Set in a hotel built in the early 20th century, Sinister Suites brings its customers a unique opportunity to experience a haunt within a piece of history. This haunt is a multi-floor experience where guests travel up and down flights of stairs on their journey through the hotel. Every room within the hotel is a scene of horror like no other. The hotel is so vast that the group runs the risk of getting lost, thus the security follows every group. The hotel holds the secrets of cannibalism, madness, violence, and terror. People should experience Sinister Suites if they dare!
Sinister Suites had a large cast of energetic actors lurking within the rooms, ready to scare the customers. While some of the ‘main’ characters have bios on the website, all of the cast seemed to have individual characters. Dialogue was occasionally predictable, with a fair amount of screams, some ‘get outs’ and several allusions to us being food, but some others were really unique and interesting.
The cast had a struggle on their hands as our group was sent through with a group of terrified youths who literally ran through most of the haunt, but they still managed to get some personalized interactivity. We really enjoyed the creepy hospital hallway girls; they followed our group and whispered eerie phrases to us.
Sinister Suites had a really talented makeup artist and costuming crew. The appearances of the characters were creepy and really added to the character identities. The characters’ appearances were very well matched to their settings and the overall feel of their individual character.
The makeup techniques specifically were well executed and diverse, with SFX contacts, bald caps, and well-done latex work. One of our favorite looks was a character with her mouth sewn shut; it looked very authentic. Additionally, the actress was still able to make sound and scream because the makeup artist clearly took the speaking of the actor into account.
A few of the characters were in masks and those masks were highly effective because they were so few and far between and because the masks were extra detailed and creepy. A few of their ‘main’ characters are masked characters. We really enjoyed Jacky and her scary bunny face.
Sinister Suites has a lovely crew waiting to welcome customers as they enter the hotel. The entrance is easy to locate as they have a clear sign and flashing lights through some of the windows. Parking was a little difficult and people may need to drive around to locate a parking place.
The website was a little hit or miss on the information on the haunt, and we had to check their Facebook to see the ticket prices, but with all their resources people can find what they need to know about the haunt.
Once within the haunt, the place is very easy to navigate as everything is within the hotel. The hotel itself has a few attributes that are common in older structures. This adds to the ambiance, however, makes it necessary for an escort for each group. The hotel is rather large, but the haunt doesn’t use all of it. This makes it possible for people to get lost within the haunt, especially since the sets and the areas that are not set areas are both covered with black tarps. The hotel also has very steep stairs. Intelligently, the haunt has strict rules to not scare on the staircases, however, the stairs are thin-walled and a few of the scares in the rooms next to the stairs did cause jump scares on the stairs.
Sinister Suites has a very creepy atmosphere. The historical hotel was decorated with old photos from the history of the hotel and old, large mirrors. The actors wandering the line area was also creepy and added to the atmosphere. While the area that customers see when they enter was creepy and had some actors working the area, it couldn’t prepare people for the chaos that awaited them within the haunt itself.
The clown line actor was another main character on their website and our group encourages people to see the character bios on the haunt’s site as it offers more depth to the characters seen both within the line and within the haunt itself.
Sinister Suites had a large variety of special effects in the form of sounds, lighting, and set design. Their sets were extremely detailed, with our favorite set being the insane asylum style room with tons of writings all over the walls. We did have issues with escapism because the scenes didn’t seem to flow with each other. Additionally, the old hotel had thin walls, so sounds bled over multiple scenes.
The special effects, while not perfect, aided to the scares and the feel of the sets. Our group only got glimpses as we were directed to stay with the youths who were running through the sets, but the glimpses we got were impressive with good use of lighting theory to add tension and uneasy depending on the color of lights used and the direction of light. They also had areas devoid of light to add to other senses being used.
SFX Effective at Scaring, Entertaining (35% of score): 7.5
Could Tell What Theme Was Without Asking (15% of score):
Theme Well Executed, Believable (25% of score):
Location Authenticates Theme (10% of score):
How Scary (15% of score): 8.5
Sinister Suites didn’t have a discernible overarching theme, despite the website appearing to be alluding to a theme. Our team did see some recurring ideas, such as insanity and cannibalism, however, the sets did not flow enough to be considered as having a story.
The hotel added to the spooky feel of the haunt and we kinda wished that the small bits of theme had delved further into the history of the hotel or ‘history’ of the hotel.
Sinister Suites was a pretty scary haunt, with intense sets full of loud sounds and wild characters. The youths that our group was put with were clearly scared, despite their protests after the haunt was over. The thing that was both a good safety protocol, but took away from the scares was the fact that the two groups (the youths and our team) were required to stay together and we were reminded as such by the security personnel following us multiple times. The scenes made the whole haunt very creepy and eerie, then the actors expounded on this with jump scares and creeping on our group. The ending was a very strong scare with Jacky the crazed bunny woman and a chainsaw-wielding cannibal scaring the guests to the stairs.