At Distracted Haunted House, we met face to face with ‘the Lucy demon,’ a malevolent entity that possessed a teenage girl and has spent the five years of the haunt’s existence spreading its awful influence, creating a host of baleful creatures, and making havoc for any humans foolish enough to enter its realm.
Be on your guard, for you may be the next victim if you become too…Distracted!
Distracted unleashed a fun, high-energy cast on us! An interesting note about the actors at Distracted is that you’ll get quite a changed-up experience each night as a different charity group comes in every evening to supplement the regular cast and take their turn at fundraising. We came by three dozen cast members on this evening.
The night before our visit, they brought in a hockey team full of big brutes. For our walkthrough, we contended with a younger soccer team that was decidedly more diminutive than the scary skating stick-handlers. But what they lacked in size they made up for in vigor. We’re still thinking about the wacked-out zombies writhing around on the floor in the ‘find Thomas’ room, they really freaked us out. Gory gooooaaaal!
Everyone in this ensemble had something to contribute. The ‘5 horrors’ of this year’s theme appeared intimidating and fierce. Lucy super gymnastically twisted herself all over the bed in an impressive physical display. The zombie wrangler was funny. The mom with hungry ‘babies’ acted realistically distraught. The spider-people scrambled in a very arachnid-like manner. The circus monkey banged cymbals in our ears.
Other than the two little ghosts who were supposed to just stand there and look creepy, all the actors were highly interactive and took advantage of the tight confines to corner us and get in our face. We heard some interesting dialogue, more clever stuff than the usual ‘get out’ and such. Nice job, Distracted cast!
Variety of Characters – (35% of score)
Complete, Finished Appearance – (30% of score)
Creative, Detailed Costumes – (20% of score)
Creative, Detailed, Realistic Makeup – (15% of score)
Distracted excelled at costuming, We found ourselves stopping at several junctures to observe horrid faces more closely. There were several very wicked looking masks in there, especially on the 5 horrors from hell!
All masks seemed to fit quite well, mostly accompanied by finishing touches like makeup blended into transition areas and hold your horses, honest to goodness eyeblack to seal the illusion. (Not being sarcastic! When you start looking for it, lack of eyeblack becomes an annoying letdown.)
Makeup appeared similarly well done. Some of the smaller fry in the cast received fairly basic ghostly or ghoulish do-ups, while others sported truly horrific paint jobs and/or prosthetic applications.
Outerwear in general looked complete and well detailed, with some gradations from the simple ghostly figures to all-out splendiferousness in the big bads of the haunt. The glowing spider-people were an interesting, different look and the stilted ‘Nightmare Monster’ was a show-stopper.
It literally stopped us in our tracks while we checked out this awesomeness…nightmare is right! We believe the terrifying horned/antlered creature is the silhouette in their logo.
You might want to look up the website, feardistracted.com, for several great looks at their outstanding costume work.
If Masks, Effective – (25% of score)
Costumes Appropriate for Scenes, Themes – (30% of score)
Easy to Find, Navigate – (25% of score)
Safety – (20% of score)
Distracted is located inside the Woodland Mall in Bowling Green, Ohio, a sizable college town 30 minutes south of Toledo.
We had a bit of an issue with GPS getting to the haunt, which was not the haunt’s fault. Just be aware that you should turn right once you’re in the mall entrance; we were told to turn left, where we spent several minutes touring the empty backside of the mall.
This problem could probably have been avoided if we had just used our eyes and common sense instead of blindly following the digital assistant (cue that episode of The Office where Micheal drove into the lake), so just make sure to turn right once you’re in the mall entrance and look for the tent and fire barrel. Other than that, the mall itself was very easy to find.
Free parking was in the mall lot. Probably needless to say, being a mall, there was plenty of it!
Navigating internally was not too hard. The only thing we noticed is that Distracted had a very long line that night and we had to be directed to the proper area. The other would be that there’s a bit of a stroll to the restrooms .
