RECAP:  Fright Manor 2025 gets underway in Deadville, home to an immediate, gas-masked chainsaw assault that sets the tone for the carnage ahead! Creepiness prevails as the course makes its way into an eerie, fog-filled graveyard of tombstones and upright coffins, one of which delivers a sinister surprise! Spooky organ music fills the air while funneling through a pitch-black maze and yielding through a seasonal pumpkin patch into a funeral parlor where a grief-stricken widow hysterically accuses guests of murdering her husband!

Departure provokes a lurching clash with a chained captive lunging out into the path, then into the clutches of some deranged lunatic waving a circular saw and giving chase all around his workshop! Bending through a cottage belonging to a spell-casting witch and a schoolhouse ruled by a strict, sin-obsessed nun soon signals a screaming, overhead scuffle before dumping into a morgue run by a chainsaw-wielding mortician on the hunt for “fresh bodies!” followed by a blood-soaked butcher shop that finds a masked madman with glowing, red eyes laughing maniacally while grinding up human meat, and showering adjacent walls with sparks courtesy of his lethal power tool! Getaway is guarded by a rabid, an enraged wolf, a series of mechanical ambushes, a rampaging gorilla, and yet another lightless maze.

A horn-honking skirmish escorts the route across a creaking bridge into a murky, green swamp as the adventure transitions into The Theatre of Pain, where projections of the movie Scream are stalked by confrontational encounters with Ghostface! An elaborate torture chamber displays more acts of vengeance prior to giving way to the gift-giving of Patchez the Clown directing the way into a claustrophobic tunnel inhabited by another freak show jester. The nightmare escalates courtesy of conflicts with Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees compromised by falling barrels, vibrating floors, exploding firecrackers, a classic hockey mask room, and even a tight crawl space! The finale comes at the hands of Art the Clown who’s lurking among some recently hanged body bags forcing victims to stoop down and squeeze beneath an overhead “tunnel” that introduces a hopeless, chainsaw entrapment that leaves you at the mercy of an irate, smiley-faced killer until a secret, hidden passageway is eventually revealed enabling a fleeing escape from Fright Manor!

ANALYSIS:  Now celebrating its 43rd year, Fright Manor continues to deliver quality scares each and every Halloween! While there’s not a lot of expensive, high-tech, Hollywood style props, there are really good frights! Their style is spooky and dark and they always deliver! Design cleverly includes a crawl space as well as a duck-under, and the build provides multiple attack zones for characters to engage and interact with customers on more than one occasion, often within the same scene. Soundtrack and lighting work seamlessly together to heighten the atmosphere. Sparks are used to enhance and authenticate the legitimacy of one of the primary scares. Secret passage is appreciated in entrapment.

Standout performers include Ghostface, Myers, red-eyed Grinder, and Smiley. Freddy Krueger is missed.

Fright Manor is open on Fridays and Saturdays from Sept. 26 – Nov. 1, and on Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday during the week of Halloween. Cost of general admission is $25; $20 for military, police, firefighters, and senior citizens with photo ID; and $15 for FFA members. Fast passes are $10 more. Parking is free and a portion of the proceeds supports The Southport Little League.

Ohio Valley Haunts never misses Fright Manor, Indy’s SCARIEST haunted house! They’ve been in business for a very long time, so you know they’re doing something right!