It’s Halloween season, and what would Halloween be without haunted houses?
You may have heard of the “haunted house that has a 40-page waiver and will pay you $20K if you can finish it”. Even though entering a haunted house is probably one of the last things I would ever do for fun, my first reaction, like that of many people, was, “Sure! I could use $20K, sign me up!”
THINK AGAIN!
So, what even is this place? The McKamey Manor. Founded in San Diego by Russ McKamey, and now located in Tennessee, the highly controversial, 10-hour “haunted house” sounds like a living nightmare. The location was featured on an episode of Dark Tourist, in which the narrator, David Farrier, describes it as “a tourist attraction where people flock to be tortured and terrorized. Just for the fun of it.” There is supposedly a waitlist of tens of thousands of people waiting to try to it out.
In order to participate, the McKamey Manor website requires the following:
- Be 21 years old or older, or 18-20 with parents approval
- Completed “Sports Physical” and doctor’s letter stating you are physically and mentally cleared
- Pass a background check provided by McKamey Manor
- Be screened via Facebook, Facetime or phone
- Proof of medical insurance
- Sign a detailed 40-page waiver
- Pass a portable drug test on the day of the show
Oh, and participants aren’t allowed to swear at any point in the experience.
If it’s this hard to even qualify to participate, it’s not surprising that no one has managed to complete the haunted house and win the $20000.
On the plus side, there’s no entrance fee aside from having to buy a bag of dog food and a onesie to wear throughout the experience, but that’s about it for the perks.
Let’s take a moment to talk about that 40-page liability waiver. Just the idea of it makes me wonder what horrors could possibly happen that 40 pages absolving the company are necessary. Parts of the waiver were leaked and can be found online. From severe physical injuries that could result in dislocated or broken bones, to water torture or the use of shock collars: the waiver states them all. Spooky? No. This sounds like straight-up torture.
Furthermore, the use of a “safe-phrase” was recently allowed, meaning that in the past, the participants weren’t able to decide when it was over. How can this be legal? Even though McKamey supposedly clears each session with the local police, it still seems as though the McKamey Manor is operating in a very grey zone of the law.
The whole experience is videotaped, with some of the videos available to watch on YouTube. Beyond what is shown on the videos, not much is known about what goes on inside McKamey Manor, which is part of what makes it particularly unsettling—and possibly appealing to some. The videos themselves are absolutely nightmare-inducing: from the participants’ desperate screams and gory scenes you wouldn’t even see in Saw, you’d think you were watching a torture tape. There is no possible way that anyone sane could find the happenings at McKamey Manor entertaining.
However, people do see these films and still willingly volunteer to undergo the challenge. This is one thing I don’t understand: why do people want to do the McKamey Manor?
Thrill-seeking makes sense. The adrenaline rush you may get after completing a haunted house makes sense. It’s clear how interactive fear can be exciting by making the experience more personal and real. But interactive fear in the forms of actors grabbing or separating you from the rest of the group is drastically different from waterboarding and forcing participants to ingest unknown substances to the point that they throw up. There is no “adrenaline rush” or “thrill-seeking,” or even anything remotely enjoyable in the latter.
There’s something about the McKamey Manor that disturbs and breaks people, more so than most haunted houses. Although it claims to provide a personal experience based around each individual’s respective fears, the Manor doesn’t seem to do anything other than try to rid individuals of their sanity. Even for an “extreme” haunted house, the physical, psychological, and emotional torture that the participants endure veer more towards torture and the inhumane, and offers next to nothing positive for the participants to take away from the experience.
The McKamey Manor sounds as though it shouldn’t even be legal. But apparently it is—because people signed a consent form and are voluntarily subjecting themselves to torture. Maybe it’s not a black and white legal area—take boxing, for example. People sign up to be hurt in order to win. But legal or not, I say save your time, your physical and psychological health, and safety. Even if you were to win the $20K, considering the amount you’d have to spend towards therapy and treatment, it wouldn’t be worth it.
Information obtained from:
https://www.mckameymanor.com/requirements
https://globalnews.ca/news/6072437/mckamey-manor-haunted-house/
Images obtained from:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/27/mckamey-manor/
https://tenor.com/view/running-baby-oops-nope-gif-6243645