you smile and laugh at me, but you don't see a thing

One more for the night. The description says:

"Welcome to the Haunted Woods for adults. Midnight and mouse look is advised. Enjoy all we have to offer that includes Zombies, Horror, Haunted House, Haunting, RLV Trap, Forest, Animesh, Clown, Scary, Demon, Gang Bang, Werewolf, Ghosts, and sex."

I am prepared to be thoroughly unimpressed.

And I am:

[22:43] Second Life: Only members of a certain group can visit this area.

I'm not joining your group just to see your haunt, my dude. Moving on.

Wait, there's a notecard. It has a landmark. Okay, let's try there.



Touch for weapons? Nope, I was right the first time. NOW moving on.



You know what? I've covered this before, but I have to go through some half-decent haunt this week, so...here we are again, at the Haunted Catacombs at Universal Temple.



Not much has changed, but I'm amused that the kraken decided to ride for a bit with me.



I have zero idea if Grimworx is even on the grid these days, but this is one of their original haunts. Pretty much just a transparent flat image, with flexi from the bottom up, not top down as most pieces use. They have this amusing little wobble to them, and they're still cool to see.



Arachnophobe alert, for any haunts that feature active spider content. I had a couple shots closer, but I think this is all I need to show. There's not a lot of spider bits, but there's enough.



And then...everything went up in flames.



After that, several haunts, and then a slightly darker patch of tunnel with snakes. The use of full bright on some of the props is starting to slightly jar, I will admit. And the snakes were so dark in the water, with my environment settings, I felt I should bump up the brightness. It's darker in the catacombs.



The only real glitch happened at the very end of the ride--when this chainsaw clown suddenly popped out of the wall and sawed through me. And kept sawing through me. Over and over again while I wondered if this was just a really long end sequence or if something had gone wrong.

Finally, I got out on my own and swam to the stairs, shaking my head, and went up only gouting a slight bit of blood from the chainsaw cuts.

All in all, this is nearly G-rated at this point, and exactly the level of relaxing, comfortable haunt I needed. Tempted to give five out of five skulls for that alone, but--that end sequence does them in. There are people who would hit that and--perhaps even justifably--freak out.

So it's four out of five skulls, but that's still pretty good. If you've never gone, you should go at least once to appreciate what early SL had to do for haunts.

deathblow, look at you go, brought a T-62 to a Rodeo

The Duke found an interesting little take on the three approaches to virtual experience. From this, I've pretty much always been an immersive player, with touches of augmentative. He started out dissociative and is now immersive for the most part. That explains a lot of things about a lot of people, though.

Onward through the haunts. So, first strike against this one is, they misspelled "poltergeist" on the event name. Second strike, the blurb for the place is in all caps:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN , HAUNTED HOUSE SCARY HORROR MOVIES
STEP RIGHT IN .THE TV IS ON THE FRIZZ AGAIN LETTING OUT ALL KINDS OF GHASTLY GHOULS TO TERRORIZER YALLS NEIGHBORHOODS

Riiiight. Okay. Let's go see, I guess.



I'm not holding out much hope for this.



Step in to a lightning crash and a man's fever-pitch, constant screaming. That's annoying.



Oh, look. Orbs. Great.



Gremlins. Just...why.



Upstairs, the first bedroom had an inset gif in one window, the back wall covered with a picture of a room that made no sense at the angle it was at, and...I'm done here.

Zero out of five skulls.

What else sounds interesting....How about Karma's Haunted Manor and Saint Sadist Cathedral? It's on Adult land, so I'm assuming either Adult content or gore. Their blurb says:

"Welcome to the Haunted Manor And Saint Sadist Cathedral in the sky. Come stay the night.. if you dare.. Beware of Blood Thirsty Rape Zombies.."

Uh, you know what? No. Never mind.

Guess I'll find something else tomorrow.

and though you're broken and defeated, your weary widow marches on

Zombies and sex never really go well together, IMO, but that seems to be the claim to fame for this Adult haunt:

"Halloween, zombie, spooky, creepy, adult, sex, haunted house, monster, haunted, ghosts, cemetery, circus, horror, macabre, Great for photographers as well, many photo opportunities!"

Let's at least go see before I give up.



Based on discoveries later (some pictured, some not) this seems to be a bifurcated haunt. There's this little intro area, mostly just fun places to take pictures, and then there's the giant skull gate at the back. And while the entire thing is on Adult land, that's where things get very adult in spots.



Past the skull gate, to the left, is a circus marquee. This is the only real "effect" this haunt has going--going near that marquee, or going towards it to exit the circus patch, pops the avatar into the air at a great height. Not sure what else it does beyond that? But there you go.



I'm not sure how haunted dolls fit into circuses. But there's a section for haunted dolls.



