Dark Hour Haunted House is a haunted house in Plano, Texas. Dark Hour is DFW’s premier haunted attraction, conveniently located in Plano, Texas on Plano Parkway just off of Hwy 75 and the President George Bush Turnpike. Since opening its doors during the Halloween Season in 2013, the goal of Dark Hour Haunted House has always been a simple one: produce the highest quality haunt experience.

McKamey Manor is an American haunted house attraction where 'survival horror' events are performed,^[1] and a pioneer of the notion of 'extreme haunts'.^[2] It was founded in San Diego by resident Russ McKamey and was originally located on his property. The house operates year-round and the tour can last up to eight hours. Guests must sign a liability waiver to participate.

McKamey Manor has attracted significant controversy, criticism and media scrutiny for its use of simulated aggression and various forms of physical and psychological torture towards guests.

Overview[edit]

The house permits just a handful of patrons to enter each weekend. Guests are not required to pay an entrance fee. Instead, McKamey accepts payment only in dog food for his pet dogs. At the Tennessee location, those age 21 can get in, or 18-20 with parental consent. The Alabama location is 21 and over. The tour can last from four to eight hours, and no guest has made it all the way through. Despite previously not allowing safewords,^[2] McKamey says that guests have the option to use one that ends the experience immediately.^[3] The house operates year-round, and there is a waiting list of over 24,000 people.^[4]

The newest iteration of the performance, a ten-hour experience called Desolation, offers a prize of $20,000 for successful completion, but deducts $500 from the prize for every failed challenge or use of profanity.^[5]

Controversies[edit]

During the tour, employees of the Manor may physically assault patrons, hit them with vibrating toys, waterboard them, force them to eat and drink unknown substances, have them bound and gagged, or engage in other forms of physical and psychological torture.^[6] One journalist, Tara West, mentions that in the communities where it occurs, the residents question how the attraction stays legal, even with a waiver.^[7] While there is a safe-word, one participant, Laura Hertz Brotherton, says that during her experience she repeated the safe phrase for several minutes before employees stopped torturing her. She later went to a hospital for extensive injuries. Participants can also be drugged during their experience.^[8]

One of the volunteer guides detailed that the 40-page waiver signed by participants lists all of the possible risks endured, including pulling out their own teeth, a chance of getting a tattoo and getting fingernails pulled out.^[9]

According to an editorial by Jeff Heimbuch of HorrorBuzz, the haunt community does not consider McKamey Manor a part of traditional Halloween horror houses.^[10][8]

The McKamey Manor facility in Summertown, Tennessee has been the subject of numerous complaints in Lawrence County. County Commissioner Scott Franks wrote about an incident in which deputies were called to the property after a neighbor saw a woman dragged screaming from a van as part of the experience, saying 'Staged or not, this is simply something that none of us want anywhere near us.' District Attorney Brent Cooper said that the program is legal because people are subjecting themselves to it voluntarily, though participants can withdraw their consent at any time according to Tennessee law.^[11]

Popular culture[edit]

McKamey Manor was featured extensively in the 2017 documentary film Haunters: The Art of the Scare and on the Netflix original series Dark Tourist.^[12]

References[edit]

1. ^'warning - mckameymanor'. Retrieved November 15, 2019. MCKAMEY MANOR, is not your standard (boo) haunted house. This is an audience participation event in which (YOU) will live your own Horror Movie. .. The next evolution in intertactive 'SURVIVAL HORROR' theartre.
2. ^ ^abCarroll, Rory; Ryan, Mae (30 October 2015). 'Extreme haunted house: inside the real life kingdom of masochists'. The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
3. ^Brentzel, Chelsea (August 4, 2017). 'Extreme controversial horror house 'McKamey Manor' comes to Huntsville area'. WHNT 19 News. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
4. ^World's scariest and most exclusive haunted house with a 24,000-person waiting list, New York Daily News
5. ^McKamey, Russ (August 9, 2019). 'MCKAMEY MANOR Presents (And Then There Were None) REVISED'. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
6. ^Carroll, Rory; Ryan, Mae (30 October 2015). 'Extreme haunted house: inside the real life kingdom of masochists'. The Guardian. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
7. ^''Extreme' Haunted House Or Legal Torture? McKamey Manor Allows You To Live A Horror Movie [Video]'. www.inquisitr.com. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
8. ^ ^ab'Tennessee's McKamey Manor: Torture on Demand'. Nashville Scene. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
9. ^Yasharoff, Hannah. ''There's a chance of death': Extreme haunted tour employee explains their terrifying 40-page waiver'. USA TODAY. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
10. ^Heimbuch, Jeff (2018-04-28). 'Editorial: The Problem With HAUNTERS Is Russ McKamey'. HorrorBuzz. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
11. ^'Tennessee's McKamey Manor: Torture on Demand'. Nashville Scene. Retrieved 2019-10-07.
12. ^Netflix’s ‘Dark Tourist’ Tackles McKamey Manor, The World’s Most Extreme Haunted House

