(Continued from part one.)



We join our haunt, already in progress, in the master bedroom--or, should I say the mistress' bedroom? As in, mistress of the house, at least. There are so many intriguing details in this one room.



The box of memorabilia, nostalgia for a rainy day--or storm-lashed night.



And...there is something in the mirror...



Up in the attic, there are some very unusual plants.



And the bookshelf is a little grabby, so be warned.

All in all, it's a short, fun little haunt, with some nifty details, scads of photo ops, and it's pretty well pulled together. I recommend it.

There's a haunt in Terra Promessa on the haunted places list, so I wanted to check it out.



The window broke just walking up the stairs. Very fragile house...



The paintings are blinking at me. This does not bode well.



The basement is rather gory, be warned.



The library is entertaining.



But something terrible happened in the bathroom.

(Continued in part two.)

(Continued from part one.)



The cobwebs seek to hide the things that people used to use on a daily basis. But even the spiders have moved on, now. No one uses the things that used to be polished and shined, washed and returned to their places.



The table is still set for a meal that never happened, for the family that never gathered. What did happen, in this house? On this island? Will we ever know?



Outside the nursery window, upstairs, another shade watches. Reliving what happened? Or simply keeping an eye on the land, that no one else will live in this place?



The girl in the chair never moved, never spoke. I'm...not entirely sure she was there, but she never faded away. The doll, on the other hand, watched my every move.



This is a marvelous haunt, start to finish. There are no screamers, no jump scares, it's just dark and pulses with dread. The moving spirits add their own special touch, as they circle through the trees. And scattered through the terrain, bright s pots of burning color throughout all the desaturated monochrome, are campfires, and logs to sit on, cooking pots to make impromptu meals. They're always startling in their normalcy.

I highly recommend this one. If you want to track down everything, it takes a bit to wander, but it's worth it. Or you could just arrow from the landing point to the manor house. Your choice. After all...no one on the island is there to stop you.

Welcome to Hunting Hollows. It's very dark here.



There is an atmosphere about this place, heavy and brooding. A large part of that is the depth of the shadows, but it's a brilliant effect.



Sometimes, what separates a great haunt from a mediocre one comes down to a few little details. Here, it's the mostly monochromatic nature of it, but also, the small moments, like the odd lightning that seems to shift across the sky, or the sparking of stripped wires on the docks.



The broken ship in the bay never sinks, just stays, visible and accusing. Did the islanders break it apart, or did the rocks? Does anyone remember at this point?



There are spirits in the woods, and shades of death. They don't attack, but they are attracted to movement. And sometimes they move through visitors, chilling them further.



The manor house keeps a Sphynx cat, who seems more than feline-intelligent.



And inside the manor house, the cobwebs are deep, shrouding the piano that never plays.

(More in part two.)

On a random search for 'creepy' (because I'm running out of places under 'spooky' and 'haunted house'), I found Mama Brigitte's Bayou in the Garden of Eden, apparently a celebration of Louisiana, bayou living, and all things N'Awlins. I thought I'd check it out.



If any of my readers ever wanted to walk the backwater swamps of Louisiana, this is your sim.



It is thick, overgrown, vast and wild. There are good things here and bad things, and it's more or less up to the viewer what those are.



Visitors won't be swarmed with spiders--at least, as far as I know--but they will run into cobwebs, with great and repeated frequency. And they all look absolutely real in terms of abandoned river shacks, swamp huts, places people were that are peopled no more. The spiders built their stranded homes until even they wandered off, and now the only things those webs gather is dust.



This is less a haunt, and more an experience. It's a sprawling collection of small islands and marshes that one wanders by virtue of rickety, moss-covered plank bridges at water level. The only complaint I had was that certain areas cannot be accessed save by members of a certain group. (No idea what group, I didn't check.)

But if visitors wish to join that group, or simply wander the areas that can be accessed, it's a sim that seems steeped in history and the mythology of place.

This is the description of the haunt I'm exploring tonight:

YES, BE SCARED to enter! Halloween Special is back. More Scenes have been added.
haunted scenes: The Ring, The Exorcist, The Shinning and more. Visit the Haunted Playground Zombie Land, HollowHill Hospital and Hellraiser if you DARE!!

Oh, great. "The Shinning", even.

So what's it called? EL SUSTO HAUNTED HOUSE. Yes, in all caps.



So it's on mainland, and while the time on the parcel seems to be set for a decently spooky night, the parcels around it are all set for standard sun. It's disorienting.



Inside are haunted televisions, torn curtains that ripple dolefully in an unseen wind, moans, haunted paintings...and a constantly ringing phone that drove me wholly out of my mind.



I wandered up, I wandered down, I found secret passages, I found broken sewer pipes large enough to walk through, I found haunts and dust and decay, and absolutely none of it mattered, because that high-pitched, vibrating phone would not shut up. Touching it did nothing, walking far away did nothing, I could still hear it, and by the time I hit the nursery, I had decided I had had enough and just ported away.

