For the next month, I am going to a haunted house each week to tell you which ones to skip and which ones will send you . . . happily . . . to a therapist.
The rating system will be thus: a spook alley that earns a "four-therapist" rating is superb and well worth going to, and a house that gets a "no-therapist" rating is a dud.
This week I would like to talk about the Haunted Hollow in Ogden. It opens tonight, and I previewed it sans actors and props and a guide (for the first part), and I have to tell you . . . I almost lost control of my, er, faculties.
I was supposed to meet Robert Ethington, the owner, so he could show me and my friend Haley and photographer Keith Johnson through the facility. But he was running a tad late, and we were cold and couldn't wait. So we walked through the gate and into the tunnel that took us down . . . into the darkness.
Haley brought a penlight, Keith had his camera and lenses and tripod and flash-thingy, and we all had our cell phones. I guess we were pretty safe from things that go bump in the night, but we sure didn't feel that way.
The scary thing about going through a haunted house is not knowing what you're getting yourself into. Especially when it is an unfinished, empty haunted house in the middle of nowhere.
It's also kind of scary to go through one right after you've had a full discussion about "The Blair Witch Project." Even though that low-budget blockbuster gave me motion sickness and kind of annoyed me, the whole idea of something wicked in the woods was all too much. Especially when it was 10 o'clock at night and we were in a tunnel with all these passageways.
We made our way slowly through this minimaze, putting our minds through nightmare scenarios. But what really did me in was when we made it through the tunnel and found ourselves, not back where we started, which I had hoped for, but on a path with a canopy of twisted branches and wires hanging overhead. I jumped, and I said there was just no way I could go any farther.
That was right about the time when my cell phone rang.
'Twas the owner, who said he was about five minutes away and asked us to hold on until he got there. "We're in your woods," I said. "And we're kind of lost . . . I think. And it's really spooky."
When he finally gave us the royal tour, he told us we hadn't scratched the surface of his woods at all. Our tour was about a mile round-trip, and he was nice enough to have his friends hide in certain parts of the hollow, just to make sure I got freaked out enough. Which, I did. Twice.
I think I could've qualified for the high-jump, had anybody been looking when those clever men decided to leap out from beneath the bridge that crossed over the Weber River.
Haley said she knew all along something was fishy, and that was why she and Keith walked behind me.
Yeah. Good laugh, guys. Make the columnist walk in front. Big thanks to all of you.
I can't tell you what to expect. All I know is that it's gonna be a winner. Just give the Hollow a week so the wrinkles can be ironed out.
Even sans robots, special effects and the headless horseman, it's definitely a "four-therapist" place.
Tickets are $10, and you can visit its Web site (www.hauntedutah.com) for more information.
E-MAIL: lu@desnews.com