But bonus, it’s a deserted and creepy stroll, and mega-bonus, mall bathrooms woooo!! Anyone who reads these reviews regularly knows we flip out when there’s indoor plumbing at haunts.
Getting through the attraction was not tough either, footing/impediment-wise, though there were some confusing spots in the walkthrough as to where to proceed and once we even found ourselves back in a spot we had just left. Maybe chalk that up to the leader’s poor sense of haunt direction. We swear he gets by in the car very well! Just not on foot’
Distracted’s website features great design, fabulous photos, and copious information. Distracted also runs on several social media channels — Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Everyone here was really nice. The owner’s mom served as hostess in the post-haunt area and she is a very sweet lady!
Staff Professional, Helpful, Friendly – (25% of score)
Ease of Finding Info Before Arrival – (20% of score)
Obviously a Haunt Before Entering – (40% of score)
Prepared for Experience Inside – (15% of score)
Well, we all know that being inside a mall is often not the best way to juice up guests for a spooktacular experience. Being in your standard mall lobby under restrictions about not changing the bright white lighting and unable to use fog, etc., Distracted still made commendable efforts to dress up their entrance area. Things like putting up banners, decorations, and props, and having most of their staff dressed up in costumes.
Outside in the darkness of the exit area, the atmosphere fared much better. We exited directly into what’s referred to as the Recovery Zone, where we were offered complimentary ice water, hot cocoa, and a bag of marshmallows to roast over the fire barrel with provided skewers. We loved this! What a brilliant way to finish and round off the experience, sending folks home with good feelings about what just happened.
Sound Effects Effective – (20% of score)
Creative, Original Scenes, Props – (30% of score)
Detailed Scenes – (30% of score)
Achieve, Maintain Suspension of Disbelief – (20% of score)
Lots of good effects got put on display at Distracted. It seemed like around every corner we found interesting sets and fresh ideas, or at least fresher takes on old familiar territory, that presented themselves in well executed fashion.
The glowing spider-people we mentioned in Cast scurried about on their spider webs blocking our way through, don’t think we’ve ever seen that before!
Skulls rattled and shook on a line controlled by a central corpse prop that was only revealed when we rounded a corner. So, first we saw just a bunch of skulls in a row on the wall bobbing around. Simple but neat effect! We loved the Halloween set filled with jack o’ lanterns and trick or treaters, and the set where Nightmare Monster appeared was ultra-creepy.
The lighting focused, highlighted, created mood, and ‘distracted’ effectively. The house played a great freaky soundtrack that added to creepiness and enjoyment. Numerous sparkers and crackers made us hop to attention.
SFX Effective at Scaring, Entertaining – (35% of score)
Could Tell What Theme Was Without Asking – (15% of score)
Theme Well Executed, Believable – (25% of score)
Location Authenticates Theme – (10% of score)
How Scary – (15% of score)
When Distracted first started, the backstory was about a group of teenagers who entered a haunted house. One of them, Lucy, got possessed by a demon. Its evil has grown and morphed into a multi-dimensional ‘black swamp’ of misery and horror.
To coincide with the fifth season of Distracted, the Lucy Demon has called up five horrors from hell that represent the atrocities of murder, mutilation, isolation, shame, and possession.
While not completely necessary to enjoy the show, we thought it added to and played into the haunt experience to read about the story on the Distracted website.
Provide Scares to Entire Group – (50% of score)
How Predictable – (25% of score)
Variety of Scares – (25% of score)
To answer the obvious question on everyone’s mind — yes, Distracted uses distraction effectively to set up scares!
We got spooked by plenty of frights, including actor- and prop-based jump scares, actors pursuing us (including the Nightmare Monster, get away! – no, come closer so I can get a good look – no, get away!), sudden loud noises, and getting creeped out by the horrific looks, movements, and sounds of monsters. Most of the main humanoid beasties handled vicious looking weapons, and they weren’t afraid to swing ’em!
And let us say, it’s always refreshing to see something that’s not another chainsaw finale.
1234 Main Street, Bowling Green, Ohio 43402