Dr. Who fans, you don’t own the ‘base under siege’ trope! It’s pretty common across the horror and sci-fi genres. Just look at the works of John Carpenter, Mr. Halloween himself: Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing, and Ghosts of Mars fit solidly in the subclass.
If you’ve always wanted to star in your own base-under-siege story…or any badass sci-fi-horror story, really…you need to infiltrate the grounds of Haunted Hoorah with all due expediency. The military command there is taking on new recruits to find out what exactly is going on inside the internally breached compound of Joint Research Base Hoorah.
In the never-ending, and frankly depressing, quest to build a better weapon, a misguided and most likely mad doctor has been shooting up the troops with a super soldier serum. The side effects can only be described as not very ideal for anybody.
You, as a raw and (let’s face it) expendable recruit, have been tasked with recon of the base, hopefully to be aided by a few still-human comrades unlucky enough to be stuck inside. Can it be taken back from the savage and bloodthirsty test subjects? Or is it a lost cause, in which case – dun, dun, dun! – the Pentagon’s high brass has green-lit the nuclear option, literally.
The walkthrough is among the most interactive in Ohio. We would describe it as thrilling, tense, and pretty physical. Fittingly enough for the theme, you will be asked (okay, ordered) to rope-climb up ramps, crawl through obstacle courses, take a short jump into a pit, and squeeze through blasted holes in the wall.
It’s an exciting experience! The clock was ticking, so we set off for the base. Time to complete the desperate mission or suffer the consequences. Or, as the Haunted Hoorah’s own tagline puts it: Comply or Die!
This bloodied battalion appeared to field a full complement of grunts, both of the friend and foe variety. Sgt. Slaughter and his fellow soldiers in the pre-entrance area conducted a boot camp complete with drilling, marching, and order following. Sarge asked for a volunteer and then told them they were designated as a ‘bullet catcher’ – the one to throw themselves on a grenade to save the rest of the platoon. Nervous laughter all around. We then underwent some hazing in the form of belittling insults and humiliation.
Tainted super soldiers at the base charged us from every angle, including the floor, screamed at us, and threatened us with grievous bodily harm using any method or tool at hand, and, in general, acted entirely loony. Rabid nurses wanted to stick us with syringes, probably trying to pump us full of that poison serum; commissary cooks wanted to shove their deplorable chow down our throats. When we didn’t fit the doctor’s requirements for serum experimentation, he might have overreacted just a tad by choking and stabbing his recruitment assistant.
We have to say, our ‘friendly’ allies inside weren’t much better! They yelled at us, ordered us around, hurried us up, and marched us into decon chambers. One enthusiastic trooper took exception to our lack of alacrity and bawled us out with: “I said crawl, I didn’t say take a nap, move it move it move it!”
But the most distressing characters of the night came after a nuke blast turned the region into a shambles. A graveyard wraith groaned and grunted as it got in our face and pursued us, and a grave digger stalked us noisily, dragging a shovel behind. A mother wailed and called out for us to help find her baby. One psycho repeatedly demanded that we give them something shiny. Another apocalypse survivor, persistent and hungry, pestered us for flesh. We offered a hand or a foot, but this holdout wanted nothing but brains. So picky!
The most common outfit consisted of military fatigues paired with camo paint. The army uniforms outside came decorated with patches repping the Haunted Hoorah logo and Comply or Die slogan, name tags with evocative monikers like Shudder and Doom, and amusing sayings such as ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Accessories included flak vests, caps or helmets, and weapons.
Friendlies looked much the same inside, and we also found the decontamination staff in gas masks. Crazies came with bloodied or brutalized faces and many wore creepy contact lenses and/or prosthetic pieces. A damaged rocket scientist wore goggles, screechy nursing personnel assailed us in red-streaked medical blues, the doctor’s cheeks puffed out in scarlet rakes, and his assistant walked around with a fully exposed brain.
After the bomb dropped, survivors surrounded us in cobbled-together, makeshift armors and pads, a la the crowd of atomic punks from the Mad Max movies; and the graveyard wraith cut an imposing figure in all-black robe and a hood shrouding an unseeable face.
Haunted Hoorah is located in Marion, Ohio, an hour north of Columbus. We encountered no snafu’s in our GPS-guided approach to the research base. Attendants guided us into free parking on grass. The way to the ticket booth and attraction entrance were both obvious, but still clearly marked.
The base itself threw a few more obstacles at us than we’re used to. There was the bumpy ride to the base and uneven ground in the outdoor parts (including the parking lot). Inside the building: step-ups and step-downs, low ceilings, and spongy floors. Plus, there were the physical challenges we listed in the Summary – those ones have walk-arounds. We witnessed a bit of a medical mishap on the transport ride and are pleased to report a quick and professional resolution. These folks have clearly been trained in dealing with accidents.
