Indy Scream Park: What to know before you go
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Growing up in northern Indiana, a visit to Niles Scream Park — the region's largest haunted house — was a rite of passage.
Driving the boos: It's been close to 20 years since I've visited, and after seeing all the ads, I started to wonder how Indy Scream Park stacked up.
- Earlier this week, I found out.
Yes, but: I forgot that I'm a huge baby.
State of slay: This is Indy Scream Park's 16th season of thrilling (and terrifying) Hoosiers with a variety of haunted attractions.
- Neon Nightmare 3D is new this year, a horror rave filled with (my personal neon nightmare) killer clowns.
- Five additional attractions are back, including the prison-themed Lockdown, the haunted trails of Backwoods, Zombieland: Unchained, Nightmare Factory: Blackout (which takes place in complete darkness), and Zombie Paintball Assault.
How it works: The entrance fee gets you access to everything except the paintball activity, which is an add-on ticket based on how many paintballs you want to shoot at zombies.
- Pro tip: The minimum 100 paintballs is enough to get through the course and have fun, but get more if you really want to light 'em up with abandon.
Cost: I bought the basic general admission tickets — $32/person on a weeknight, bought day of.
- If you purchase earlier, the tickets will be a couple bucks cheaper.
- Weekends are more expensive — starting at $42.
- With the smallest paintball package add-on ($12/person) and the cheaper of the two parking options ($8), plus the ticket service fee ($8) and tax, it was $105 for two people.
- Several VIP and "fast pass" options are also offered and may be worth it if you want to get through all the attractions on a busy weekend night — the longest wait on a Wednesday night was about 30 minutes.
My experience: I only made it through two of the haunted houses.
- I sprinted, screamed and jumped through Lockdown first. I chose not to participate in the interactive option, which lets the actors touch you and even separate you from the group, and was plenty scared.
- After catching my breath, it was time for Neon Nightmare. The 3D glasses do a good job of messing with your depth perception, which adds to the unsettling feeling of walking through near pitch-black and having bloody clowns popping out next to, behind and even above you.
- The finale, though, a rave full of mannequins (and some live people) that you have to weave through, did me in.
The best part of the night was the zombie paintball assault, which puts you on a converted school bus outfitted with paintball guns that drives through a course full of zombies and instructs you to aim your glow in the dark paintballs at the zombies heads.
- It's fun and not too scary, since the bus separates you from the monsters.
The bottom line: No need to make the three-hour trek to Niles for scares this spooky season.
- Prepare for jump scares, but rest assured that the actors are meant to spook, not harm. And have fun, if you dare.
If you go: 5211 S. New Columbus Road, Anderson.
- Open at 7pm every day from now through Nov. 2 and again Nov. 7 and 8, until 10:30pm Sunday-Thursday, until 1am Fridays and 1:30am Saturdays.