Let’s take a moment and reflect on when we were all much younger. I’m sure all of us had a favorite after-school cartoon, or even a Saturday morning one that we would impatiently wait for with a bowl of cereal, hogging the living room TV. Each of these cartoons had a Halloween special where the main character was too afraid to enter a spooky house. Eventually, they gathered enough courage to enter and were met with rooms filled with creepy, unusual items as well as fun props and scenes.
Terror at Skellington Manor embodies everything that a Halloween-special cartoon from your childhood is and was. In Rock Island, Illinois, TSM provides guests with a mix of just about everything one could ask for in a haunted attraction! Housed in what used to be a Masonic Temple, what could go wrong?
The cast at TSM provided some amazing work to entertain and scare us throughout our walkthrough. Every actor seemed to have a different approach to what they were doing, which added plenty of variety throughout. Many of them were vocalists with great dialogue and responded well to improv.
One actor who stood out in this way was asking us about our kidneys and how they wanted to harvest them. They did the math out loud on how many they had from us, and when asked to subtract one, they cried and called us mean. It was a playful back and forth and a fun way to respond to math… because math is blah.
Even when asked to play hide and seek, it wasn’t as common as other visits have been. They counted to 15 when it was our turn to hide; however, we wound up with an extra person (actor) somehow in our group. It felt very Scooby Doo-like, where the monster joined them for a moment, and then they realized it. Again, very “Saturday morning cartoon” of them. A funny example of some good acting is the “cat lady”. When we approached a room decked out in all sorts of cat pictures and knick-knacks, we must’ve startled the cat lady, and they fainted. No matter how long we stayed or anything we asked them, they remained still throughout. It is such a simple thing, but it was effective in a humorous fashion.
For more of a scary feeling, there was a duo team just a bit further, where one was a heartless victim, and the other actor menacingly stood over them with a heart in hand. The victim would gargle softly nonstop, giving the impression that this just happened, and we walked right in the middle of something terrible. The person holding the heart had a facial expression one could describe as stonewalled. A great example of a level in between fun banter and scary was the actor inside the laser swamp. Walking toward the swamp, we could hear a faint singing of “Come Little Children” from Hocus Pocus. It provided an eerie tone for a moment as we couldn’t see them right away; however, the song was clearly chanted near us. The actor eventually emerged and maintained a graceful flow about them.
Overall, the cast here performed well, including examples in the queue. The Michael Myers character would not speak, no matter what. They performed visually what they may have been trying to communicate, but non-verbal cues were an accurate portrayal of this character. We would also find them in the most random spots outside, behind distant trees, for example, just waiting to be noticed. Very well done.
TSM provided a wide variety of costumes inside and outside the attraction. Outside/queue area houses plenty of familiar faces to any horror fan. For example, we found ourselves surrounded by Michael Myers as well as Jason Voorhees. Both costumes were sported by appropriately sized people. Jason felt as though they were nearly as big as I am (this is Mario stating this, as everyone is bigger than Nancy, and it’s a less impressive comparison). Details on both were well done. Michael Myers really lived up to the part in many ways, as we mentioned in the Cast section.
One of the most memorable costumes in the attraction had to be the doorman once we entered the cemetery. The character was positioned over us and had half of his body missing, meaning the costume in the upper torso exposed guts, spine, and ribs, showing the bottom half. The actor here performed great and set up an ominous voice that echoed throughout the room (mind you, this is a very large room, which should host local concerts).
Makeup applications were well done throughout the haunt. Based on what we saw, airbrush seemed to be the most common application of makeup. Costumes and masks seemed of higher quality, but also included some common masks, such as the mirror-faced mask, that customers could pick up at a Spirit Halloween store. One of the chainsaw characters donned a chicken mask, which also felt like a common purchase. This, of course, doesn’t speak for all costumes throughout, as many seemed to be of a higher-end quality.
The team at TSM was always available and accommodating to all guests. When we arrived, we found that the front of the building was blocked off to accommodate the queue overflow, as well as a great vendor worth checking out if you’re in the mood for a gourmet hot dog! There were a few actors on the street working crowds and would constantly oblige guests with selfies when asked. There was a public parking lot that seemed available, but we found parking on the street, so we are unsure if this lot charges for parking.
When we walked to the front of the building, we were escorted up the front stairs of the building and led to a ticket booth to the left. After receiving tickets, we were led to the merch area, which includes a free photo booth! After taking pictures, we can go beyond a curtain which led to a huge room where an indoor queue area was located. There were plenty of photo opportunities around, as well as plenty of queue actors entertaining guests. They were well-staffed and available to answer any questions and direct guests accordingly.
This attraction was multi-level and seemed only to be accessible by stairs as far as we could tell. We didn’t find anything inside the attraction that we’d deem dangerous or unsafe.
In case you missed it, TSM is inside an old Masonic Temple turned haunted house. The façade of the building was untouched; however, plenty of activity was occurring outside the building to enjoy and immerse oneself in. Part of their entertainment team were fire performers and worked with hula hoops, poi balls, and staffs on fire!