Is it a bad haunt? Not at all, if you go through with the sound off. With the sound on my most sincere recommendation is to avoid this as if it will give you the plague. That phone ring is killer...and not in any creepy, Hallowe'en sense. It needs to be scripted to run on a much slower repeat, or be turned off entirely.

The House on Haunted Hill beckoned, and off I went. Water covered the grounds when I arrived, ankle-brushing, making me glad of the weatherproofed boots I had. Soft little gasps behind me made me turn, and turn again, but...nothing was ever there.



There was something very...odd...about the water, too. Especially farther out to sea...



I suppose it's in the nature of a warning sign, to have a corpse upended over the walking path.



And obviously, very bad things happened in this cabin. I'm going to leave quickly, before the man with the hand-ax wanders back.



Wait, am I walking into Silent Hill? Why are there ashes in the air? I walked into an old fort to get out of the ash rain, and...there were...things...inside. I'm not sure what they were, but...I don't think they want me here.



And if I wasn't convinced before, I'm convinced now--there are definitely direct rips from at least two games here: Amnesia (not shown), and a few iterations of Silent Hill. Now, I want to be clear--I'm not accusing anyone of anything. The person who used these as decorations may not have known they were rips; the person who made them may have acquired them from someone else who sold them full-perm, so may not have known. But the original person, the one who brought them on the grid, that person ripped these models directly from the games.

That's just not cool.



And, of course, Robbie, outside the main house, also from Silent Hill.



Because that's not creepy at all! Eeeuugghh.



Oh, HELL no, I will not pick you up!

Also...how did you get in here so fast?!?

So, overall, it's not a bad haunt, but I will make one clear point: Go expecting to see bad things. And "bad" has a number of varying connotations here. Yes, corpses, some gore, some screaming, which can be hard on those who might walk in with sounds all the way up. But also, game rips, which qualify as "bad" in an entirely different way. And at least one rip specifically from Silent Hill: Homecoming that can, depending on interpretation, be seen as pushing the haunt towards an Adult rating, over Moderate. (If you're curious which one, look up Amnion on the Silent Hill monsters wiki.)

So I won't say don't go, because there are some intriguing ideas here. Just go prepared, and expect less to be dazzled, and more just cool visuals now and again.

As I was scrolling down through the list of stores with haunted items for sale, and haunts with no items for sale, I very nearly passed the entry that said October Country:

Friendly, Nature, Park, Scenic, Landscape, Noob, Horror, Haunted, Haunted House, Scary, Spooky, Autumn, Fall, Relax, Hangout, Social, Chat, Meet, Halloween, Explore, Gather, Rest, Adventure, Festive, Farm, Countryside.

I have missed October Country ever since it left. Does this mean it's back? Is it owned by the same people? Is it an homage to the original? I just don't know, but I'm here now. Let's see if I can find out.

As it seems to be just one parcel, I doubt it's by the same people--as I recall, they owned a whole sim. Though I could be wrong; perhaps they're trying out the idea of owning land again in SL by renting first. Who knows?



They also have a group, with this lovely quote:

"That country where it is always turning late in the year, where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain."
― Ray Bradbury

Impressive.



The tree in front of the house is a tad grotesque, but I shall press on.



I could have sworn I saw one of these moving as I walked up to the porch...



Oh, good. Creepy mannequins and creepy dolls...

...who...all turned to look at me, when I passed by...



Oh, that's just disturbing. I'm sensing a theme...



I guess I live here now.

Come by and enjoy the view.

This one starts on the ground, but then you touch a cauldron full of fog, and that will port you to the skybox of terrible things. Or spooky things. Or, well...things.



Whatever they are.



By the way, tip to any haunt planners reading along: make sure, if you're running a haunt, to change your estate time away from "bright sunny midday". Unless your haunt is staggeringly creepy, even by daylight.



Also, I realize, skybox, one wants to fit all the things they desire in, but...wau, this looks crowded.



Sooooo, so busy.



In spite of the overcrowding, there's really not much here. Two freebies, one random, one dance; witch's cottage and a minimal spooky forest; some pumpkins. That's about it. Small photo-op with a bench inside. It's not tragically bad, don't get me wrong, but I'm wishing they had more room than just the teeny skybox to play in.

I'm...not sure about this one. The picture says it all:



Bright cheerful happy spoops. Agh.



There are vendors around the center platform, mostly clothing for Toddleedoo baby avatars, at least one for the Kemono, so I'm fairly sure the 'haunted ride' is going to be very kid-friendly. Or at least SL-kid-friendly. (In case there's a difference.)



I did love their warning sign for the ride.



The ride was built like most haunted rides--tracks move through fixed scenes, then move on. The only problem was the audio kept cutting off halfway through each recitation. There are full texts given for each scene, it's just the scripting only allows for half the audio to work.



It's got a cohesive storyline, too, I really liked that.



The mad scientist's laboratory, wherein the lord of the manor researched the Elder Gods and the creation of portals...



...and the Thing Lurking in the Shadows.

This is a short, snappy, and ultimately fun ride for all ages. There is no gore, and while there is spooky imagery, it's all drawn large, like a Disney cartoon. I'd highly recommend this for fans of haunted rides, and for the younger set.