Basement of the Dead / Shattered 3D – Aurora, Illinois (Review)
Visited on Thursday, October 10, 2013
Location: 42 West New York Street, Aurora, IL. 60506 (Next to Hollywood Casino parking garage)
Note: There is No signage on the street for Basement of the Dead. This is their biggest issue. You must have Signs, signs, signs! If guests can’t find the haunt, they can’t attend! This was my first time visiting the haunt and I had a very hard time finding it, even using GPS. People unfamiliar with the area will have a tough time finding it. The location is at the basement
level of a business and cannot be seen from the street. You must go down the outside stairs next to Ballydoyle Irish pub and the haunt is down in the back.
Basement of the Dead and Shattered 3D are both indoor environments that operate rain or shine. It should be noted that the wait lines for both attractions are outside, so in case of inclement weather, please plan accordingly. (Tents are set up for the queue line when raining)
Hours: Fri-Sat 7:00pm-11:00pm / Sun & Thurs 7:00pm-10:00pm
Admission Price: General Admission – Basement of the Dead only $18.00 / Combo Package – Basement of the Dead and Shattered 3D $25.00
Note: Cash only at door! (Show up before 7:15 on any night [Except coupon nights] and receive $2 off any admission. See discount page on website for $5 off on selected nights!)
Parking: All parking meters free after 5pm, weekends and holidays. Parking available at casino parking garage on Galena for $4. There is a parking lot on the North West corner of New York St. and River St. that is also free after 5pm.
Length: Basement of the Dead: 10 minutes / Shattered 3D: 5 minues
Fright Factor: Basement of the Dead: Medium-High / Shattered 3D: Low-Medium
Review:
I visited on a Thursday night, but by 8 pm, there was already a fairly large crowd of a few hundred people waiting to get into the attraction. Guests are greeted by a wide assortment of characters that lurk around the queue line trying to entertain and keep the atmosphere light. There were costumed actors walking around on stilts and oversized character costumes doing a great job. Guests are also treated to a costumed DJ spinning some great rock tunes while waiting in line, for a nice touch.
I headed into Basement of the Dead first with a group of three teenage girls. Throughout the haunt, we traversed
through several dark mazes that exited into some fairly gruesome scenes. One of the scenes depicted a couple of nurses from Silent Hill which featured great acting and top notch makeup with costumes. Other scenes included gory depictions of carnage with bodies being sliced and diced with actors complimenting the scenes, trying to get a rise out of guests. Another really cool scene was a ghost room where you enter to see several people covered from head to toe with sheets, some were dummies and some were live actors, you didn’t know what to expect until a live one would jump out at you, it was very unnerving. One of my favorite scenes was the satanic room which featured a large spinning pentagram with lasers and a goat headed satanic priest spouting incantations to raise the dead. This room featured fabulous set design and attention to detail and really gave a creepy vibe while going through.
While the haunt features the standard inflatable walls, spinning tunnel, and severed heads along with assorted body parts hanging from the ceilings, Basement of the Dead manages to add their own style into the mix. Many of the mazes were pitch black making it very difficult to work your way through them, all the while not knowing what might be lurking around the very next corner.
I commend the actors who all seemed to be into their roles and were full of energy and enthusiasm for what they do. It makes all the difference in the world to have actors that are not just going through the motions and seem to really care about the guest’s experience. Set design was incredible in Basement of the Dead. Each room was full of detail making it hard to see everything on the first time through.
Upon exiting Basement of the Dead, I was ushered into the secondary haunt, Shattered 3D. The inherent problem with 3D houses is the inability to scare with the lights on. The story for this house features Shattered the maniacal clown on the rampage for new victims. I have never found clown horrors to be very scary, but a lot of people do, which goes to show why almost every haunted house features some type of clown characters.
Shattered is relatively short in duration, but features some truly remarkable 3D effects. Guests are each given 3D glasses to wear upon entering. What impressed me most about this house is through the use of wonderful 3D artistry, they were able to do a great job of camouflaging some of the actors and really create some solid scares here. There was a good mix of drop windows along with clown actors hiding in the corners ready to pop out at you. The group of teenage girls I accompanied was screaming the entire way through.
Overall, I found Basement of the Dead and its sister house, Shattered 3D to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Although the haunt is hard to find, if you manage to get there, it’s definitely worth the time and effort and is a very memorable haunted house. There are plenty of intense frights on hand here with most being not for the faint of heart. Guests will have a hair-raising fun time traversing the dark hallways and mazes in search for the perfect scare. I highly recommend Basement of the Dead for a spooky evening of spine-tingling fun!
A very special thank you to Todd Baraniak and crew for having me out!
4 ½ out of 5 Pentagrams!
Watch a brief promo video here:
