Haunted Houses: For the Fun of Getting the Crap Scared Out of You

I don't like being scared. I don't like horror movies. I just don't like that stuff.

But at Halloween, I can like the right kind of scary, and haunted houses have a certain appeal.

Granted, I'm still freaked out the whole time, but at least I'm holding a really cute girl close to me the whole time while being terrorized. And it's only one month of the year, so I can man up.

Heidi and I went to the Nightmare on 13th haunted house earlier this month, and it was great.

Intense, clever, surprising, and just the right amount of scary.

There were three sections to the building, each with different scare tactics, designs, and creatures.

1) Dark Harvest: an evil farm where the plants have grown into monsters and kill all they can find. Better than I'd expected, with great sets and unexpected use of textures of things hanging and even the floors. 

2) 13 Levels of Fear: a walkthrough of 13 popular fears, from heights to clowns to hell to the number 13. Another that I underestimated. The heights room was especially cool; we want to know how they did it!

3) Mutant: a parasitic goop is loose, and it's mutating the people in a facility. The military is trying to contain it, but you've got to get through without getting infected or killed. Pretty good, but I liked the other two sections more.

I don't know if Heidi was protecting me more, or if I was protecting her. Probably a lot of both.

But it was a fun night at the haunted house, and I didn't have a heart attack, so I'm happy.

I'm obviously very good at protecting my date.

All smiles having survived the scares for this year.

If you're considering going to a haunted house in the last couple days of October, or even this weekend, Nightmare on 13th is a good one. And here's a coupon to save a few bucks.

What do you think of haunted houses? Are you a fan of them?