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Austin Haunted Houses Using Social Media

16 October 2009 | austin social media,social-media | 1 Comment

mansion of terror austin

Top Two

The most popular, well produced haunted houses in central Texas are implementing social media campaigns to attract and scare the crap out of people:

Mansion of Terror’s social media campaign is the brain child of David Neff who plays a role in the horror show as well; my favorite of their many productions and campaigns is the trailer for their new “Death Asylum” (click here to see the video and get all worked up before you head out to go see the Mansion of Terror). What Mansion of Terror has done that is unique is actively reaching out to individual bloggers and tweeps in an effort not only to brand themselves but to increase their traffic rather than blanket promote. Mansion of Terror hosted a Tweet Up that ended in the group going to the Mansion of Terror at a discount which is quite an innovative way to reach out to Austinites.

Connect with Mansion of Terror: Twitter | Facebook | Website

House of Torment is promoted by Wyatt Brand out of Austin and they too can be found on Twitter and Facebook. They have been actively promoting their haunted house creatively, for example, they ran a campaign offering free giveaways to the best scary story told on Twitter or Facebook which received a great response level. House of Torment’s Twitter handle gets people involved by offering factoids and contests rather than simply promoting their cast repetitively.

Connect with House of Torment: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Mansion of Terror- SCARRRRYYYY

Located just north of La Frontera in Round Rock, the Mansion of Terror has been named #1 haunted house in the nation by Lions Gate Films (can you say Saw I-VI? yeah that Lions Gate Films). We went last year and took our daughter as her first haunted house experience and now she is hooked and all other haunted houses don’t scare her.

This year, (SPOILER ALERT) our family of four unanimously decided that the Mansion of Terror’s Death Asylum was the scariest haunted house ever in history. Little B (age 12), Little T (age 18), Benn (NML CEO) and I had the following thoughts:

Little B: “The Mansion of Terror Death Asylum was the scariest because it was so dark and it was easy to get lost.” She declares that this year’s haunted house takeaway memory will be “being chased around the room with writing” (which you’ll have to go see to know what she’s talking about).

Little T: “Mansion of Terror was the scariest because we had a lot of time to walk through it and get scared. The Death Asylum had more realistic characters and the scariest moment was when they came out of the dark and scared us.” He noted that his most memorable moment this season will be “being lost and chased around. Oh, and the shooting blood” (again, you’ll have to visit to see what he means).

Benn declared the Asylum scariest because “it was dark, they had great timing, it was very difficult to navigate and suspense built perfectly. It wasn’t a straight through run, you didn’t know where to go or where to run to, so it was truly terrifying.” His most memorable moment was “walking through the Asylum corridor and body parts hanging from the ceiling felt like real people touching you.”

I declared it the scariest based on what others said because I chickened out and didn’t go in. Don’t you judge me, I went last year and KNEW how terrifying it was!

House of Torment- CREEEPY

Before getting out of the car at House of Torment, my stomach flipped because not only am I scared of haunted houses, the creepy characters really get my heart palpitating. When we pulled up, the kids were delighted because there were cast members out front chasing down those waiting to enter (and we’re not talking low budget Frankensteins, we’re talking chain holding bleeding freak shows). Again, I was too scared to go in, so I made friends with the outdoor staff that were in plain clothes, but here is what the family had to say:

Little B said, “the scariest character was the guy in the pig mask. He was creepy and in your face and the snout on the mask was close to you and there was nowhere to go. They had a sideways room and you had to use one of the rails to pull yourself up, that was really scary. The best costume was the pumpkin head guy.”

Little T said his most memorable moment was the “underwear guy in the House of Torment because he was so creepy and funny but in a really scary way. I wanted him to get away from me.”

Benn noted that the cast of House of Torment was convincingly one big crazy family and that the scariest character of all Austin haunted houses was “the large, sweaty, imposing man in whitey tighties because he was unusual yet realistic and fit what I imagine to be a great horror story because he looked like a real murderer, like he could honestly be crazy person in real life.” Benn also said that the House of Torment was “very artistic, clean and realistic.”

Making plans for the weekend:

If you’re making plans for the weekend, we want you to get into the halloween spirit by visiting these haunted houses- you won’t regret it. Check out their social media efforts and connect with them and get all scared before you head out the door, then when you get home, come tell us about YOUR scariest haunted house moment in Austin!

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1 Comment for this entry

  • David J. Neff
    October 16th, 2009 on 11:22 am

    Hey Lani,
    Thanks for naming my client “Mansion of Terror” the Scariest Haunted House in Austin! We are happy to have earned that distinction! We also want to let people know that if they want to get in free this weekend they should come out and give blood to the Central Texas Blood Bus which will be on hand as part of our Non Profit Nights at the Mansion. It’s part of our “Give Till it Hurts Blood Drive”.

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