Thousands have filed through the former Farmer John Meats meatpacking plant since The Slaughter House opened there on Oct. 1.
Between 600 and 1,000 fright-seekers typically line up on Thursdays and Sundays, while the crowds swell to 1,500 to 3,000 on Fridays and Saturdays, said Bobby Sutton, a partner in Tucson Screamers.
Another 45 to 100, mostly acting students from local colleges and high schools, volunteer each night as ghoulish characters.
After expenses, all proceeds will go to charity, Sutton said. This year, proceeds will be split among the various schools that the all-volunteer work force attends, and the American Diabetes Association.
Sutton said he and his partners, John Benedict and Matt Gordon, hope to donate more than $20,000.
"I've been a Halloween nut my whole life," said Sutton, 41. "I started to elevate what I was doing to my house. . . . Initially I did it (the haunted house) to raise money for one of my kids' baseball teams." Sutton, a former Marana mayor, is paid to manage the business, and the other partners are reimbursed for expenses.
Tucson Screamers started out with Scream Street at Sports Park, off Interstate 10 and West Ina Road, five years ago. Two years later, they moved to Breakers Water Park for Nightmare. Last year, they set up Phobia in the 30,000 square feet of the former Linens 'N Things at Foothills Mall.
The partners have signed a three-year deal to use the former meatpacking plant.
The Slaughter House will stay open every night through Halloween.
Review
The scariest thing about The Slaughter House was shelling out $21 to enter.
I spent a recent Sunday night waiting among hundreds of teens and twentysomethings to experience three sections of fright.
I'm 40 and hadn't been to a haunted house in more than a decade.
Eighteen-year-old Aurelia Valenzuela was one of five teens who were leaving as I arrived.
"Every time I turned around, I was scared by something," the Circle K employee said. The Slaughter House was their first haunted house this year.
Of the three themed attractions open that night, Valenzuela's favorite was Side Effects. "The 3-D glasses you get kept me off-balance and made it easier for me to get spooked," she said.
Things were looking up when I took my place in line.
That we were steered through narrow chutes that probably led countless livestock to slaughter added to the creepiness.
I could hear screams - from actors and visitors - from inside the buildings, and the requisite chain-saw guy kept the buzzing to a maximum. Horror movie music played eerily over the sound system, building the anticipation.
"I'm not even joking. This place is haunted," I heard one girl whisper to her friend.
Unfortunately, the lines don't end once you get inside. And that's where The Slaughter House fails.
Rather than spacing groups so there are breaks, we shuffled through the buildings and paddocks in a nonstop stream, making it difficult for the characters (from clowns to a blood-soaked butcher) to pop out and scare anyone at all. It also made the experience feel a bit rushed and overwhelming.
You have to have to stand in a different line for each attraction. Of the more than two hours I spent in lines, I figure only about 20 minutes was spent in a haunted area.
It reminded me of shuffling in line through Ikea when the giant store first opened in Tempe.
The Slaughter House's fictional back story, of murder and betrayal in the slaughterhouse, drew Amir Kajtczovic and his girlfriend down from Phoenix.
"I think the setting is creepy," said Kajtczovic, a 23-year-old haunted-house fan from Bosnia who waited in front of me in the line to Side Effects.
"I want to be scared, but my expectations are low," he confided before donning the 3-D glasses.
When we first entered Side Effects, we crossed a steel bridge in a paint-spattered tunnel. I grabbed the rails, because the glasses make it feel like the bridge is swaying and you're going to fall.
One of the best parts was walking through the high-reflective paint that seemed to hover above the floor under the black lights.
Kajtczovic wasn't overly wowed.
"The 3-D effects for the first quarter of the house were cool," he said. "Not scary, but cool. The rest of the house was child's play."
I regrouped with him and his girlfriend, Dana Rounds, in line for Bio-Genetic Lab, the smallest attraction.
That's where the 28-year-old Rounds finally got scared. "That had a theme to it - it was better," she said about the insane asylum setting. "I screamed once, and I jumped a few times."
Isolation, the fourth attraction, was closed that night. So was the Arcade. I later learned it includes a paintball gallery and an area where you can throw medieval axes at a target, which sounded pretty fun.
That left Exile.
There were a lot of clanging, Southern accents and flesh-eating characters who had their work cut out for them in the crowded rooms. At one point, I needed to feel my way through a seemingly long, pitch-dark maze of narrow pathways. Claustrophobics are guaranteed a meltdown.
Toward the end of Exile, a child actor wandered around a bedroom full of bloody stuffed animals that hung from the ceiling.
"Please stay," she implored us.
But after two-plus hours, most of them waiting in line, it was time to leave.
On StarNet: For a gallery of Halloween photos go to azstarnet.com/gallery
If you go
• What: The Slaughter House.
• Where: 1102 W. Grant Road.
• When: Gates open at 7 p.m. today-Sunday.
• Cost: $21 (cash only or online); group rates are slightly lower and must be purchased online; $50 VIP ticket gets you to the front of the lines and a T-shirt.
• More: www.slaughterhousetucson.com
• Etc.: Parking is sort of a free-for-all, where you fit your car anywhere you can, usually in rows along the buildings or across the street from the buildings.
Once you get in the area and buy your ticket (or pick it up at Will Call), lots of workers in red shirts are on hand to guide people and answer questions.
