Blurb:
| On the one-year anniversary of a young woman’s tragic death, an extreme haunted house attraction reopened its doors to the public. What happened next would forever traumatize a small Texas town. The Last Haunt is an attempt to make sense of the mysterious brutality that occurred on that fateful Halloween night. Constructed from interviews with the survivors, this oral history is the closest anyone has ever come to documenting the truth behind the McKinley Manor massacre. |
I’m a big fan of haunted houses. I get really into them and let
the scare actors do whatever they want to me (tie me up, tickle me, “drill” my
teeth, lead me away from the group, etc.). My mother, sister, and I plan an
October trip every year and the haunted houses we visit are always my favorite
part. But they don’t really scare me. Of course, I don’t really expect
them to. I’ve been hardened by horror and I’m difficult to frighten. But that’s
okay with me, I still enjoy the creepy atmosphere and it never fails to make me
giggle whenever I get startled by a scare actor. I still have fun. But some
folks don’t get anything out of typical family-friendly “boo haunts.” They want
something more intense. And that’s where “extreme haunts” like Blackout,
Stag, and Miasma come in. These haunts are usually 18 and up (many of them
contain nudity, sexual situations, and even simulated sexual assault), require
a waiver and give you a safe word to use if things get to be too much. Actors
are allowed to touch you and even manhandle you. Participants might be dunked
in cold water, shocked, or have a bag put over their head, to name a few of the
unpleasant experiences to expect.
Gus McKinely loves horror and scaring people. He was a
horror fan growing up and his obsession with fear only grew as he became older.
As an adult, he used to put on haunted houses for the neighborhood kids with
his wife every year. But when an internet troll named Betty Rocksteady (who
later becomes his lover and biggest fan) makes fun of his boo haunt, Gus
becomes obsessed with creating the scariest haunted house ever. So, he creates
McKinley Manor, the scariest and most extreme haunt in the country.
McKinley Manor is a play on McKamey Manor, a real-life
extreme haunt put on by Russ McKamey. Several of the details are the same, such
as donating a bag of dog food instead of paying an entrance fee, the haunt
being year-round, the no-swearing rule, a promised cash reward if you can
complete the haunt (which apparently doesn’t really exist), and the lack of a
safe word (although McKamey reports he now uses a safe word or phrase). Even
Gus McKinely is based on Russ McKamey, with both being former military who now
work at Walmart. The
biggest similarity to McKamey Manor, of course, is that this haunt isn’t really a haunted house
with scare actors, but more of an endurance test where you get waterboarded in
some guy’s backyard. Except no one has been killed participating in McKamey
Manor.
Booth’s story is about taking something that’s supposed to be fun and twisting it into something ugly. McKinley is no longer interested in creating an enjoyable, scary experience; he just wants a reason to make people suffer. It’s implied he’s always been a bit of a sadist, trying to gross out his dad while he was eating and playing scary pranks on the other ensigns. These were people who didn’t want to be disgusted or scared. And while participants at McKinley Manor do consent to the experience, by not providing a safe word Gus essentially removes their ability to withdraw their consent at any time, meaning he’s just straight up abusing people. And he clearly loves abusing people, no matter what his former employee Zach Chapman, or his obsessive girlfriend, Betty say. In fact, Betty even admits to getting off on the torture herself. She even goes so far as to masturbate to a video of a girl named Jessica (who she refers to as “that bitch”) drowning at the Manor when a waterboarding session goes wrong. Of course, if anyone tries to criticize Gus, including Jessica’s grieving brother, he labels them as “haters” and sends his rabid fans after them. While the story has supernatural elements, it’s Gus and his followers that provide the real scares.
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