For the indoor queue area, we mentioned roaming actors as well as photo ops in the previous category. The room was rather large and draped with large curtains as walls. When next in line, guests were led back out to the ticket area in the front of house, which led upstairs to the rules room and then up further stairs to the attraction.
There was no consistent story or theme to mention; however, there were plenty of scenes that flowed one into another. Several rooms held highlighted Freemason relics, which added to the authenticity of the building. Many of the scenes in the upper levels were consistent in keeping scenes very immersed and utilizing the flow of the building to do so.
The lower level included a well-done cemetery/ backwoods scene. The rooms here were extremely large with very high ceilings and no direct coverage overhead; however, scenes were well detailed here and looked amazing. There was a portion of the attraction dedicated to sideshow/circus scenes. This portion was also in the larger rooms, as the previously mentioned scenes; however, it was presented much differently. The sideshow/circus had a wide area and elegant curtains that acted as walls. The area was wide and felt a bit more gallery-like than anything. This was much different than the tight, detailed feeling of the cemetery/ backwoods area.
The finale was, of course, a classic chainsaw area just outside the building. Everything here was neon blacklight, and there seemed to be no way out! Once we were close to figuring out a way beyond the fenced area, the chainsaw actors would switch the position of the fences on the other side, taking away any possible exit. It was a fun experience regarding maze-like fencing and actors changing the path. There were many more details to speak of in other categories of this review, and they are exciting to talk about!
TSM seemed to rely heavily on great acting and well-detailed scenes for solid effects. One great scene inside the top floors of the attraction was a plague doctor theater room. The room itself was lengthy and had numerous props dressed as plague doctors. This room had a movie projector running and a constant reel of an eye on the screen. The scene was detailed and spilled into the following room, as well as the same eye reel playing on several different box TVs. It was neat to see a bit of a flow between scenes.
Further into the haunt, we found several corridors with framed portraits throughout. Eventually, we found them upside down and vandalized, giving the portraits a more demented presence. Another great room to mention was the apothecary room. This scene is presented with layers to it and bottles everywhere of various sizes. The items in here felt delicate as there were antique shelves on the tables. The scenes mentioned are all part of the top floor of the attraction and provide many other great scenes that give a manor-like feeling, as their namesake states.
We previously mentioned that a portion of the lower-level rooms included a cemetery/backwoods area. The scenes here were an amazing portion of the attraction. Here, we found large props and detailed scenes. Eventually, we found ourselves in front of a whole two-story house façade (keep in mind this is inside the building, and the team here built a whole house). After reaching the porch, we walked inside the house, as it was part of the attraction, and further progressed the experience. Again, these are only a few examples of great scenes throughout TSM and should highlight the full effect.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 8.4
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 8.5
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 8.7
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 8.8
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 8.9
The authentic building enhanced a scary ambiance, which made it easy for the staff to create their sets of frights. While the building and sets were oddly “clean,” the combination of the actors and the creepy props enhanced the scares into overdrive.
Inside the theater, the mannequins were sitting in random seats wearing plague doctor masks, facing forward to the screen. If you have read any of our reviews, you would know that multiple identical mannequins in a collective area are not our favorite at all. As we slowly walked past the screen, actors in the same masks whipped their heads to follow our direction. This is a perfect example of creating fear without using jump scares.
The actors were skilled at creating scares that targeted the entire group. A recognizable moment was when an actor was inquiring about our kidneys, which she managed to sort of count how many we had collectively. An actor with a voice-distorting microphone asked one of us for our name and proceeded to call our teammate’s name out, even after we had left the scene. She was not happy hearing her name called at odd times, thinking there was enough distance to be safe.
The finale was quite entertaining. We ended up in a maze made of chain link fences that the clowns could manipulate to confuse us. A group before us had been stuck in this maze, so we helped each other out to escape. The clowns approached us with chainsaws, and they did not hold back. Chainsaws do not faze us much anymore, so it was entertaining to witness other people getting scared.
General admission tickets are priced at $25. Our walk-through was at the 30-minute mark, giving our Minute Per Dollar value a 1.2. It is worth noting that the chainsaw maze at the end could vary, as it really is up to them to eventually let guests out, but we added about 5 minutes to our walkthrough time. So, 25 minutes for the building, 5 minutes for the chainsaw experience.
Considering the level of entertainment guests are provided during this walkthrough, the pricing for this attraction is well worth the visit. We mentioned before there are outside performers as well on the side of the building, and fire dancers who provide a great experience too (weather permitting).
TSM is a great attraction; they have been at this location for 16 seasons, with an overall 32nd season for 2025. Longevity seems to be the name of the game in the QC (that means Quad Cities for the non-locals, like me). This small trip provided great attractions, and TSM is not one to sleep on. This is worth venturing out to is the point we want to stress!
420 18th Street, Rock Island, Illinois 61201