Netherworld Haunted House Review (2019)

Netherworld prides itself on having truly inventive characters and out of the box ideas for those characters. They had their unique characters crawling on the ceilings, emerging from the walls, and even surfacing from the floors. We enjoyed the way the cast became their characters in both haunts. Each attraction’s characters were extremely distinctive.

In Night of the Gorgon, the characters were in a 360 haunt style. In other words, there were characters everywhere popping out as the customers continued walking. Due to the style, most characters didn’t have an opportunity for extensive dialogue. However, there was a little girl in the white-out room who guided us. We appreciated her dialogue and how much she clearly had embraced her character. Overall, the characters in this haunt were brief flashes of brilliance among the epic surroundings.

In Cold Blooded, alternatively, the groups were divided so the characters were able to interact with the patrons more. There were more opportunities for dialogue and immersion from the story the haunt was telling. The character that really stuck out in our mind for her acting was the worker who had us line up for roll call; she expertly handled the other people in our group who were too scared to move on, all while keeping her character.

Night of the Gorgon: 9.1
Cold Blooded: 9.6

In Netherworld, costumes are not just makeup or cloth, they are metal and electronics and built, full-body steampunk-style suits. The costumes and makeup were an example of what Netherworld does best, attention to detail.

Out of all the outstanding costumes, our favorite was in Night of the Gorgon. The angel costume they made with an animatronic base and wings was something of pure genius. Also, the mech warrior drill drone was a feat of careful engineering.

While some of the characters seemed slightly over our heads, both physically and thematically, they were all astounding to see. In the Cold Blooded haunt, Netherworld showed great mastery of mimicking scaled textures along with some wicked mask choices. The variations of bug/reptile/alien/human hybrids showed ingenious creativity. We enjoyed all the haunting, terrifying, and creepy critters and characters in both haunts.

Night of the Gorgon: 9.6
Cold Blooded: 9.8

Netherworld is simple to find both physically and online. They have tons of social media profiles so customers can stay up to date on all that is going on with the haunt.

Their physical location is advertised on the side of the major highways they are located off of, so people can easily follow the signs. Once parked, it’s a little confusing to get from the back parking to the ticket booth, but their friendly staff are there to answer any questions. All of the staff we met were very proud to be a part of one of the top haunts in the United States, and were eager to live up to that reputation. The staff member assisting with parking cars was especially friendly and was appreciative to not only be a member of the Netherworld haunt ‘family,’ but to have been a part of it with his wife and to raise his sons up to be a part of it, too.

Night of the Gorgon: 9.75
Cold Blooded: 9.75

We give our proverbial hats off to Netherworld for their literally awesome atmosphere. Both the waiting line area for Night of the Gorgon and their midway were full of spiffy objects and characters. While the lines could never fully prepare one for the amazing interiors of the haunts, we loved both line experiences.

In the line to Night of the Gorgon, they have a museum set up with active animatronics and fun characters. One of the characters (Gustav) gave our group great advice when facing the monsters. They also had a photo area with a green screen and very friendly photographers.

The midway contained fun characters who were clearly enjoying their roles in entertaining the people there. The gorgon and the lizard man who was a slider were both exuberant in their work. Also in the midway are great photo opportunities, food, drink, restrooms, and souvenirs. As you make your way through the midway, it will take you to the second haunt which has an impressive battle bot overlooking all in a daunting fashion.

Night of the Gorgon: 9.75
Cold Blooded: 9.75

Netherworld is the cr������������������me de la cr������������������me of special effects usage. The owner, in an interview, said that they actually built some of their props, which makes their effects more magnificent. For our group, we were overwhelmed by the quantity of amazing effects all around us in both haunts.

Night of the Gorgon was the quintessential example of Netherworld’s attention to detail. As people walk through the haunt, they are transported to a graveyard and a cobblestone city in the middle of an alien apocalypse. The ground actually changes to moss, cobblestone, and wood planks as you go along the haunt. Additionally, the sounds and even the air pressure changes depending on where the setting is.

Cold Blooded also had great illusory special effects. With this haunt, some of the effects were more physical, including a very realistic crashing elevator. The sounds were harrowing in how realistic they were. The sirens and dinosaur calls made tensions rise as we tried to escape the chest-bursting aliens!

Night of the Gorgon: 9.3
Cold Blooded: 9.4

Netherworld’s two haunts give their customers two different types of experiences. Night of the Gorgon, being a 360 haunt, was full of scares around every corner. A great deal of the scares were more of the startle scares in various creative ways. The creepy scares were from their ability to blend in so there was no way of knowing from which direction the scares would come from next.

Cold blooded also used the direction scare tactics, but they almost seemed, on purpose, to be in the least obvious locations. This haunt also had more creepy scares, like dinosaurs and bug people, that the customers had to pass right by. Also, the use of specific sounds caused an overall feeling of anxiety. We found that some of our group were more scared by the first and others were more scared by the second, but we all were scared to some degree by both.

Night of the Gorgon: 9.2
Cold Blooded: 9.5

Netherworld is a great value. We were in both haunts for a total of 40 minutes and the amount of amazing haunt experience we received in that time was mind blowing!

Ticketing prices vary per date they’re open. We highly recommend visiting both attractions.

Netherworld also offers multiple escape rooms. You can find additional information about those on their website.

We got to the haunt at the end of the night, so the lines were not very long and the entertainment outside of the haunts was thrilling. If a person doesn’t want to wait in a long line, then we recommend either the ‘timed tickets’ which give you a time frame to arrive at the front of the line, or the Speed pass tickets. Netherworld has long lines because they are so good, and we found that this haunt was more than worth the trip.