MHP’s Ghosted: Reply Or Die Review

Murder House Productions’ long-awaited pro haunt transition is officially here and expectations were high.  For years we’ve been huge fans of MHP’s home haunts; which made it worth the drive all the way to Thousand Oaks during the most hectic dates at the end of October.  After each visit, we’ve always concluded that there were always pro elements and that their haunt is pro quality.  Well, the time has finally come and Hollywood Gothique attended opening night.  Dial in with us if you dare to see what happens when you “ghost” somebody.

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Ghosted: Reply Or Die Review: Maze

Billed as a research lab that is seeking test subjects in its “human trials” phase; EntyP Laboratories has discovered a gateway into another realm where the “ghosted” become…ghosts.  As more and more people get “ghosted” everyday; the portal expands beyond control.  Your job as a willing test subject is to link the ghosted with the person they were ghosted by.  A cleverly written backstory can be found on their site, link is provided below.

Unlike other mazes or haunts where you step foot onto the property and have to enter a queue line and wait for the experience to kick in; the experience starts the moment you enter through the gates here.  The medical/laboratory staff greeted us once they noticed we were at the gate and came to let us in. They checked us in and asked us “clinical” type questions that were borderline sensitive or personal just to make sure we qualified to be a willing participant.  Each member of the staff was sure to check in with us at some point, each asking and verifying a distinct set of questions to which our answers were supposedly jotted down in their notepads.  

When it was our turn to enter the experiment, we were asked one last set of questions and were taken to see the ground rules.  We were then led inside of a room where we had to watch a video of how the process works exactly.  But before we were able to finish that video; some sort of malfunction or meltdown occurred and a message on the video read “Proceed Into Gateway Chamber” with an arrow.  The gateway took us into sort of a digital purgatory per se, where there were clearly wires and cords visible mixed with dark antimatter with cell phones of the ghosted mixed into the walls.  Each room, a good representation of the scare actor featured, showed the bitterness and the rage that the ghosted have pent up over the time span they have waited for a reply.  The sets and special effects were nothing less than spectacular; as everything was relative to the storyline and seemed to be meticulously curated for the experience.  We recognized some of the scares since it clearly had some of Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights’ DNA.  However, unlike Halloween Horror Nights in Hollywood, there were no black walls or black plywood; you couldn’t even see the ceiling. Everything from top to bottom was decked out and themed appropriately.  Though it didn’t really require us to really participate and it wasn’t as interactive as expected; this first-time pro walk-through was enjoyable nonetheless.  It was a mind-blowing experience.

Ghosted: Reply Or Die Review: Conclusion

Murder House Productions kills the theme parks at their own game with this one.  We feel that MHP is as good as them; and if there are more mazes then they could officially be classified as competitors.  Ghosted: Reply Or Die is what we should be getting for the price of theme park admission.  We understand that there’s probably no way for a theme park to offer as much interaction as MHP did while guests were waiting in line.  However, that is not to say that the theme parks can’t offer what we saw inside the walk-through.  For the prices these theme parks are charging nowadays, we expected more from them, we expected something well thought of with amazing tech and special effects like MHP.  It seems like this is the year where the big boys pull back and the little guys thrive.

Ghosted Reply or Die Review: Photo Gallery