New Halloween Haunt Recommendation: Cosmic Acres – Return to Cosmic Lake

Technically, the title of this review is not a lie, but it comes close. Cosmic Acres is not a new haunt, having debuted last year, and it is too late to recommended it this Halloween, since it completed its two-day run on October 24 and 25. Nevertheless, we are newly recommending that you pencil this one in for next year, because it offers distinctive haunted house walkthrough with a well-executed, clever theme. It’s basically the anti-Halloween Horror Nights, a handmade haunt that uses creativity to compensate for a limited budget.

Located on the upper floor of Remainders, an arts and crafts thrift store, Cosmic Acres: Return to Cosmic Lake is a paid haunt that showcases the business’s mantra of “creative reuse,” assembling donated items and props crafted on premises into a coherent tour of terror. Set in the 1980s, the premise is that you are taking a tour of a model home, showcased by a somewhat dubious realty company. Starting in the office, you walk through a series of stage rooms that do little sell you on the property.

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A candlelit dining room has skulls on the menu. A nerdy man with lobster claw appendages obsessively watches a tv with Sadako’s hand extending from the screen. (He may, for no explicable reason, hand you a burrito!) A walk-in closet has a literal skeleton hanging in it (a pun we just now realized). After you exit the house, a strange six-eyed monster lurks outside a tunnel leading down to the nearby Cosmic Falls scenic overlook, where an angry realtor raves on a business call. A giant head with disconnected arms hangs above, and as you exist something unexpected comes to life for a final scare…

The low-budget production values are actually pretty entertaining. The monsters are clever rather than convincing – a bit like folk art that is not meant to be realistic but makes a memorable impression nonetheless. The settings are very nice, such as the tunnel down to Crystal Falls. Most impressive is Crystal Falls itself, an absolutely beautiful illusion of moving water beyond anything we expected to see in a small-scale haunt.

There are a few startling moments, but overall the scare factor trends more toward creepy. An old-school ghost (literally wearing a sheet) silently pursues you through the rooms of the model home. The filth-encrusted tv room, filled with horror movie posters and kids toys, suggests an overly obsessed nerd unable or unwilling to grow up. Mostly, you wonder about the mental state of the realtors who staged these rooms: What were they thinking?

Cosmic Acres: Return to Cosmic Lake does not provide high-tech scares. Instead, it is a low-key effort that surprises with its ability to achieve effective results with limited means – the equivalent of an indie horror movie that shows up on IFC. It’s scary but safe for all ages. In an era when even home haunts are loaded with spectacular animatronics, it’s nice to visit a haunt that relies not on store-bought props but their own unique creations that cannot be seen anywhere else.

Cosmic Acres: Return to Cosmic Lake Photo Gallery