Barnum Circus of Freaks recap

DISCLAIMER: These posts should not be taken as reviews. They should be taken as my interpretation of what the attraction is like. See “what is scary” for more details.

The official title of this haunted house, according to their Facebook page, is:

Barnum Circus of Freaks: A Haunted House Experience

Their website describes it as follows:

Prepare to be mesmerized, horrified, and utterly captivated by the twisted and the bizarre. From spine-tingling spectacles to jaw-dropping curiosities, our haunted attraction is a chilling journey through the macabre. Dare to witness the eerie, the unsettling, and the supernatural as you navigate through darkened corridors and shadowy chambers. With every creak of the floorboards and every flicker of candlelight, you’ll find yourself immersed in a realm where the normal is anything but.”

https://www.barnumcircusoffreaks.com

This doesn’t really describe what is inside this nearly 12,000 square foot maze of rooms, passages and total darkness. I’d call it a “twisted creepy sideshow funhouse” but that doesn’t look as good on a sign.

When we arrived on Saturday evening, there did not seem to be many folks in line. We learned they use a timed ticket system where visitors will get a text message when it is their time to enter. If the weather is bad, folks can wait in their car. If you drive by and say “oh look, there’s no line!” you may be disappointed to find you still have a wait.

During the time I was there, the courtyard filled up as folks gathered to watch Sabba Circle, a fire show. Fire shows seem to be popular at area haunts — I’ve seen them at at a few other haunts in the area.

I suppose this gives folks an incentive to hang around and get a snack at the Kool’s Sweets & Treats food tent. The food included circus fair such as cotton candy, funnel cakes and hot dogs. There is also a photo backdrop featuring a circus wagon.

On with the show…

When it is your turn, you walk up a long ramp to a doorway. A “circus performer” bursting with happy enthusiasm will welcome you inside. From there, you go from room to room, either through openings, doors, slitted plastic or large flaps. Sometimes you are in a completely dark hallway where your pace becomes very slow as you navigate the twists and turns waiting for something to jump out at you. Other times, you cross through open rooms with barriers keeping you on one side. You later discover than your path will take you through the other side of the same room. