Hysterium Haunted Asylum Review (2017)

Hysterium kind of fell short in the costuming and makeup areas. In the first room, the waiting area, there was a girl wheeling herself around in a wheelchair wearing some very clean modern street clothes. There were several characters that night whose costumes looked thrown together and not real authentic. There were a few characters that had some really exceptional costumes and makeup, but they were not the majority. This was the same for the makeup aspect of their characters as well’some were really nicely done, but most were not and there were quite a few over-sized masks being worn by some actors. That being said though, we were able to understand how they worked into their particular scenes.

Hysterium was fairly easy to find with the aid of a GPS (they are listed as Hysterium Escapes in Google Maps, don’t worry, you’re going to the right place). An unlit sign out at the main road let us know that we were headed in the right direction. Parking is on-street near the haunt with some lighting. On busier nights, parking may be a challenge, so hopefully there are plans for a paved lot in the future. Right at the entrance of the haunt’s courtyard was a police vehicle belonging to the on-duty cop onsite. The ticket booth was right next to the entrance and staffed with friendly employees who directed us right where we needed to go. The police officer stood at the entrance of the haunt with a metal detector wand, and surprisingly, this was the only haunt we visited this season that put forth such a security measure. While many haunts require you to be ‘on your honor’ regarding possession of weapons, it was nice to see that Hysterium took the extra step to assure their patrons’ safety. However, inside the haunt we had a few safety concerns, mainly at the show’s finale, which could be a potential fall hazard for especially unbalanced people like Katie.

Hysterium Haunted Asylum definitely started out as an asylum, with a group of talkative and interactive patients in their day room, but as we continued on our tour, the theme became a bit less evident. The inclusion of a sewer scene and clown area, while beautifully decorated, didn’t really do their part to carry on the haunt’s theme. There was a door maze near the middle of the haunt which may have been intended to space groups out a bit, but in this case actually had us mixed into another group until the actors chasing us through took mercy on us and showed us the way.

While the cast at Hysterium focused a large amount of their attention to the female members of our group, they didn’t let the male members get away unscathed. They do not utilize a lot of distractions, which tends to make the scares pretty predictable overall and, in a haunt that prefers the tried and true startle scares, makes it a bit less frightening than it could be. The finale was a completely chainsaw-free breath of fresh air, and an actor had us playing Simon Says with him inside a vortex tunnel. While it was definitely fun, it could also be a hazard to patrons with poor balance, so play at your own risk!