ScareHouse heads back to the basement after several difficult years

click to enlarge

Photo: Courtesy of ScareHouse

Chipped Fang by ScareHouse

Few haunted attractions have garnered as much attention as ScareHouse. Every year, the Pittsburgh Halloween staple has lured crowds with high-quality frights executed by dedicated, professional scare actors and crew members. Oscar-winning horror filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and actor Elijah Wood gave ScareHouse their approval and, in 2023, it earned the title of Top Haunt by the Haunted Attraction Association.

Despite this impressive resume, ScareHouse has experienced a fair share of setbacks. In 2019, permitting issues upset an anticipated move from its longtime Etna location to the Strip District, resulting in delays and lost revenue. Then COVID hit, taking a major toll on a business specializing in interactive, in-person entertainment. 

Now, ScareHouse faces another obstacle. The business recently declared bankruptcy after a stint at the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills unsuccessfully returned ScareHouse to its terrifying, pre-COVID glory days. 

But, like a zombie character shuffling through a manufactured haunted lair, ScareHouse refuses to die. It returned this year on an appropriately spooky date (Fri., Sept. 13) with three concepts — The Basement, an extreme haunted attraction brought back after several years, the ongoing Stalked By A Serial Killer escape room, and the new, vampire-themed Chipped Fang immersive mocktail pop-up bar.  

click to enlarge

Photo: Courtesy of ScareHouse

A character from The Basement by ScareHouse

While the 2024 season delivers comparatively smaller-scale haunts, it marks a return to ScareHouse’s roots, and a positive step toward building the Halloween attraction back up to its original form. 

Scott Simmons, who founded ScareHouse in 1999 with his father, Wayne, can only laugh at the last several years of misfortunes. 

“I just want to scare people with clowns and chainsaws; why is it so difficult?” he tells Pittsburgh City Paper. 

Simmons, who serves as ScareHouse’s creative director, says The Basement brings ScareHouse back to where it started, in the lower level of an over 100-year-old building that once housed the Etna Elks lodge. 

ScareHouse operated in Etna starting in 2007, but, after losing a majority of parking due to redevelopment, ScareHouse employed shuttles to ferry crowds from the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium parking lot, “an expensive endeavor,” according to Simmons.

“We had to pay the zoo. We had to pay for buses. We had to pay for the staff,” he remembers. “And then on top of that, a lot of people didn't really enjoy the shuttle process, so they tried to find parking where they could. So then the neighbors were getting frustrated because, you know, they were losing their parking.”

The ScareHouse then shifted gears in 2019 to a Strip District-based escape room that did not open in time for the Halloween season due to an unexpectedly slow permit approval process. Undeterred, the ScareHouse crew regrouped and opened the concept for Valentine’s Day in February 2020 — a month before the COVID shutdown. 

Despite promising opportunities to thrive at Pittsburgh Mills once the pandemic subsided, Simmons says ScareHouse had to exit due to conflicts with the mall’s ownership, which he says stopped signing the new leases required to expand operations. 

After years of hardships, Undead Productions, the company behind ScareHouse, filed for bankruptcy protection with the intent of fully reopening at some point. Simmons says that, even without COVID, mall drama, and other outside issues, ScareHouse was already operating at a disadvantage due to the limited run of its main attractions, which only operated from mid-September through Halloween. 

Simmons believes that this year will appeal to a broader array of visitors. While The Basement caters to adults looking for an intense experience, he calls Chipped Fang a “general audience, family-friendly” concept.

click to enlarge

Photo: Courtesy of ScareHouse

A scene from Chipped Fang by ScareHouse

“The hope is, by having The Basement and having this mocktail experience in the Strip, that essentially helps us keep the lights on for a while and keep our staff paid while we sort of figure out the long-term plans for bringing the ScareHouse back in the future in some form and location yet to be determined,” he says.

So far, he says the response has been positive, citing a long line on The Basement’s opening night. 

The effort to build ScareHouse back up will not come at the expense of safety, an aspect that has previously helped earn accolades for the business. Simmons says that, while Basement patrons are consensually terrorized by scare actors (per the ScareHouse website, ticket holders must be 18 or over and sign a waiver to participate), precautions like safe words are used to ensure that no one gets hurt. 

The focus on safety is encouraging given past controversy around extreme haunted attractions being accused of going too far, most notoriously McKamey Manor in Tennessee, which reportedly subjected its patrons to actual assault and torture, including being held underwater. Simmons says that, while The Basement is “meant to be a bit more psychological and a bit more disturbing and more tactile,” they don’t want anyone to feel as though they are trapped.

“We want you to know that you are choosing to do this and if at any point you don't enjoy it, or you're not having fun, you can always stop it,” he explains. “It really is the true way it is supposed to work.”

Even so, he says some patrons have left wanting more. “I had a guest come out the other night and he was unhappy because he had not been slapped,” Simmons laughs. “That's a whole different thing, sir.”

Simmons says that, even with an uncertain future, he feels buoyed by the commitment of ScareHouse patrons and staff members, some of whom have worked for the company for over 10 years. 

“It’s remarkable how, even with all of our hardships, we still have so many of the core staff and core cast and crew sticking by us, and the fan response so far has been really encouraging,” says Simmons. “ScareHouse means a lot to a lot of people … A lot of the weirdos, a lot of the misfits, a lot of the alternative people, this gives them a chance to be creative and get out of their comfort zone and perform.”