Return of the Crypt and Asylum Haunted Houses

I could’ve sworn this was supposed to be a horror show, not a comedy. I guess the joke is on me.
There are 3 separate «attractions» here: The Crypt, Asylum, and the maze. You can purchase them separately and choose which or all, or you can buy one ticket for all 3. I had purchased our tickets back in September, via Groupon, which included admission to all 3; it saved us ½ off.
The Crypt was the best of the three, by a LONG shot, but it doesn’t say much. Nice props and an A for effort on the set up. Scare factor of 2, on a 1 – 10 scale.
The Asylum was alright and had a healthy amount of fake blood throughout. What it lacked was scare factor, and by lack, I mean none. Nada. It was quite the bore, but not the worse. 1 on a 1 – 10 scale.
The «haunted» maze was THE WORST. Seriously, the sorriest half-​you-​know-​what attempt at a maze that I have ever been duped into. Picture an 8×10 room with plastic checkered drapes hung from the ceilings at random angles through which must push to escape said room. 10 seconds, maybe, and you’re out. No props. No scares. Just those annoying plastic drapes. Everyone kept looking around, befuddled as they exited, wondering, «Is that it?!» «It can’t be it. Maybe I took a wrong turn?» No buddy, you were just suckered like the rest of us. Shame on them for that HAM (hot @$$ mess). 0 on a 1 – 10 scale.
This thing is located in a shopping mall parking lot. THAT is your biggest clue. If you’re taking small children, 5 – 10 or 11 years old, they may receive a fright or 2. Otherwise, keep looking. With a hard eye-​roll, I declare, never again.

I read somewhere that the Crypt/​Asylum was one of the better haunted houses in Arizona. While I can’t say that I’ve visited a lot of haunted houses, I’d be really disappointed if this was the best.
With that said, in full disclosure, every year I always long to go to a legitimate haunted house such as Haunted Hoochie in Ohio, Dead of Night in New York, ScareHouse: Basement in New York, The Cult in New Hampshire, Blackout in California, and the Freakling Bros: Victim Experience III in Nevada. These are not the type of haunted houses that people jump out of a dark corner and startle you… these are haunted houses that make you walk in alone, in the dark, may abduct you, may force you to watch certain things (no hiding your eyes), and will certainly put their hands on you.
So needless to say… any haunted house that simply tries to startle you isn’t going to do it for people like me.
With that said, the people who are simply looking to walk into a dark room and be startled and/​or have an excuse to break their boyfriend’s hand… this is a fine place to visit. Even if it is not a super scary place it is a nice place to get into the spirit a little more than you would without it.
In 2015 there was an express line that would cost you an extra $ 10 on top of your ticket. This line had nobody in it. The main line will net you an hour wait for each house. It isn’t super bad to wait as they have people going around in the crowd and scaring people as well as a movie with scary movies playing on it so it seems to go fast. Your feet may not agree with it feeling fast, but you’ll have to decide on whether or not the extra cost is worth it.
PRO TIP: Look on Groupon at the beginning of the season and see if this place is included. I think we paid $ 35 for two tickets on Groupon and when we got there the tickets were $ 40 for one ticket.

Three attractions for the price of one, and lots to do outside as well. We have been going every year and always have a blast.

One of the worst scary attractions I have ever been to. It cost $ 18 with a coupon for the 3 attractions– The Crypt, Asylum and Maze. I came in here hoping and praying to be scared but it didn’t end up that way. The only people who were scared were teenage kids and teenage girls. It really wasn’t that scary coming from a guy in the mid 20’s. Definitely more of a kid attraction than an adult/​over 20’s attraction. The value was just not there. It was more of a standing in line simulator than a scare simulator.
The Crypt Review: I guess this one was the most scariest for most of the girls in the group but not to sound like a badass or anything it really wasn’t that well done. The paths were setup pretty badly, confusing, not enough actors, not a very good quality setup and the scares were unevenly distributed amongst the group. Only a couple people per group actually got scared. At the end or near the end there was a chainsaw guy that scared most people but it wasn’t that great.
The Asylum Review: Felt thrown together, they love using these plastic drapes all over the attractions which just feel like cheap thrown together mazing that you can kind of see where they ran out of ideas on how to scare. The animatronics were very few and not that great either. This attraction was pretty short in comparison to The Crypt.
The Chaos Maze: Thee worst value for an attraction I have ever seen at a scary attractions place. This thing supposedly costs $ 5 for entry? It took literally less than 45 – 90 seconds to complete from the time of entry to the exit. It was the biggest scam I have ever witnessed. It was not a maze. It was a bunch of plastic drapes and there was practically no walls to guide you like an actual maze would have had. It was extremely small and not worth it at all. Huge scam or best cash grab for them.
Overall: Attractions were too short, not scary enough, not enough quality actors, not enough scares, not worth it, money not well spent, maze? what maze?, cash grab, standing in line simulator, teenage kid attraction at best or girlfriend date night but nothing more than that. Go somewhere else. Spare yourself.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS in this review.
All 3 attractions are located on a parking lot near the mall. It is not in the mall itself. This is a review for all 3 maze attractions. Had a Groupon for the even, and got VIP Fast Passes. We got to skip maybe 5 people in each maze. It was the opening Saturday. The people said it would pick up as the season went on, but I would be surprised if it did.
We’ve been to several other haunted house type attractions in town and this was the worst. It seemed as if a few kids got together, put up some plywood walls and tarps, and made these mazes, which are only 4 – 5 feet wide. So you’re always smushed in so to speak. It makes sense since it exists on a small footprint in the parking lot.
The parking lot had some cars, but in the end we think those were all the employees cars.
There was only a couple of animatronic devices. The rest of the scary part was motion sensors that let out sprays of water, air, noises, sounds. And after that, it was a handful of workers in each maze. One was funny because it led you down one path, but you passed the same worker. So they double dipped on that one.
One maze was literally that, a maze. It had many paths and was hard to find the right path to proceed. We ended up at the start several times and the person in there scaring us had to tell us where to go each time. We finally got out.
Not much was scary. It all depends on how amped up the worker happens to be, how good they are at startling you at the right moment.
All in all, this is worth about $ 10, $ 15 VIP, max. My friend will be going to another one because she didn’t feel this one was hardly anything.
All 3 mazes had open tops above head so you could see out when it was super dark. A couple of times the special effects kept you from seeing above though.
I know not to go to this one ever again. If you ever go once, you really don’t need to return, no matter how much they say they «changed it up».
Go to The 13^th Floor, or the one that was/​is at Rawhide, or some other popular one.
I can see why there are multiple Unilocal «locations» as they are possibly trying to rename it each year to keep not good reviews from stacking up. There should just be one «location» for this.

This haunted house is minimally staffed and just not exciting. We went last year too and thought this year might be better.
For $ 25 or so per person we went trough all 3 attractions and were done in less than 15 minutes all together…
The best actor was the girl who was asking if we wanted to stay with her in a room of doors. The girls in the toy room that asked of we wanted to play were good too.
There just didn’t seem to be anything going on here except the chainsaws at the end which were cool.

Very fun, and VERY scary. We had a great time. Perfect for a group of friends on a cool October night! Loved it!

Nothing shrieks «date night» like a laid-​back Sunday night at a local haunted house riddled with enthusiastic high school actors! And it was definitely a bargain. We purchased the dual Crypt and Asylum on Groupon. When we got there, they talked us into the additional $ 2 maze add-​on, which we probably could have done without. Not too crowded, and just the right level of spooky. :)