The Devils Attic Review (2016)

When you visit the DA, you may notice quite a few familiar characters and, if so, you’ll likely notice that they’re exactly as you’ve seen them in movies (or sometimes, even meaner)! First of all, each of the cast members did a wonderful job during our visit this season, so they all deserve a big Team Zombillies *high five*! They were very energetic, demanding and in our faces while they explained their experiments to us, begged us for our blood, made us say things like, ‘Yes! You’re pretty,’ tried giving us kisses, beat on glass doors with bats, smelled us and demonically told us ‘the sal is mine!’ Most of the time, they were in our personal zones so much that we smelled the majority of their breaths (which, fortunately, just smelled like humans so that was normal). We encountered at least one demented soul in each scene so there were plenty of crew members present during our visit. However, this may vary per night, as with any haunted attraction. The Pig in the Saw area got his knife as close to us as possible (we’re talking millimeters), led us the WRONG way and even snuck up behind us, catching us off-guard, making him one of the most interactive characters we came across. Chop Top was also verbally and physically interactive with our group as he herded us into a corner, tucked his napkin in his shirt, and proceeded to sniff us to see if we were ‘worthy enough of his family’s expectations.’ We can’t list them all because we don’t want to ruin all the fun but other notable characters included ‘Minion,’ The Headless Horseman, Bloody Mary, Uncle Frank, Pinhead and of course, Satan himself for their exceptional performances and dialogue towards our group. We would also like to make a special mention to the Scarecrow in the queue area and his little pitch fork he was toting around this season!

The costumes that we noticed at DA were all complete, believable and of top-notch quality. Given their movie character-based theme, The DA strives to make each of their monsters as realistic and accurate as possible. Exceptional wounds and airbrushed designs intensified the characters that were detailed with them, along with many colored contacts, a skin-toned morph suit and even razor sharp teeth! We’d say about half of them used high-end masks versus makeup, usually for the more outlandish characters where makeup isn’t feasible to do on a nightly basis, like Pighead, the werewolf, Krampus, Minion, Pinhead and Leatherface, just to name a few. Speaking of wild-looking villains, The DA has a bunch of them and most of them aren’t the ones you’ll see at other haunts with similar themes to this. Aside from those we just mentioned, they’ve also got the Headless Horseman, cenobites, Bloody Mary, 13 Ghosts characters (including the Jackal and The Angry Princess), Dr. Frankenstein (and his creation), Reagan and the Priest from The Exorcist, the Devil himself and even a few original characters of their own! Each of the costumes were tailored wonderfully to their scenes and their great detail work helped make them even more believable. To be picky, some of the costumes weren’t *quite* as elaborate as others, but it didn’t necessarily take much away from the characters wearing them.

The Devil’s Attic is pretty easy to find in downtown Louisville but their old, two-story, brick building, hearse, banner, red light and projector screen let us know we were definitely at the correct place! Parking is free and a mix of pavement and grass, some of which is shared with nearby businesses for convenience. Within a few seconds of being on the property, we noticed the queue line entertainers who were mingling with victim’ err, ‘visitors’… as they waited in line to meet their demise. Friendly staff members and a LMPD security officer were found roaming the haunt inside and out in case any questions (or issues) arise and a photo op tent was set up with props and weapons in case you need to catch a selfie before enter since this may be your last chance to ever take a selfie again! A large projection screen gives those waiting in line some entertainment and every now and then you may get lucky enough to witness the Devil rise from within his attic, commanding one of his minions to steal a poor soul out of the crowd! Let’s just hope that you are also lucky enough that it isn’t YOU he chooses! There’s usually some form of concessions located near the ticket booth and plenty of DA swag and souvenirs can be found there as well. You may also come across some of Louisville’s local paranormal investigators, so feel free to hit them up for some Q&A if you see them too.

The building that The DA is located in looks pretty dilapidated and creepy by itself, which really helps set off the overall spooky atmosphere and it serves as a prelude to the realism depicted inside. Seeing the haunt’s hearse parked next to the building is always a major key factor in helping to make us feel like we are at a haunted attraction and not some abandoned structure. A local radio station is on site occasionally for music and ‘haunt-y’ music is usually in place outside the attraction the rest of the time. ‘Orlock’ and The Scarecrow, which are The DA’s resident vampire & queue entertainer, respectively, can often be found stirring up scares and laughs for guests as they prepare to enter the haunt, although special guests Eric and Lisa Vysther were present during our visit, getting some blood-sucking screams of their own! The ticket taker at the door had to sneak in one last reminder that we were in fact getting ready to be frightened as the door slammed behind us!