Now, technically, this frame--part of Smooching Serpents' shibari line--is found outside the circus, but inside the circle are references to sex (skeleton strippers, skeletons making out, random adult toys) as well as ways to have sex (a whole tent full of BDSM equipment), so...keep that in mind, too.



All this is is a giant skull floating in some dead shrubbery with floating candles, but...I liked the way it looked.



I have sworn that someday, I will own this house. And I will make an entire haunt around it and set everything on fire.

That day is not this October, obviously, but still. I will own this house.



This is just a fun pumpkin with flaily bits, but beyond it is a reinforced steel door, and through that is a quarter of an urban city, replete with zombies and undead clowns.



Fallen doll angels? Sure.

All in all, while I don't think they got everything right, they didn't get everything wrong, either. And it is a very expansive haunt--to cover everything by walking would easily take half an hour, and these eight pictures just represent a fraction of what's out. So overall, I'd actually toss them four out of five skulls.

I can do what I want, I'm in complete control, that's what I tell myself

Today I went to Nightmares and Screams. It was very, very wet. Their blurb was fairly short:

"Dark, scary, haunted house, hunt, maze, ghosts zombies blood skeletons frights prizes tricks treats ritual death ghouls"

So, first off, walking onto the parcel will give visitors a drop-down. You'll need to agree to the Experience system to play.



It's definitely got its own feel, I'll give it that.



Arachnophobes be warned: there are spiders. And screen-filling jump scares, so...there's that, too.



Finally, inside the mansion and out of the rain! But the foyer is full of drifting leaves and howling winds...



Unique wall art...



And a tentacled cultist at the back of a very large film, mostly full of drifting shades, gargoyles, and ruined columns.



The rest of it, though, apart from some fun effects, is mostly just slowly moving dead things and screaming. They could have done more with it. Good atmosphere, kind of weak execution, so...three out of five skulls.

now and then there's a light in the darkness

Let me give you another good reason to keep wearing masks. This is dire news. Be safe out there. In the meantime...



Welcome to Hell Castle.



The theatre seems to be the one place that isn't haunted on this parcel, but they have some nifty lobby posters.



And they have a chain ride! So here...we...GO!



There is some spider action, but only here, right past the entrance.



I ended up going through this ride twice, just because I loved this section so much. So, the rest of it moves like your standard chain ride--jerk forward, see set pieces, jerk forward again, new room...but in this passage, the coffin car spun 45 degrees diagonally so that people in mouselook could see each painting change. That's pretty nifty coding.



And I never felt movement up, but we're on the second floor. That's pretty neat too.



I have left out a couple rooms, because they weren't as fun as the rest? But there are some zombies, some floating heads, in other rooms, at least one very familiar split-head dog (it's from a video game, or a movie; I just can't place it right now), a tunnel of reaching hands, and the traditional spiral-of-doom passthrough...



This was also nice. A tunnel passage that managed to be eerie and atmsopheric without dripping gore or triggering repetitive screams on the soundtrack. Neatly done.

There's something like five or six other haunted houses on the parcel, I may go back and see what they are, but if nothing else, any other fan of chain rides in SL needs to check this out. Pretty good job all told. Four out of five skulls.

go away, come back, go away, come back, why can't I just have it both ways?

I'm probbably one of five people who will be really excited by the fact I found a goat's blood flan recipe. But it sounds awesome and I want to make it.

(They have other recipes too! Woo!)

In the meantime, let's talk about the Silent Scream haunted house. It launched awfully bright and cheery, so I switched the Windlight to Eugene 2, and that added a significant bit of atmosphere.



I have no idea why the haunted house has patches of lava. Doesn't connect to anything else.



Off to one side was a little doorless cabin. The one thing that became abundantly clear through this entire haunt is age--and I don't mean, worn, faded furnishings, cobwebs, tattered curtains, though there were instances of that. I mean, this entire haunt was very old-school--prims, not mesh, original Grimworx haunt pieces, the whole deal.



I did like this tree, though. Simple, but amusing, and far more entertaining than the screamers scattered here and there.



Between the main haunt and the cabin is a graveyard, mostly gravestones with a few raised crypts. Then, there was this sign on the door in to the main haunt. I have to be honest, I have no idea what they meant here? This is a haunt nearly completely without gore or violence (barring one moment mentioned later).



Several rooms were like this--simple furnishings, what we could probably term as Haunt Standard, but not badly done.



And between this shot, and the one previous, near the entrance to the long room the skull in the crystal ball is in, is a small coffin with a sign saying "Look but don't touch!"

I touched. And out rose one of the Phantasm flying death spheres (NSFW warning here, probably, as that video does contain violence and gore) that attached to my head and drilled in. More irritating than debilitating, though the sound--a cross between a dentist's drill and a wood bore--was unnerving.

