"Parental discretion strongly advised!" warns a promotional flier for Hell House, a Halloween spectacle produced by three area churches.
They're not kidding. Hell House, intended to bring people to God by showing them the consequences of sin, is a horrific experience. Scenes of abortion, domestic violence, teen suicide and drug use are acted out by local teens in such graphic detail that participants in a Saturday presentation winced and grimaced and covered their eyes as they watched."It's a different approach," said the Rev. Rod Gordon, assistant pastor of the Valley Assembly of God. "It certainly is. It's presenting the gospel in a different and unique way."
Hell House is located behind the Valley Assembly of God at 3818 W. 4700 South and has a format much like a typical Halloween spook alley. A demon guide, a large man with horns and a cape and blood coagulating on his pasty-white face, takes participants through showing them the scenes of iniquity.
After witnessing several gruesome scenes, culminating in hell itself, the participants enter a white room where an actor portraying Jesus Christ tells them they can be saved if they choose him.
"We have seen several people make a decision for Christ," the Rev. Gordon said.
All the scenes are performed by live actors. About 120 volunteers are involved in Hell House, 100 of them teenagers.
The explicit scenarios are meant to shock. In the domestic violence scene, a yelling man shoves his wife while three children look on. He pushes her behind the refrigerator, she falls, and the audience sees his fist going up and down, pummeling the prostrate spouse. The eldest daughter takes up a kitchen knife and brings it down on her father as the lights fall.
In the gang scene, the gang leader forces another to snort cocaine and yells derogatory epithets at a bruised girl. A rival gang breaks in with guns and murders the leader and others.
Yes, Hell House is graphic, the Rev. Gordon said. Yes, it's extreme. But sometimes that's the only way wayward youths, or those tempted to be wayward, can be reached.
"Every time I go through it it's disturbing," he said. "But we've given it a lot of prayer, and he (God) has helped us through it."
Even with the closing scene of a forgiving Christ, Saturday participants were clearly shell-shocked. One woman, who went through on a friend's recommendation, wept and buried her head on her companion's shoulder. After it was over the couple left quickly, avoiding contact with others.
Others questioned about their reaction to Hell House mumbled short responses or said nothing.
Ashley Romesburg, however, a teen who went through with two friends, felt good about it.
"I don't go to haunted houses, but this is a Christian thing," she said. ". . . I'm going to be in it next year."
Various churches around the country are producing Hell Houses, using how-to kits from the Abundant Christian Life Center. The spectacles have produced controversy, with detractors saying they are nothing more than gory moneymaking schemes that preach hatred and intolerance.
About 200 people have paid $5 apiece to go through West Valley's Hell House each night it has been open.