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This attraction was reviewed on October 5, 2019 by Team In-Corpse-A-Rated.

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Final Score: 8.4

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Summary:

Scandia Family Fun Center in Sacramento offers guests of all ages an arcade, miniature golf, go-karts, batting cages, and a few carnival rides. In the month of October, something a little more creepy makes its presence known. The Wussmaker is Scandia’s annual haunted house, a single haunt located between the batting cages and arcade. What makes this haunt ‘The Wussmaker’ is the various ‘Wuss Doors’ located throughout the haunt. Every season, somewhere between 600 and 800 guests ‘wuss out’ of one of the Wuss Doors without fully completing the haunt. Haunt policy is no refunds for wussing out. For those brave souls who are able to reach the end, a complementary ‘Sacramento Scandia No Wuss Here’ button is given to be worn proudly. Only a maximum of two guests at a time can enter, because the twists and turns are very tight. This year, instead of the simple black walls, they’ve added several decorated scenes.


Cast: 8.39

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Last year, The Wussmaker’s actors were very intense in their approach to scaring guests. This year, with the added scenery elements, it’s changed their performance to be more engaged with their scenery and respective themes. The beginning had a clown run and knee slide right by us, while making sparks on the ground with his glove. The butcher stopped to growl at us when he was cutting us a dead body. There were two goth girls playing with their creepy dolls who did glare at us intensely. The clowns in the black and white strobe light room were startling us from various corners, and some would grab at an ankle. There was a nice homage to the movie, The Ring, as we saw a well and Samara climb out of it and crawl towards us, just like she does in the film. The skull-face ghoul was able to startle us in the fog-filled white-out room.

Outside of the haunt, there were several line actors who were interacting with both guests waiting to attend the haunt and guests just taking part in Scandia’s other attractions. One of them was dressed as Michael Myers, and played the part like the Halloween movies. The actors do not speak, because this place is a startle driven haunt. There is a good variety of characters, a whole array of beings from the horror genre.


Costuming: 8.4

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The costumes worn at The Wussmaker were complete and finished. They were detailed accordingly, especially the line actors outside the haunt. The girl with the gothic white-face and the word ‘Help’ across her forehead looked very impressive. She had the most memorable makeup job we saw. The majority of the actors wore masks, which did make them scarier and intimidating. Michael Myers looked just like his movie counterpart, and the same goes with Samara, with her tattered clothes and long black hair hanging in front of her face. The actors wore appropriate attire for their respective scenes and themes.


Customer Service: 9

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Scandia The Wussmaker is very easy to find, as it’s located on Hillsdale Boulevard, which is next to Interstate 80 in Sacramento. As soon as you see the Sky Screamer carnival ride protruding in the horizon, multiple stories taller than any other building in a 12-block radius with neon lights, you have your landmark. Parking is free, and it wasn’t too hard to find a parking space, considering they had a busy night, that night.

Scandia is a large place, and the haunt sits between the arcade and batting cages. This year, there were no staff at the ticket booth. Instead of tickets, guests had to put money on a Scandia Fun Card, which had to be obtained in the arcade, and have it swiped by a staff member to attend the haunt.

The Wussmaker is handicap accessible, and we found it to be very safe. Those Wuss Doors also double as emergency exits. We found the staff to be very professional, helpful, and friendly, and they treated us with respect. The non-acting staff were easy to find, because they had Scandia The Wussmaker black T-shirts. Information for this haunt is easy to find as they have an official website and a presence on various social media.


Atmosphere: 8.75

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The Wussmaker is only a small part of Scandia, so they make their presence known with a two-story banner with the haunt’s name, and various line actors walk and interact with guests. Once you find The Wussmaker, it’s obvious that it’s a haunted house. The line actors all give the place excitement and energy. It can be said that the atmosphere does prepare you for what’s inside, because the hodgepodge of line actors does reflect the hodgepodge of scenes experienced inside.


Special Effects: 8

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The Wussmaker has made an effort this year to create small vignette scenes throughout the haunt. Despite the cramped quarters, the scenes do have enough sets, props, and details to convey the individual themes.

As with the homage to The Ring, there’s homages to Silent Hill and the sewer from It. There’s also a few standard haunt themes, such as the butcher room, asylum, children’s doll room, and clown room. The final room was the most unique, whereas, many haunts will have a blackout room, Wussmaker sends you from a blackout room to a whiteout room. Filled with fog and bright lights, all we could see was a white cloud completely surrounding us as the final actor would startle us. Switching from darkness to light really played with the adjustments with our eyes. It’s a reminder of how you should never turn on your high beams while driving in heavy fog.

The sound effects were subtle, but most notably, the children’s room had a haunted music box song with distorted children’s voices singing. It fit really well with the gothic children and their gothic dolls. The special effects were effective in providing scares and entertainment, and added to the haunt experience.


Theme: N/A

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The Wussmaker has no unifying theme, as each room stands as its own independent scene.


Scare Factor: 8.15

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The Wussmaker was scary, but we did miss the aggressive approach from last year’s haunt. The clowns in their zone were aggressive, but Samara’s creepy four-limbed crawl was in line with the movie. The children were more into intimidating stares, and the skull-faced actor in the whiteout room only startled us intermittently. Similar to last year, they did grab at our ankles. As a result of the different scenes in the haunt, the scares did become more diverse and less ‘attack, attack, attack’.

The finale was interesting with the whiteout room, because we haven’t seen any other haunt in our part of the country do it. In a similar vein as a blackout room, the effect is more psychological because you know there’s something in the fog, but you just don’t know when or where it will attack.


Entertainment & Value: 8.38

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We were satisfied with The Wussmaker, as it is a short but sweet haunt (7 minutes). We also enjoyed the entertainment outside the main haunt, because this attraction has several line actors who interact with guests and make themselves available for photo ops. In fact, this haunt tends to have more line actors than most large multiple haunted attraction parks. The ticket price is a nice deal For $18, you get the haunt and a carnival ride. The Wussmaker does use their available space effectively, and there are no ‘dead zones’.


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