Sanctum of Horror Review (2024)

If I can say nothing else about the cast I can absolutely say that they were enthusiastic.  Every single person, from the line actors to the greeters to the scarers threw themselves into their roles with an almost wild abandon.  They stocked the small spaces of their respective haunts really well, and were absolutely committed to their roles. 

This wound up being both a good and a bad thing.  I interrupted one actor during a monologue that he’d clearly prepared, and he was so into his bit that he seemed to nearly short-circuit.  He stumbled over a word in it, then immediately dove back into the monologue as if I hadn’t spoken.  This wasn’t universal, however, as others seemed much more comfortable in their roles and ad-libbed without any hesitation.  One girl in particular was great, a survivor of the early stages of The Breach.  We were shot with water, and a girl in my group exclaimed “It’s cold.”  We were then chased and taunted with “Oh no, cold” through the next several hallways.  Another ghoul, this one in the Sanctum of Horror, was given my name when she rhetorically asked who dared to intrude.  She took that name and made a deeply personal, wonderful threat to me.  It was a lot of fun.

Costuming throughout the haunts felt good but not necessarily great, and were uneven throughout.  The greeter within The Breach is a fantastic example with her hair, arms, and hands all being treated.  The demon at the end of the Sanctum of Horror and the mutating scientist in The Breach were similarly wonderful, with fully complete makeup jobs and wonderfully done prosthetics.  Other actors, however, seemed to barely have any costumes or makeup on them at all.  Some had only a few red lines on their faces, or a rumpled lab coat over their street clothes.

None of this spoiled the haunt or the effect, but it did lead to a bit of a disconnect in how well everything worked.  I know that the makeup artists working for this haunt can do great work because I saw the great work first hand.  They just need to do that work consistently, maybe by giving themselves a bit more time so that every actor, not just the key ones, have a completed look.

It’s somewhat hard to write a review about something when there’s nothing that stands out, nothing to complain about.  Customer service at this haunt was fantastic.  Their website is complete and detailed, you have all the information you need on it.  They are located in a parking lot, so parking was easy to find.  There are no signs from the road directing you to the haunt, but if you put their address into GPS it’s extremely easy to get to the mall parking lot, and a giant lit-up haunt does draw the eye.  Everyone I spoke with was friendly and professional.  They did a good job here, and need to keep it up.

The outside/pre-haunt areas suffer the same problems as any parking lot haunt, it’s really hard to get the proper vibe with a temporary fence placed on a bunch of parking spaces.  They do their best, with a few food stands, a gift shop, music, and a free photo booth.  The facades of the haunts themselves are actually pretty great for what they are.  They’re far from perfect, but they’re better than many permanent structure haunts I’ve seen.  They do help set the stage a bit.

What they do to get you in the mood, which I really like, is to have a character give you the rules before you go in.  In both Sanctum and Breach the actor really gave it their all, they were fully set up in costume and really pushing to get you invested.  Once inside immersion is fairly total, there isn’t anything to pull you out of what you’re doing, everything works together to keep you in the moment.

The story for Breach is really obvious but works well.  There were aliens, they tried to contain it; There was a breach.  It’s simple, obvious, and everything flows from that.  Sanctum was a bit muddier.  I think that everything eventually comes down to demons, but a lot of it felt more like “here’s a bunch of spooky things” rather than a cohesive story.  It doesn’t take you out of it, but a bit more narrative would have been nice.

It’s wonderful what a good sound effect can do.  Many haunts seem to ignore this facet, but Breach especially made really smart use of them.  There’s a small section of the haunt that is essentially a dark maze, and they pumped in creepy sound effects at just the right volume to provide atmosphere without being overwhelming.  It made what could have been annoying and distracting an enthralling part of the haunt.

Scene designs were equally pretty fun.  It wasn’t necessarily the most realistic depiction of horror, and in some places they almost had too much going on, but it helped set the mood and encourage fun.  Nothing really stood out to me as especially amazing, but at no point was I distracted by anything out of place or lacking.  I will absolutely take solid any day so long as everything else is working, and it was.

I won’t lie, this haunt actually made me jump twice.  That might not sound like much, but after hundreds of haunted houses that’s a pretty rare occurrence.  I know all of the standard tricks, and can usually see a scare coming from a mile away.  For them to startle me twice means that they were doing a great job with the fundamentals, distracting and then catching people while distracted.  They had a huge variety of types of scares, and they worked hard to catch everyone in the group, not just the lead.

Finales were present, but definitely of mixed quality.  The Breach had a bog-standard finale, which wasn’t terrible, but if you close your eyes and imagine a “haunted house finale” you can probably guess exactly what it was.  A giant puppet reaching out for you, followed by an exit to the pre-haunt area.  Sanctum did a much better job.  I’m not going to spoil what they did, but it was genuinely creative and well-executed.  It was a fairly simple gag done really well that I don’t see often, and I loved it.  I just wish they hadn’t included a chainsaw person.  I know every haunt feels like they need a chainsaw person, but it felt really out of place and took me out of the moment a bit.

I was satisfied with this haunt, and you will be too.  I’m not at all upset at the money I spent on my ticket, I had a good time.  Just know that there’s really not a ton here.  Other than the two haunts you can shop in the gift shop or go over to the photo stand, and that’s about it.  And the haunt is very short.  The breach was under 5 minutes, and the Sanctum was not much longer.  We had a total walkthrough time of just under 12 minutes and an admission price of $30, leaving us with a Minutes Per Dollar score of .39.  It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s pretty anemic.  You won’t be upset adding this one to your annual roster, but there are some better boos for the buck in the area.