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Haunted Hotel & Frightmare on Market Street - San Diego, CA Saturday, September 27, 2003 By: Larra Along the hustle and bustle of downtown San Diego's Market Street lurks a secret: By day, this is a shopper's paradise, but in October, the historic "Gas lamp District" is contorted into a horrifying, yet fun collection of zombies, monsters and mazes. The first maze was Frightmare on Market Street; you could hear the screams of the unsuspecting patrons as well as the roaring of chainsaws from more than a block away! After paying the (well worth it!) $12.99 to get in, a group of us were escorted down a tunnel which actually led beneath the street itself-talk about atmosphere! There were some interesting "props" which made this maze VERY hands-on as well as interesting, but the only one I will reveal is the mind-blowing psychedelic tunnel, which REALLY made you think you were walking across the wall instead of the floor-GROOVY!! Although it was extremely dark-which made the atmosphere all the more creepy, the "scenes" were very well lit and impressive, for instance, you had Otis from House of 1,000 Corpses-which I must say was VERY impressive-standing in all his red-cloaked glory in the middle of a graveyard with full skull-painted face-looked just like the movie!-as well as scenes from various other horror films which included Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Friday The 13th. The 2nd maze was The Haunted Hotel. The "theme" for this particular maze was 13 Ghosts and let me tell you, THIS maze was VERY impressive, they even re-created the glass from the actual house in the movie-complete with etched writing and encased ghouls-the scariest part was that the glass also moved, therefore, you NEVER knew which ghoul was going to come out and scare the hell outta you! Dinner at the Sawyer house [Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2] was re-created with perfection complete with Grandpa, Choptop, and victim and of course Leatherface, who, if you weren't careful, would suddenly appear behind you with an actual running chainsaw, ready to carve you up for the next course! This maze was a lot more elaborate than the Frightmare maze but both were equally exciting and scary. All in all, this is definitely going on my list of places to visit EVERY October and I believe that any true horror fan should definitely check this out; these people have truly got a "knack" for re-creating horror films as well as knowing just what to do to scare the crap outta people. BRAVO!!! Check out Aine's interview with Gunnar Hansen. Copyright ©2003, myamalgam.com.  All rights reserved.