Haunted Hoorah maintains a strong social media presence, with pages on several of the most popular channels. An FAQ would be appreciated on their website, which otherwise features online ticket ordering, a teaser of the story, some cool and amusing videos, and a link to download your free photo op picture…like we did!
Haunted Hoorah did a great job dropping us into a doozy of a scenario and following through on almost every count. The outside area looked just like what we expected a military base should look like: filled with crates, barrels, vehicles, shelters and tents, and personnel in full uniform and barking orders. The photo op allowed us to vamp it up with our best tough-guy-and-gal poses, holding rocket launchers and rifles against a bullet-pocked and dynamite-laden backdrop.
Then, it was on to boot camp. Our superiors alternately busted our balls and briefed us on the sitch at the base. Two things were made clear: we were on our own and the doomsday clock was moving inexorably toward megatomic devastation! Yup, those radioactive birds were already in the air and would dump their deadly payload on us if we failed.
This theme was repeated to us several times, both before and inside the building. With suicide mission parameters fully etched in our skulls, we really felt the urgency, between the reckless, strobe-lit and metal music-blaring transport ride from boot camp to base, the frantic army people’s demeanors, frenetic enemy actions, and all the klaxons, flashing lights, sirens, blasting music, and other stressful effects firing in there. After that, was our sobering witnessing of a nuclear blast followed by scrambling amongst the ruins and dodging feral survivors.
The strong storyline and relentless action pumped up immersion to a great degree. We had almost no time to wonder why there would be a squeeze tunnel, crematorium furnace, or a padded cell inside the base, but we guess the contingency plans must account for absolutely everything!
Like any good sci-fi-horror movie – and this certainly was a cinematic experience – excellent effects set up the story and scares.
Joint Research Base Hoorah kept believable sets, filled with great detail work, coming at breakneck speed: the medical wards with messed-up patients, the mess hall’s racks of canned foods and trays of yucky slop, halls hung with recruiting posters and fuse boxes, an intricate control room with a dead technician prop slumped at the monitors, the doctor’s lab stuffed with whirring gadgets, beeping equipment, bubbling beakers, and electrode streams, and an impressive missile lab site and silo.
A decontamination chamber blasted us with warm fog while lights flashed and sirens sounded. We had to cross between laser-sighted gunners and their targets in a riflery practice room, and watched a mushroom cloud develop from a bunker viewing area following a nuclear detonation. And these were only a few of the scenes inside the base!
More awaited us outside. The fallout-dusted landscape was littered with ruined cars, an ambulance, and even a downed airplane. The graveyard featured ominous sound effects such as a slowly tolling bell and a howling wolf. This section slowed down the crazed action for a bit of a cool-down…yet still quite a creepy one, all the same.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 8.5
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 9.4
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 8.3
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 8.7
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 7.8
Haunted Hoorah forced us to explore many fears: extinction event terrors; illness/infections; disasters of science and medicine; electrocution; burning, when we had to crawl through a warm furnace; getting shot at; and humiliation or public shaming (at boot camp, the officers singled out some of the recruits for singing or doing jumping jacks; they spared us this time, but they made us do push-ups during the last visit), all counted among the more interesting ones.
We cringed when a voice cried out “Commence fire!” followed by a barrage directed our way in the target practice room, quickly pulled our hands back when electro-shocked by the walls in a dark maze, and panicked in several rooms that at first appeared exitless until a hidden passage became revealed.
Actors performed group separations, attacked from every position and angle, and surrounded us in groups. We got ganged up on especially hard in the rooms before the doctor’s lab, by the grave digger and wraith pursuing us slowly through the cemetery, and when a pack of the apocalypse survivors stalked us mercilessly near the finale, fading back a bit and then charging back in, again and again.
Sir, yes, sir! Haunted Hoorah definitely brought the scares with often military-like intention and precision.
General admission of $30 is billed as “enlistment level” ticketing. A “special ops clearance” fast pass is available for $45, and the “critical extraction” front-of-the-line option runs $60.
Our tour of recon & review duty inside Haunted Hoorah lasted 38 minutes. Putting that up against the $30 general admission, we came up with a minutes per dollar ratio of 1.27. That’s a pretty good bump-up from the 1.0 benchmark we strive to see. And considering the breathless, no-wasted-time-or-space walkthrough you get here, we’re nominating Haunted Hoorah for the Medal of Value.
Your orders: report to the Haunted Hoorah for a fun and thrill-filled bout of R&R. That is all, recruit. Dismissed!
311 Rose Avenue, Marion, Ohio 43302