introductory video to give you an idea of what will happen once inside the house. After the viewing, you walk down a steep hill with a small group of about five to eight.
Themed as the Torture Co., these freaks really did surprise guests. At one point early into the walk, it feels like you’re in a museum. The guide gives you a tour the history of torture in front of mannequins strewed about and body parts dangling in various locations.
As the show progresses, you get to meet Dr. Splatter and one of his latest innocent victims, a young college girl suffering from torture wounds. Dr. Splatter slices through her right breast.
The gore does not stop there. There’s an obvious reason as to why these guys make sure you are 18 to come inside. The nudity, the blood, the bawdy acts—it’s all very overwhelming and different than most haunted houses. Completely shocking and blatantly brutal, this haunted house is clearly not for everyone.
The rest of the walk includes a slew of average-looking people screaming for their lives while running in a futile attempt to escape from the crew of sick and disturbed serial killers. Perhaps the scariest part—for myself, at least—was that I could not have just left or ran through if I wanted to. The warehouse is not set up like a maze or easy path. You’re stuck in individual chambers until the sadists decide to let you leave.
The low-budget attraction was rated number 13 in the nation according to Haunted Attraction Magazine, and it is the only haunted house within the perimeter of Atlanta. Founded by three friends, Chambers of Horror is only in its second season.
Because of its obscene, straight-up perturbed displays, this haunted house is definitely not recommended for everyone.
One of the founders, Lindsay Starke, did dutifully note that when creating the story for the house she was careful to instate that her male counterparts must stray away from group acts like one female against a large group of males and vice-versa. Since they did mix up the acts and made it more egalitarian, the house, overall, is tolerable.
If planning to attend, expect to be sprayed with mock bodily fluids, like foamy semen, urine and, obviously, plenty of blood.
Needless to say, guests at Chambers of Horror receive quite a disturbing, frightening show.
Tickets for the Chambers of Horror (695 North Ave.) are $15, or $25 for a pass that allows you to skip the line. You can spend $45 for a VIP ticket which includes a gift and one free drink at the Splatter Bar. For more on the Chambers of Horror, see www.chambersofhorroratl.com.
