Behind the dying trees arched over the porch of the Dead End’s Hartford Mansion lie deadly phantoms and lost souls that were the victims of horrendous acts of violence and still roam the decrepit boarded up vacant ghost home. Gloomy music with menacing piano melody tenses the senses and prepares you for a paranormal experience that’s to come when you enter Dead End.



As you enter the haunted house, you’ll find the run-down cobweb infested living room, where every detail has been meticulous oriented. From the dead paintings on the wall to the ghost on the staircase, you are thrown into your favorite ghost story with a creepy visceral atmosphere. The first room sets the bar high for Dead End, but as you go through the house you keep getting surprised as they up the ante time and again.

You’ll walk through the hallway with some scares along the way until you reach the attic area. If you think attics can be eerie, then walking through the collection of old children’s toys and clothes, broken chests, and a scareactor or two will get your heart pumping. Part of the surprises in Dead End is that there are a lot of static characters spread throughout the house, but then there are the scareactors that play dead for a while until you get close enough to startle. A perfect example of this is the manikin figure in the wedding dress in the attic. Just when you least expect it, she’ll pop out at you, and that’s not all. To amplify the effect, some ghastly ghouls have a trigger mechanism that sync their scary thrust towards guests with a loud growl from a directional speaker nearby and/or with lighting and air effects. When going through Dead End, also, pay close attention to the mirrors on the walls; you could find someone reaching for you through the frame.

By far the best effect of the house is the transparent ghost. As you walk down a long hallway you see an apparition towards the back taunting guests. It’s an actual scareactor, but she seems luminous and see-through. With what we can perceive, it’s a mix of reflections and lighting effects that make this special effect one of the best in Halloween Horror Nights 22, but the icing on the cake is when you turn the corner as walk past the translucent ghost and down anther hallway adjacent to the first one; the same ghastly scareactor (this time in the flesh) will pop out to wish you fairly well!

There are three more areas in Dead End: a cool garden area with a foliage-disguised scareactor that blends with the horticulture for some shocking screams, a narrow library hall with a murky collection and floating books above your head, and things get turned upside down at the end as the house’s furnishings, paintings, and everything else are all oriented so you feel like gravity has shifted.

All in all, Dead End is a great addition to a strong Halloween Horror Nights line-up of haunted houses that lives up to its departed name.

Dead End Must-See Checklist

  • Awesome and intricately detailed atmosphere
  • The transparent scareactor ghost
  • The manikin surprise
  • The garden creature
  • The floating books in the library
  • The upside down orientation at the end

Check out our Ultimate Guide to Halloween Horror Nights for photos and more on HHN 22 and don’t forget our behinds the scenes look at becoming a scareactor.

Orlando, FL 10/03/12