Downtown Haunted Attractions

Just got back from a weekend stay downtown and visited both the ASYLUM next to Fremont Casino, and Amazing Jonathan's SCREAMONT in the rear of Las Vegas Club. ASYLUM is easily the superior of the two, with a large cast, professionally-done make-up, great "acting", and an effective layout with a spinning tunnel and white-out room. It is quite long and well worth the 15-dollar admission price. The entire set-up is brought in and sits across from the 3rd Street Stage.

The SCREAMONT attraction costs 20 dollars, and is quite sad. A much smaller cast, unprofessional set-up (the tickets are purchased in the closed-down Vegas Club gift shop), and constructed out of black-painted plywood, old slot machine mazes, and used Vegas Club furniture. It also has a white-out room and spinning tunnel. The first part takes place in the closed-down bingo room that was once Frisky's nightclub. Then your guide takes you in a north-tower elevator to the second floor, where you go to a mock-up of some hotel rooms where the Upper Deck restaurant used to be. I was tempted to joke that it was no different than staying at Vegas Club, but that was too obvious of a joke.

If you only plan on visiting one of these, ASYLUM is the obvious choice. In SCREAMONT's defense, there are a couple of sight-gags that are quite effective. But good luck finding it - I asked staff members that weren't even sure, and just strolled around until finding it. There weren't signs to guide you. Just sad.

BTW, I just found this on the SCREAMONT FB page. Even they know it'll be a bust:

The Screamont Experiment
Saturday
Soft opening last night for employees. Went ok. Tonight it will be better. Miller Lite dropped the ball on the advertising and it doesn't look like the hotel wants to help much. How will people know we exist without a single sign in the casino ? Lots of work for nothing.

 

Did you try out hotel fear??

 

No, I didn't. If it's anything like ASYLUM, it's probably great as well.

 

The hotel and asylum use to be at the same site... it makes sense to bring an attraction to the tourist instead of making the tourists drive to North LV, as I'm guessing most won't make their way.

It's more expensive to see the asylum than it has been in the past. That's the price the tourist pays for convenience.

Both the asylum and hotel had great themeing when I visited: good shows I'd recommend.

Thanks for the info Sam, sounds like I'm skipping the LVC attraction.

 

Thanks for the heads up. Think I will skip the LVC as well. They could just let people ride the south tower elevators, would probably be scarier than anything else

Did you happen to make it to Goretorium on the strip?

 

No, I didn't. We had planned to, but the cost kind of turned us off. We may reconsider on our next visit, as we've heard good things.

 

Thanks Sam...not only is Gortorium expensive, I've read it might take
you 2,3,visits to see everything...$$$
What's a 'white-out room'?

 

White out room I saw at the asylum last year is a round room, not super big, but full of fog and strobe lights, with white walls... no way to see where you are going, and there's a dude walking around in the room. He's hard to see, but he's there, and eventually pointed my group to the way out of the room. It's not a huge room, but it seems like it, since you have no idea where the walls are.

 

Exactly. I never experienced that before, and it was extremely effective. I was leading a group of 5 (you walk in a connected "conga line") and we just kept snaking around, until I spotted somebody inside with us. THAT scared the heck out of me. It was soooo disorienting and a fantastic effect.

 

Well......THANKSYOUS

 

If I can find a discount coupon or other 2-for-1 deal, we may try it Screamont, which thinks it, too, can last a while. Most of the FB reviews are positive, although they may delete negative ones.

Their FB announcement:
We have officially decided to stay open after Halloween due to business having taken off this past week. We will be open every weekend 7 - midnight! There's enough people who love being frightened year around. That's what I thought. Now we get keep building new stuff!