The Slaughterhouse celebrated its 20th year in business this year, and they have a polish that really shows how much they’ve grown.  This establishment is well known in the Tucson area, to the point where I heard people talking about them at other haunted establishments, and their rock-solid reputation is well earned.  They provide fantastic value for your dollar in scares and in fun, and their Halloween party atmosphere really shines after you have traveled through everything they have to offer in the main attractions. 

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention their Hellzapoppin Circus Show, which is not going to be reviewed in this write-up as it’s separately ticketed, but is fantastic.  The acts that perform rotate throughout the season, but they are all extremely high quality and fun.  While I was there I saw magic, acts of skill including sword swallowing, carnie geek gross-out stunts, and a generally fantastic stage presence from all performers.  It’s a relatively great add-on for the price, and it rounds out the somewhat gross, irreverent vibe that the Slaughterhouse builds every year.  If you’re anywhere in the area you should absolutely stop by.  I’d be making it an annual stop even if I wasn’t reviewing.

While in years past the Slaughterhouse has worked with a lot of different volunteer groups to round out and expand their cast, leading to a lot of variability in how full their attractions were, this year they decided to standardize things a bit more and really lock in their cast.  The night Jackalope visited had 116 active cast members terrorizing guests, which we were told is very typical of a Friday or a Saturday night.  On Thursdays they have a bit under 100, as some of their cast members are minors that aren’t able to work late on a school night.  Regardless the haunt felt well filled out, with everyone giving it their all and generally tormenting everyone that came through with aplomb.

I was traveling with a group of high schoolers who were absolutely terrified, and the spooks did a great job of bantering with them and taunting them.  When one of the high schoolers commented that someone made him poop his pants, he was so scared the three clowns that surrounded us burst out in wicked laughter and started demanding to know who would change his diapers.  A younger girl at the very end of the main haunt chain also had a phenomenally eerie baby wail noise that absolutely set me on edge; it felt like a recording, even though I could clearly see it coming from her mouth.  All in all, the cast did a stellar job, they seem to get better every year.

Overall, costuming was solid throughout the haunt.  Everyone seemed well made up, and while the temperature was nearly 100 degrees faces stayed painted, masks stayed on, and outfits were no more ripped and torn than they needed to be.  Every outfit was very appropriate to where they were located, and nothing stood out to me in a negative way.  A few minor tweaks could enhance the overall effect, making sure hands and exposed skin look grimy and messing up the hair a bit more, but those are nitpicks rather than genuine complaints.

If I had one genuine complaint about the costumes, it would be the need for a really standout character.  Everything in the slaughterhouse was very competently done, but while I remember a few standout performances, there aren’t any costumes that really wowed me.  The next day, it all blurs together a bit, which doesn’t detract from the experience but does keep it from going from great to truly incredible.

Slaughterhouse has some of the best customer service I’ve ever seen, and that is coming from someone who’s been to dozens, if not hundreds, of different haunts.  I have very little to say here, as it was all nearly flawless.  Of special note is their digital ticketing system.  After you sign in, you are free to wander around the intro area and play carnival games, watch clips of horror movies, or take in the sideshow.  When it’s your turn to enter the haunt, you get a text and can basically head right in.  I truly wish more haunted attractions did this; lines are the worst part of this hobby.

If I’m nitpicking, which is my job, the only thing I can come up with is that it’d be nice if getting your photo taken going in was optional.  It may technically be optional, but it certainly didn’t feel like it was when I was getting scolded for trying to sneak by.  It’s a personal pet peeve of mine and truly not a big deal, but I hate getting my picture taken.  I do one selfie at each haunt because I’m obligated to do so, but otherwise, I’m a digital ghost where my face is concerned.  I doubt most people mind.

Immersion was a bit shaky last year at Slaughterhouse; good, but not great.  A combination of the initial areas not having the best set dressing, unenthusiastic actors in the very beginning, and just some odd vibes made settling into the proper groove much harder than it should have been.  They seem to have resolved all of these issues, drawing you into their world and keeping you there.  The initial area set dressing is still much the same, but when combined with much more interactive and enthusiastic actors, it is far more effective.  I was in the moment almost from the word go, and I stayed fully immersed throughout.  The Apocalypse attraction, where you carry guns, was even better, with drill instructor-type characters who looked like they were at war yelling and ensuring that we were geared up and hyped up to hunt zombies. 

Set design throughout the haunt was solid to great.  The very beginning of the haunt relies a bit too much on painted plywood, though there are enough decorations to break things up and keep it visually interesting.  Some fake ivy or plants could go a ways towards making the very start of the haunt pop more.  The further in you go, the better the set dressing gets, with a backlit butcher scene and pretty much the entirety of the clown area being particularly effective.

Animatronics are used throughout and work well, but a bit more coordination with the actors could push things from good to great.  Using an animatronic to draw attention, letting people feel like they’re safe, and then having an actor jump out or startle is a remarkably effective technique that I didn’t see utilized very much.  Animatronics were mostly their own thing.  The same can be said for the environmental effects, which were cool and well-executed but felt isolated rather than a cohesive part of the whole.  Minor changes here could really make the Slaughterhouse shine, but it is still effective for what it is.

How scary a haunt is can be such an arbitrary judgment, but it’s what everyone reads the reviews for.  Is the Slaughterhouse scary?  I certainly think most people will find it frightening.  The teenagers I wound up walking through the haunt with were certainly terrified by large swaths of it, and they do a good job of mixing things up.  The scares were not predictable, coming in different directions in different ways.  Some cast members simply added to the atmosphere, some jubilantly threatened us, and others came rushing out of nowhere to threaten or startle. 

Unfortunately, those scares did not feel especially well distributed, especially towards the back half of the haunt.  I was walking in the front of a group of five, and it seemed like very few scares were targeting me.  Instead, they seemed to target the middle and the back of the group most of all, to the point where a lot of things happened outside my view when I’d turned a corner.  An additional place where things could be improved is the overall flow of the scares, particularly the ending.  There wasn’t really any kind of finale or sense of climax; the haunt just ended, with the entire group wondering out loud if it was over or not.  A little bit more of a build-up and something big at the end will leave an indelible mark in the minds of everyone leaving.

The Slaughterhouse is a great value no matter how you look at it.  The main haunt plus Apocalypse gives a total active time of 31.5 minutes for $45, or a Minutes Per Dollar score of .7.  That’s higher than just about every other haunt in the area, and that higher minute per dollar score is for an extremely high-quality haunt. 

The pre-haunt area is a fun place to hang out, and the bit extra for carnival games or the sideshow is worth it as well.  Overall, if you’re looking for a great bang for the buck at a high-quality haunted attraction, you can’t pick something better than Slaughterhouse in the Tucson area.