All in all, though, not a terrible haunt. Not spectacular, but if you're bored, it's a way to take up some time. None of the poses on the furniture are stellar, but again, that's probably not the point. Three out of five skulls.

you committed, I'm your crime, push my button anytime

This next link involves quite a bit of NSFW language, and also reveals yet another massive flaw in Bethesda's perceptions, both of their own company and their players: they completely and utterly failed to register the domain "falloutfirst". They have only themselves to blame.

And the list of all haunts for this year has been tweaked, corrected, and updated with visible graphics.

Oh, and there is a phenomenal video on YouTube about the history of Hocus Pocus--why it flopped originally, how it was made in the first place, and why it's such a Halloween classic today.

Now, then. There's a haunt on Etienne Island that sounds intriguing:

A little creepy, a lots spooky... tons of those things that go bump in the night. The 2019 edition of Daddy's Girl Oasis Haunted house. Please turn sound on, set to night for the best experience.

I guess...good of them to warn me?

When I first landed, I couldn't see a way into the haunt. Then I walked around three buildings, and down the ramp, and found this sign. Then I had realized I'd taken off a rather signature tattoo for the Ursula outfit at the masquerade ball--pictures to come--so ported home to ink it proper. Then came back, and...right by the port point, there's a dark stone archway. Silly me.



What's a Snation?



Uh...you look...busy. I'll...I'll just come back later.



The asylum has seen better days. I wish it had also seen fewer game rips.



Case in point.

Which is really sad, to this point I was really liking the creativity. I'm very disappointed.

Okay. One more rip, and I'm gone.



One more rip.

I'm gone.

This isn't a straight zero haunt, I think, is the main problem. There's a lot of innovative ideas here. There's some really effective decoration. But the utter laziness, the callous uncaring in using known game rips...I can't give them points for that. I just can't.

So, I guess...overall, if you don't mind game rips, go, you could find some good photo ops. Otherwise, it just hit me as meh after all the copyright infringement.

and as I watch you disappear into the ground, my one mistake was that I couldn't let you down

This one's weird...their description:

Restaurant buffet, Dinner, Date, anyone welcome to dine in and enjoy the other activities in Bazzar Fantasy Community, Bowling Alley, Movie Theater, Halloween Haunted House, Ice Cream Shop

So "Haunted House" is in there, but...the rest of it has nothing to do with anything I'm looking for. Will it be any good?



I have all the dread.

So I looked around for a bit, and near the corner of "Beyonsay Road" and "Fierce Blvd", I found what might be a haunt? Maybe? Okay, time to set the proper mood.



Midnight works better. Could this be the place?



I walked up to the sidewalk, walked onto the parcel, clicked to open the door...and was immediately bounced:

[23:03] Second Life: You have been ejected from this land.

Well, that's rude. No skulls for you.



What about Peach's Haunted House? The parcel image looks very overcrowded. The description seems just as cluttered:

Interactive Haunted House. Halloween, Haunted Mansion. Fun for all ages. Take your time exploring and sit on things to interact. Spooky, Scary, asylum, Circus, Freakshow, Haunted Museum, Fright, Halloween Photo Spot. Vampires, Haunt, boo, witches,

"Boo, witches" indeed. At least this place looks more like a haunte....waitaminute, this is Lunar's haunted house again? WHY DO YOU HAVE TWO NAMES AND TWO ADS IT IS CONFUSING!

Okay, third try. And the rapid sound looks are just as annoying, even without a headache.

Ana-stasia's came up. Their blurb:

Voice Lounge, voice, club, music, dance, dj, dancer, voice club, open mic, games, voice, haunted house, hangout, chat, fun, all genres, Singer, relaxing, Entertainment, karaoke, celebrate, photo studio, Comedy ALL WELCOME

So...basically a voice hangout, but it does say haunted house...I am dubious, but let's go.

So first off, the port drops off inside the club. Which is not the haunt. And I was having a bit of trouble rezzing in walls and such--I'd cranked down all my settings for the masquerade ball and had forgotten to raise them--so it took a bit to figure out I couldn't just walk through the "door" in the back of the club--which was, in fact, the back wall of the club--to get there.



This is a weirdly expansive place. Once I found out how to get in, I had to stand on one side of the room and just let things rez in. I kept having to up my draw distance. Most haunts I can run through at my standard 180-225 draw distance. This one I kept having to edge it up because it was so huge.



I set this pic to autocontrast, just because it was so dark and so large. The animated arrows on the floor led me from the, I guess, haunted warehouse, through a door to, I guess, a haunted warehouse club. Here there be spiders (note arrow--that's a larger-than-human sized one. Not realistic, but be aware). Here there be game rips. And here I'm done with this haunt. Three for three, all struck out.