By Owen Ingram, Staff Writer
This year’s Halloween season is starting up with stores opening around town, and local haunts opening. One of which is Fright Fest, at Six Flags Great America. This past weekend was the event’s opening weekend, and if you plan to attend between now and Halloween, here are some things to expect.
First off, Fright Fest is not recommended for younger children, so if you want to bring them, keep in mind that the scare actors are released into the park at 6pm, and are permitted to scare anyone still in the park.
Six Flags is split into several themed areas: Orleans Place, Mardi Gras, the newly themed DC Universe, Yukon Territory, County Fair, Southwest Territory, Hometown Square, and Carousel Plaza. Now, when you first enter the park you will see the large pool, with the carousel at the end. Looming in front of the carousel is the Pumpkin King. If it is past 6pm, he will stand and announce that the monsters are roaming the park. If you swallow your fear and decide to keep moving, you can go to the left or the right.
If you keep left, you will enter Orleans Place, but be wary, this is the first scare zone. Walking past the giant skeleton through a stone arch, you will enter the land of Lost Souls. Once you pass these vicious vampires, you will pass through Mardi Gras, and into the Demon Lair, where you can enter your first haunted house, the Gates of Hell.
Now, continuing through the DC Universe, the Joker’s henchmen have taken over the bridge! Walking through the alley of criminals you will enter Yukon territory, where you will encounter the chainsaw wielding inhabitants of the Forbidden Forest. Here you will pass another house titled “The 13th Order”.
Leaving the woods, you will pass through a bridge of Nightmares. These monsters terrorize in a beautiful blacklight, causing them to radiantly glow.
Continuing on into the County Fair you will find the Lost Circus, where ghastly clowns wander. Here you will find the third and fourth haunted house, Big Top Terror, and Condemned. Passing through this cursed carnival, you will enter the Underworld, where the apocalypse takes hold of the few survivors left. Here you will pass the fifth house, Bloodshed.
After exploring the backwoods, you will wander into southwest territory. Walk past the final house, Manslaughter Manor and into the Wretched Meadows, where the scarecrows come to life: remember to be wary of what lurks in the corn.
And finally, you will approach Hometown Square, where there are no creatures, but the Theater, where two shows play every few hours (The Ringmasters Cabaret, and Love at First Fright), and the stage where the Uprising occurs, Uprising being the show where Noxx, the Demon Lord of Fright Fest will release his army of ghosts and ghouls on the visitors of the park.