External links[edit]

• Official website

Note: as of March 2018, Dark Manor was removed from the game catalog “due to unforeseen circumstances”. This game is no longer available to play.

Dark Manor is a great game from Big Fish Games that keeps you on your toes with a compelling storyline, collection and decoration, and a wide variety of game modes to try out. You can download it for free to search for objects, build up your manor, and progress through the game. There is also a lot of social content, as the game gives you the option to link your Facebook account and interact with your friends. However, you should know a few things beforehand.

Scenes and Objects

The main gameplay of Dark Manor is based on your typical Hidden Object Game: finding objects that are hidden in a given landscape. At first, this simply involves clicking on each item, but there are a few variations that will come into play later. Here are the main ones:

• Scramble: same basic idea, but the objects are given as anagrams for an added twist.
• Category: instead of finding 12 different items, find 6 each of 2 types of items, such as flowers or grapes.
• Split screen: spot the differences between two near-identical landscapes
• Blitz: find as many items as you can in a given amount of time

You can zoom in on a scene with the mouse wheel, and click and drag to pan to different areas of the scene. If you’re stuck, you can hit the hint button on the bottom right, but that will lower your total score. Increase your score by finding items quickly, not making any mistakes, and finding items in alphabetical order. You can also find items in hidden groups, like “critters,” so experiment with those! If you want more Silver and XP, consider spending 2 Energy to spin for rewards at the end of a scene. Otherwise, you can skip this step and move on.

Currency

There are two currencies in Dark Manor: Silver and Gold. Silver will allow you to purchase in-game items and walkers for your manor, but is more limited than Gold. With Gold, you can skip to the end of some quests, end the countdown on items and walkers (giving you Juju immediately instead of at the end of the timer), and buy more Silver and Energy. Therefore, you should try to save your Gold whenever possible and spend Silver instead.

Twisty arrow game link games. Play this fun addicting game whenever, wherever you are. Shoot arrow to the spinning target and be the archery master!

Manors

You can decorate your manor by purchasing objects with Silver and Gold. However, these objects aren’t just for show: you can summon Juju and Silver from these items. Earning Juju will allow you to play new scenes. Items and walkers — characters who roam around your manor — will provide Silver during the day and Juju at night. You can change between day and night by clicking on the icon in the bottom-left corner. You’ll eventually run out of space for your items, and you can clear more space around your manor by spending either Gold or Silver.

The game will offer you the option to connect to Facebook to visit friends’ manors and send and receive gifts — don’t waste your time on this because the connection doesn’t work. Big Fish Games is no longer actively updating this game so the prompts to connect haven’t been removed. That said, even without new updates, it’s very much still worth playing: there are many chapters of the story to complete and lots to build. Dark Manor will offer special items and sales periodically, and will remain available to all users. Events and zodiac items will also continue at regular intervals in the game as well.

Quests

Complete quests to earn Gold, Silver, and XP. You can also get rewards from the Daily Bonus, which increases every consecutive day you play. To view your current quests, click on the icon on the left.

That should be all you need to get started, but there’s so much more to explore — please let us know in the comments if you have any additional questions, strategies, or tips!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the links and make a purchase, BadgeHungry will receive compensation for your referral at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!