Aura Haunted House Review (2024)

There were a lot of actors to fill most of the spaces. Some actors followed groups through scenes, which added to the scare factor. The actors were believable, and we could tell they knew their rooms and characters.

One of the most notable characters was our guide to the queue, a slender pale woman in a flowing black lace dress. She was carrying a lantern and had a very dreamlike quality when she spoke to us. A lot of the actors had a very menacing quality that matched the rooms, and sometimes claustrophobic nature of the houses.

All the actors were interactive with dialogue and good use of their rooms, props, and body movements. The actors were able to give proper scares, while still scaring forward. All of the actors utilized dialogue, or strange noises and screams. Throughout the house, the use of dialogue throughout the house made sense to the rooms the actors were in. A lot of the actors incorporated creepy contortions, as well as erratic body movements. There were a lot of good characters, and a variety of them to keep the show buzzing along.

The use of airbrush makeup, colorfully creepy eye contact, and distressed costumes could be seen throughout. The actors had a ghostly sense of character, which fit their respective scenes.

The angel of death was a recurring character with a distressed face, and sunken eyes, which shows the trauma she may have experienced. She wore a white flowy dress with a beautiful, oversized flower crown that was eye-catching. I am sure her beauty is deceptive, and she uses that to lead unsuspecting victims to their demise.

One notable character, we saw before while entering the second section, was a widow looking for her next victim/husband while flaunting her expensive fur coat. Her makeup gave her a bit of age and experience. We cannot forget to mention the actor in the baby costume, which I unfortunately did not get to see, but their dialogue of crunchy excrement-filled diaper needing to be changed was good enough for me.

If you go and keep an eye out long enough, you can catch a glimpse of a historical costume from the original Peoria Jaycees haunted house!

Aura is hard to miss with the spotlight in the sky, ample staff guiding you in high visibility vests, and glowing wands, with lots of parking spots. There is plenty of event staff with Aura gear on, radios, and high visibility vests. The box office and entrance to the attraction are hard to miss. The waiting areas all have a large presence of staff, and security, in and around the area.

While the house does have adequate lighting, some of the areas are very dimly lit. The dim lighting does help the atmosphere, but can hinder guests while walking. The setup does allow the actors and guests to move around with ease, although some of the actors may get too close for comfort for some guests. One safety issue that sticks out, is the lack of emergency exits visible while walking through the houses. If an actor or guest needs to get out, the signs should be visible. There should also be a designated spot where the house rules are explained.

The staff are extremely helpful. They are easy to spot, as they wear high-visibility vests and Aura shirts and hoodies. Finding someone to help isn’t difficult, as they are also wearing earpieces and radios. The queue line actors are also available to help, as well as give a good scare. Aura has a good online presence, as well as a fanbase. There is also a banner illustrating how some of the local houses have a visit-a-house savings benefit.

Walking up to the ticket booth, there were plenty of actors all around. We happened to run into a very special guest actor that we have come across plenty of times, as a review team. Scary Gary happened to be looking for wives during our visit. Side note: This man tends to call me at one o’clock am, just to chat sometimes. I have voice mails to prove it! The owners here appreciate him, as they go above and beyond to help Scary Gary, and accommodate his needs. Seems worth it as guests tend to flock to him, like Gary flocks to trash cans, to see what he can find to eat (this is where he says he found half a cheeseburger). One more fun fact about Scary Gary: He hibernates most of the year, only appearing during the haunt season, Transworld in March, and sometimes Midwest Haunter Convention in the summer.

Just to the left of the ticket booth, is the merch area/exit of the attraction, which has plenty of photo ops available. The items here are very one-off, actual antiques, such as the pipe organ (beautifully crafted), as well as the horse-drawn hearse (smart move to place it inside away from the elements).

When approaching the right side of the ticket booth, the queue forms around the building. There is an overflow room that has an ominous feel. It’s dimly lit with a bit of fog and plenty of pews to sit around and wait on.

Aside from that, there are some tent areas where guests wait as well. Just opposite the ditch, are some headstone decorations just on the edge of the forest, Fun fact: the Bartonville State Hospital Cemetery is nearby, and I believe it is located just within the woods where the headstones sit! It seems like a fitting tribute to the history of the Hospital district.

The outside of the building is original, but we are greeted by actors in 40’s era-appropriate costumes, that guide us inside the attraction. The first two rooms feel immersed in antiques, dimly lit areas, and some great scares so early on. Plenty of the attraction is riddled with a mix of high-end props, actual caskets, and set-ups using actual rooms designed for patients during their time active in a hospital, such as a bathtub room.

Overall, the attraction does a fine job of creating an atmosphere worthy enough of the building and its history. I speak for the whole team by saying I’m excited about what they will add in upcoming seasons.

The building on the outside was already creepy due to the history behind it, so no extra special effects are needed. While this is an actor-driven haunt, the use of props and sounds helped to effectively execute scares to unsuspecting victims. We enjoyed seeing a baby coffin right at the beginning, which we are envious of since we have been searching for one to add to our home.

A few rooms were filled with multiple mannequin props. In a couple of those rooms, there were life-sized animal costumes, which gave a sense of uneasiness due to the massive size. The still mannequins were anxiety-driven as we could not identify whether it was a human or an inanimate object.

On the opposite side, there was a room filled with dolls of all sizes having a party. Since it was whimsical and cute, the animatronic doll, with long hair covering its face, lunged towards us and caught us off guard.

In between scenes, there were times of unsettling lack of sounds which was effective. The actors had light and sound queues that worked out, executed perfectly together. The lights were blinding, and the sounds were deafening bursts. A few times we felt the lights were used to have an actor pop out from any angle to complete a scare, and it was successful.

The scenes throughout the haunted walkthrough were complete and felt completely immersive. The most notable room was the casket maze, which is self-explanatory. The caskets were stacked about six feet tall, all the way through, with a few of them having been used for open casket services.

The attraction had some very scary parts that were enhanced with proper fog levels and low lighting. In some scenes, actors utilized startle scares and were very effective. The details also enhanced the experience because they made us truly believe we were in some of the scenes.

The actors had great timing and were able to effectively get good scares through the whole group. A lot of this came from them utilizing the tight spaces between rooms. They were able to feed off one another, when there were multiple actors in a room.

Knowing their rooms and how to implement body movement made the scares fun and startling. The jump scares were rampant throughout the house, but were still able to work effectively. The use of unsettling dialogue and odd noises add to the variety of scares.

A lot of the scares were predictable, however because of the teamwork of the actors, they worked. The actors have a strong grasp of how to make a predictable fright work well. The setups for distraction and startle scares were very jarring.

The ending of the house leads into the gift shop, while we were gasping for air. The theme throughout the house flows well, so the calming gift shop entrance was a nice sigh of relief as we walked into the cool autumn air.

Aura Haunted House had a total walk-through time of 19 minutes. With General Admission starting at $35, this brings our Minute Per Dollar value to 0.54. As mentioned, this attraction is still in its first three seasons, so there will be plenty ahead in the upcoming years.

The team behind this attraction has over 50 years combined in experience, and has also successfully run another haunted house before branching out for their own. This attraction is a ton of fun with many great characters, signature rooms like Bobs, and great use of practical items and creativity to make it entertaining.

Aura is always worth a visit during the Halloween season, and even participates in a blackout night during the last weekend of the season. As we previously mentioned, we are excited about what this attraction will do in the upcoming seasons, as it is ever-developing.