Rotten Apple 907’s 2010 Halloween Haunt: Nightmare at the Museum
Title: Nightmare at the Museum
Location: 907 N. California Street, Burbank, CA 91505
Link out: Click here
Description: Rotten Apple 907 presents a new horror show for their annual yard haunt, this one built around the premise of a top secret military program gone wrong.
Dates are October 23 (preview); 24, 29-31. Hours are 7-9pm (till 10pm on the 29th and 30th).
This is one of the best yard haunts in Los Angeles, well worth a visit.
Free as always, although charity donations are accepted.
Rotten Apple 907: Nightmare at the Museum
Review
Rotten Apple 907’s Nightmare at the Museum. The cast and crew of Rotten Apple have been haunting the home at 907 North California Street for two decades, changing themes from year to year, and they seem to get better every Halloween. In 2009, their old short and simple maze gave way to a new and larger structure elaborate enough to rival professional productions. 2010 sees the haunt extending its reach yet again, offering an amusingly twisted take on the premise of the NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM comedies.
The scale of Rotten Apple’s presentation is unmatched by any other amateur haunt. Nightmare at the Museum takes you through several different environments, simulating the display rooms of a museum (prehistoric ice age, jungle, Egyptian tomb) and winding up in what looks like a storage room, where a life-sized T-Rex head bursts from its packing crate, roaring and snapping as you try to make your hasty exit.
You just don’t expect pneumatic effects on that level in a yard haunt, but there is more to Rotten Apple 907 than elaborate mechanics. There is a good variety to the scare techniques: some are subtle (sound effects and jets of air to suggest poison arrows whistling past you), and some are clever (a skeleton lurches abruptly to life, its human puppeteer shrouded in darkness). The entire walk through the maze lasts only three-and-a-half minutes, but it seems much longer because so much is going on.
If the Rotten Apple crew ever decide to go pro, we are sure they could be successful, but we hope they keep doing what they have been doing: putting on a great show for the neighbors and raising donations for charity. When you mark your calendars for next Halloween, make to write yourself a reminder to visit this one.