The Devil’s Attic offers some of the most highly-detailed scenes for an indoor haunted house in the Louisville area. It’s like each room takes you to an entirely different place, yet they all share a common ‘darkness’ that ties them all together. From skulls, statues, cobwebs and flickering candles to blood-flinging blades, a laboratory, a demonic creature (that bites), disorienting pathways and, oh yes, the longest chainsaw we’ve ever seen, there’s plenty to behold at The DA! A few brand new scenes and changes were added for the 2016 season, including Bloody Mary, a REAL bone wall and a deceiving room full of mannequins! Background music and sound effects kept things from getting quiet throughout the haunt and we even noticed a ‘surround sound’ effect in one of the scenes, although there were just a few spots where the audio couldn’t be heard quite as well. As far as effectiveness, everything was set up in ways that kept our attention flowing around the rooms, which made for some pretty good distractions and the actors didn’t hesitate to take advantage of them!

The Devil’s Attic is, essentially, a movie character-based haunt. The Devil starts the show by filling you in on what you’re about to see, which is ‘the most wicked of [his] collection’ of evil souls that he’s been gathering ‘since before the dawn of recorded time’.’ Each of the characters and scenes that we encountered left us with little doubt that he’s got good taste! While not the most original theme out there, The DA makes up for it with execution and attention to detail. Taking all the haunts we visit into consideration, we have noticed that they tend to use some scenes and characters that we don’t see being used in many other haunts that also utilize legendary and movie characters.

The combination of special effects and a highly-trained cast makes The DA one of the scariest shows in the Louisville area! Their detailed scenes gave them some good hiding spots (a couple were even in plain sight) and a few of the props were able to provide our group with scares all by themselves. The DA is a no-touch haunt and, although fright levels ranged from rushing assaults and some VERY close encounters with realistic weapons to ‘pop scares,’ screeches and intimidating stares, each of them maintained a high level of intensity that kept us on our toes, for sure! For those that are 18 and over and want ‘the house special,’ these guys will be hosting a special ‘Chaos’ event one night only in October that will include being ‘bitten, licked, dragged and violated,’ so bring your big girl panties for that one! We’re not sure exactly what they’ll have in store for you, but their Facebook event says you’ll need to sign a waiver’ so it’s gotta be good!

General admission to put yourself through Hell in Satan’s attic will cost you $20.00 per person this season, which is an increase from their $18 ticket price last year. When the lines are long and you just gotta go, Speedpass tickets can be purchased for $24.00 per person. Tickets can now be pre-purchased online, which allows you to skip the ticket line at the haunt and get directly in the waiting line to the attraction! Although group tour times will vary since you may get more lost than we did, run through it or get stuck crying in a corner, it took us approximately 14 minutes to slither out and escape from these maniacal minions. That brings this attraction to .7 minutes of entertainment received per dollar spent, which is below our calculated average of ‘1.5’ from all the haunts we visited last year. The DA is trying something new this season: a full-contact run of their haunted house! The ‘CHAOS!’ event (Sunday, October 30th) will be an extreme version of the haunt where you must be 18 to enter and sign a waiver. The event will have an upcharge of $5.00 on top of the normal ticket price to enter, so be prepared for that. They have stated that this event is ‘NOT for the faint of heart’ and limited tickets can be purchased online for this event so don’t hesitate to get your tickets if you’re interested. The regular show will also still be taking place that evening as well. Overall, we always enjoy ourselves at The DA. They have a very intense acting crew that can be enjoyed by those who don’t like to be touched, they have some familiar characters and they are among the strongest of acting crews we have seen each time we’ve been through. So if this sounds like something you are looking for and don’t mind the intensity that’s packed into a shorter haunt, succumb to Hell in The Devil’s Attic this season… and make sure you ‘come prepared to face pure evil as they welcome you!’