![]() ![]() KATHRYNN COBBS: Universal is one of the top haunted attractions in the world. Cobbs and Tomberlin attribute the strong debut to their combined experience.īRETT TOMBERLIN: I come from working at Disney Kathryn comes from working with John Murdy at Halloween Horror Nights. The 2011 Fright Nights Halloween event at Winchester Mystery House earned favorable response. Now all the souls that perished by the Winchester rifle are seeking revenge upon any tourists they can find. Our story line for this year is that Sarah actually had her front door boarded up, and no one could ever enter, so our story is that one of the tours – Tour 13 – one of the kids decided to leave the tour and the kid unfortunately goes through the front door, which acts as a portal between heaven and hell. ![]() KATHRYNN COBBS: It’s more about the legend and the house itself than the typical gory-gross Halloween attraction.īRETT TOMBERLIN: Very much away from SAW. We begin filming in early 2012, so it’s a very exciting time for the Winchester Mystery House.Īfter the initial decision to do a Halloween attraction, the next question was: What sort of Halloween attraction? The goal was to tie in with the history of the house itself as much as possible.īRETT TOMBERLIN: What can you do with this? How can we incorporate the history to make it a scary experience without over-the-top gore? I’m producing it with Exclusive Media Group, who did THE WOMAN IN BLACK with Daniel Radcliffe. We’re doing a WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE movie. Also the upcoming movie had a hand in that. It wasn’t until, quite frankly, the “Comment” boxes started filling up, asking “Why don’t you do a themed maze at Halloween?” that the board at Winchester Mystery House finally decided to give it a shot. They were doing them on Friday the 13th and a few Halloween nights they were selling out, and they didn’t want to mess with success. Why did none emerge until 2011?īRETT TOMBERLIN: They had a success with their flashlight tours for many years. With its allegedly haunted history, it seems a natural for a Halloween attraction. The Winchester Mystery House, built by rifle heiress Sarah Winchester, is a California State Historical Landmark that has been designated as one of the World’s Most Haunted Places by the Travel Channel. To learn more about Fright Nights, Hollywood Gothique conducted this interview with two of the movers and shakers behind the Halloween attraction, Kathrynn Cobbs (show director, formerly of Halloween Horror Nights) and Brett Tomberlin (President of Imagination Design Works, which produces Fright Nights). ![]() Both are included in the price of admission. The interior tour takes 35 minutes the exterior haunt lasts forty minutes. This serves as a sort of backstory of the Halloween haunt, “The Curse of Sarah Winchester: The Resurrection,” which takes place on the grounds around the Mystery House. The year-round tourist destination – whose architectural oddities were designed to confuse evil spirits – exploits its allegedly haunted history with a night-time, flashlight-only version of its standard daytime tour, featuring silent actors in period costumes for atmosphere only – no jump-scares. The 2012 version of Fright Nights is currently scaring audiences up north in San Jose, California. Winchester Mystery House – renowned because of its mysterious secret passages, corridors that lead nowhere, and staircases that descend and then ascend without landing anywhere – launched Fright Nights, its first ever Halloween haunt, to glowing reviews and immediate success in 2011. Pop quiz, Halloween Hot Shots! What’s better: a haunted house or a Halloween haunt? Are the staged illusions better than the real thing (assuming there is a real thing)? Come to think of it, why choose one or the other when you can have both? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |