Terror In Tolleson Haunted House Attractions Review (2024)

Scoring aside, the cast were the absolute winners of the night and carried this haunt.  Every single person was fully committed to their bit, and they were having so much obvious fun it was nearly impossible to not have fun with them.  This is one of the most interactive haunts I’ve seen.  They will make fun of you, as they did my inability to figure out their doors.  They will threaten you, in increasingly elaborate ways.  They’ll remember your name and use it to taunt you.  They’ll catch you in one room, literally sprint through their secret doors and passages, and then get you again two rooms later.  I already called out the clown who gave me a hug, but I could honestly write a paragraph about nearly every cast member I encountered. 

They do touch you, so be ready for that.  I was held, hugged, had my hair gently stroked by a dark creature making gurgling clicks in my ear, and my leg was grabbed by a dead bride who at first appeared to be a mannequin.  None of it came close to violent or inappropriate, but if you don’t want to be touched this is absolutely the wrong place to be.

The only real problem I had was one that most people won’t.  I visited this haunt on a Wednesday night, so they were short 8 cast members due to school commitments.  This is a shame, because while most of the haunt was really well filled out there was a stretch towards the end where it felt empty.  To some extent though that’s just what you have to expect when visiting something like this on a weeknight.

Costumes were often minimal, but when they went for it they went for it.  The pumpkin man at the very start was a delight, fully costumed and looming large.  They had an assortment of clowns, a dead bride, Pennywise, an evil doctor, and other random costumes.  Many were as simple as some face paint, but it worked out well with the hodge-podge, chaotic nature of the rest of the haunt.  I would say that the costumes were appropriate, in that anything seems appropriate in that maze.  Nothing stuck out to me as not belonging, in any case.  Many of the cast seemed to move around from room to room, always mobile, getting us at various places as we went along.  The only real bit of advice I can give here is maybe to lay off the clowns slightly and go with more variety, but it’s not a real complaint.  I loved the outfits.

Parking is easy to find,  as is the haunt itself.  Everyone I spoke with was cheerful, professional, and all-around great.  Even the security guards were getting in on the fun, trying to startle people and scare them, joking around and laughing.  Despite the anarchy inside, there were no safety hazards I could spot. Everything was perfectly safe.

The one complaint I do have is on their website.  Touch haunts are not the norm, no touch haunts are.  Nowhere on their website that I can see tells me that they’re going to touch you.  For me this was a pleasant surprise, I love that extra bit of interactivity.  For someone that is sensitive about being touched though this would be a nightmare, and not the fun kind.  This is something they need to update for next year.

Walking up to Terror in Tolleson, you know you’re probably going to be in for a good time.  They have a little lounge area set up, with some handmade props you can take photos with, a speaker playing spooky music, and a general Halloween party vibe.  It is smaller than many other such areas, but I appreciated the effort involved.

It takes a while to get inside, but once you are you stay immersed throughout.  There are a few spots where they spit you back outside, probably where they intended breaks between haunted attractions, but you walk back inside almost immediately.  There’s no waiting.  Cast members also have a tendency to follow you out, leading to a smooth transition from one bit of immersion to the next.  You’re constantly being berated and surrounded on all sides by cast members or cool props, keeping you completely in the zone throughout.  When you’re done you’re spit back out onto the street, but my group had three cast members follow us to continue to threaten and banter with us, which made it a very soft landing back in reality.

The set design here has a definite punk charm to it.  The décor looks largely handmade, with things nailed to walls, random messages painted that you don’t have time to read but add to the atmosphere, and plastic sheeting separating rooms.  There often doesn’t seem to be a lot of sense to it, but it does add a great deal of atmosphere.  Why is there a Five Nights At Freddy’s room?  Who cares, it’s creepy.  Why do you get shunted immediately into a dark room full of wheelchairs?  Stop asking questions.

There wasn’t much in the way of animatronics or real special effects other than strobe lights, but what was there worked very well.  They used everything in service of the cast scaring you, as distractions or enhancements to let them play off of.  Nothing stood out, but nothing pulled us away from the main focus.

I was startled a bunch of times at this haunt.  For me, that’s enough to fully recommend it, that’s very hard to do.  The cast was unleashed after getting a full grasp of the fundamentals, and they used that to their utmost.  They targeted all members of our group, getting the back and sides nearly as much as the front.  There was a wide variety of scares, from a small girl grabbing our legs without making a sound that we thought was a mannequin to a demon stalking us to clowns cheerfully berating us.  It ran the gamut, and at no point did I have any idea what was in store.  The finale was strong too, not because of a big planned event, but just because three cast members ganged up on us and followed us out of the haunt, making a high point to end the experience.

I was extremely satisfied with my time at this attraction, and am going to likely make this an annual thing.  The main attraction is delightful and fun.  There isn’t a ton to do other than the main event, but there’s some leeway there to enjoy other things.  The entire haunt took me 17 minutes exactly to get through.  At a general admission price of $35 that leads to a Minutes Per Dollar score of .49.  That’s not amazing, but not terrible either.  I will warn you though, wait times can be long even if the lines don’t look huge.  Terror in Tolleson is dedicated to giving every group ample time to make it through on their own without bumping others, it’s several minutes between groups being let in.  I think it’d be a good idea to get a fast pass, which would drop your MPD down to .34, far more anemic.  Your mileage may vary there.