The Haunted Angelus (pronounced ‘An-jill-us’) is in their 6th season of operation for the 2017 haunt season. The Indy location is actually a sister haunt to the Haunted Angelus Scream Park (located in Hudson, Florida), both of which benefit the Angelus House (a cerebral palsy group home, also in Florida). Another fun fact: the owners also operate the massive Ron’s Halloween/Patriotic Fireworks superstore in the other half of the building.
Whether it be scaring you half to death, helping you outfit yourself or your house for Halloween or supplying you with an awe-inspiring, explosive light show, these guys are all about entertainment. They’ve even got a couple of 15-minute escape rooms where you can test your problem-solving skills without having to dedicate an entire hour to it.
With a clear passion for Halloween, a few fresh scenes and a mostly-new cast for this season, we decided to pay the Haunted Angelus a return visit this year to see what they have in store.
As mentioned above, Angelus has a pretty fresh cast for this season. With that said, we were relieved to find that some of them were actually very interactive. The clowns in both the indoor and outdoor areas were the most energetic of the night, climbing all over the scenery, chasing us with chainsaws and one even crawled after us in a bent-over-backwards fashion in the middle of the path, effectively blocking our escape route! Another was riding a tricycle and a different iteration sang to us in both of her cheery and utterly-demonic personas. Dr. Peta’s resident receptionist was debatably the most believable actress of the night, asking us if we’d made an appointment and, upon us letting her know that we hadn’t, warned us that ‘The doctor doesn’t like walk-ins.’ Another notable mention was the subtly, yet creepily-carnivorous Teletubby that kept repeating ‘Play with me’ in a squeaky, child-esque voice while holding its arms out and slowly following after us. Yikes!
Bobby J is a returning favorite that has clearly been refining his ‘sliding’ skills. If you hear a car horn and lots of screams followed by an onslaught of hysterical laughter, it’s probably him doing what he does best! As one of the best single queue entertainers we’ve found, he’s always up for conversation and we’ve never been able to render him speechless.
Though, they did seem to be a little short-handed on the night of our visit. The last portions of the haunt were very light on actors and, in fact, we didn’t see anyone after the boiler scene until we exited the building and made our way into the outdoor maze (about 4 or 5 scenes). We also received our fair share of less-than-stellar dialogue with some resorting to phrases like ‘Hi’ and ‘Nice shirt’ when their initial scare attempts fell through. We suspect this will improve as the season progresses, however, and the cast gains a few more nights of ‘haunt time.’
Angelus’ actors’ attire is generally done well and we had very few issues figuring out who’ or what’ was attacking us. It seemed like the clowns were actually some of the best-dressed characters of the night and equal or greater detail was put into their makeup too. The evil teletubbies are, needless to say, ‘unique’ and the black widow character in the cemetery was yet another stand-out.
Some good masks and makeup were found throughout the haunt, but at times, the rest of their attire wasn’t quite as detailed. Such was the case with the voodoo-looking ladies, the doctor, pumpkin face, the brute in the cemetery and the killer in the boiler area.
Finding Angelus is pretty easy since they have plenty of signage that is hard to miss, including a lit up billboard by the road, a hearse with rotating lights, an escape room trailer with a banner and their large building that displays the large haunt and Halloween store banners. Navigating the property is also smooth, as the ticket booth faces forward on the front of the building and friendly staff can direct you where to go from there.
If you like to roam around in Halloween stores (like we do), make sure you check to see if it’s open. They also have shirts available for purchase at the ticket booth. A free photo op was found once we entered the indoor queue area so make sure you take advantage of that as well.
During our visit, two queue line entertainers were doing a great job at working the crowd, keeping them entertained with their special props. Staff were located at the ticket booth (along with a friendly 4-legged assistant), at the entrance to the queue line, at the entrance to the haunt and at the escape rooms if you need any assistance. Most of the flooring is very smooth and the layout is ADA compliant.
The haunt’s hearse with a rotating light, Halloween store and haunt banners and multiple queue line entertainers let us know we were at a haunted house. Soon after we arrived, we could hear repeated horn blasts and many screams as Bobby J and Thrash the Clown worked hard to prepare guests for scares before they entered. Innocent patrons were often seen running out of the Halloween store and into the parking lot because they were getting so startled! Other than that, though, there wasn’t much else going on outside the building. But, the queue area is a different story. Once inside, it was much darker and an overall spooky presence took root. The facade to the haunt, eerie decor (including Nora’s favorite’ realistic spider webs!) and matching music really helped in preparing us to enter the Angelus. The scaring didn’t stop in this area either. Bobby J can slither around in the darkness… much like a snake stalking its prey, so you can expect some action in this area too! You just may not see it coming…
From looking at the outside of the building, it’s hard to tell how many special effects and decor that you’re about to be immersed in. We can tell you, though, there are quite a few; some including things we haven’t seen anywhere else. They also used a superb mixture of decor, well-placed lighting, ambient sounds and old-school effects to make the scenes come to life. Most of the sound effects that we heard were appropriate for their scenes, but the most realistic ones were the rumbles of thunder and lightning strikes in the graveyard. The noise actually rattles you in this area – much like real thunder – and we could even hear it next door in the Halloween store!
An exclusive effect was added to one of the areas this year and, although we don’t want to ruin the surprise, we will tell you that this effect was incredibly ‘hot!’ A lot of extra finishing touches have been placed in many of the scenes, making the authenticity stand out even more; cobwebs, dangling animal corpses that looked like they’d been hanging out for awhile, scents and vintage string lighting among others. We also came across many unique, moving components of the scenes, including a shelf surprise, an overhead bed surprise, a torrential rainfall (yes, lots of water coming down from overhead! But don’t worry’ you won’t get wet) and a sideways tilting bridge. Additional effects include ghostly furniture, a ‘lively’ hallway, flying ghouls, a giant clown you must walk under, broken pipes and a whole lot more!
Enough Sound FX? (35% of score): 8.5
Sound FX Effective? (15% of score): 7.75
Sounds Appropriate? (25% of score): 8.75
Creative, Original FX? (10% of score): 8.75
Special FX Effective? (15% of score): 7.25
Angelus doesn’t stick to one particular theme. Instead, they immerse their customers into a wide combination of smaller, individually-themed areas. As a result, there is a high likeliness that you will come across some of your greatest fears and possibly some custom creations that you didn’t realize you were afraid of! This jaunt will wind you in and out of a cemetery, a forest, multiple houses, past pipes and boilers, a doctor’s office, a clown area, a church and many more.
Our journey started off on the right foot as we experienced a scare in the very first room of the haunt! From there, we were exposed to a scattered assortment of fright tactics, including a few good distractions, threatening dialogue, total darkness, disorientation and intimidating stares. As most of the scares were delivered by the cast members themselves, rather than props or other effects, we feel that being short-staffed contributed significantly to their overall performance in this category.
Even though our group was small, they tried to target each of us evenly and some continued their efforts until we were well out of their scenes. The finale may be scarier to some than others, depending on how well you treat getting lost, feeling trapped, hearing the growls of a sometimes-unseen chainsaw, or any combintation of the above. We don’t know about you, but this particular tactic was quite unnerving (and we see a lot of chainsaws)!
