“… every horror movie has a monster.”
Story: A look at extreme haunt McKamey Manor, it’s owner/ringleader Russ McKamey, and how incredibly fucked up they both are.
Scares: Actual footage of visitors to the haunt getting straight up tortured is scarier than any fictional horror movie I’ve seen this year.
Splat Factor: Clips of bloody noses, faces and bodies. After-the-haunt bruised bodies.
Subgenre: Truly Scary Documentaries
Year Released: 2023
Remake, Sequel or OG (Original Ghoul)?: About the infamous extreme haunted house/haunt McKamey Manor.
Trick or Treat?: In most extreme haunts, there are safe words that can be used to end the experience. Not here. House shows how people’s search for an adrenaline rush through extreme haunts can get much more than they expected. Here, that’s a very bad thing.
This documentary takes pains to tell viewers they didn’t send anybody to the haunt. Instead, they use video footage from the haunt that Russ has taped himself. As this film goes on, you understand exactly why. Visitors must sign a forty page waiver absolving Russ McKamey of any injuries caused by his haunt, up to and including death. Pulling visitors teeth, drugging them, and making visitors eat their own sick are possible. So is water-boarding, being buried alive, and getting beaten so badly hospitalization is required.
Visitors have two options: complete the experience “…which is not going to happen…”, or get to the point where Russ has to remove you for your own welfare. Interviews with former visitors show people with various reasons for going; an actress who was hoping to make a name for herself, another who was stoked about the internet celebrity she was getting. A man who had come home from a tour in Afghanistan, and another who was hoping to score the 20k prize money for going through the entire experience. Spoiler? Nobody has won that payout.
Director Andrew Renzi mixes interviews with former visitors, former coworkers and/or friends of Russ, to paint a picture of what was going on at the haunt. There are also professionals who look at things from their own angles. A psychologist who tries to help one of the visitors with his issues. A human rights attorney that considers the legal ramifications of extreme harm during events like this. And a BDSM professional who discusses how there are some people who “need” this type of adrenaline rush…up to a point, one would guess. House presents all this, and lets the viewer decide. Though it’s all pretty damning.
At the end of House, two former Manor visitors go to another extreme haunt called Miasma. Though Miasma is shown to be literally bloody intense, these two come out the other side without the psychological and emotional damage Russ’ “experience” did to them. Then the last moments of this documentary show new individuals giddy at the idea of going to the Manor. I can only hope they’re safe.
House is as close to that haunt, and that man, that anybody should get. Not because anybody reading this is a wuss. Because nobody should trust Russ as far as I can throw him. And I can’t throw for shit. Check this one out if you want to get really mad that this dude is still running a haunt, even though he’s had to move after being exposed.
Score: 3.5 out of 5 pumpkins.
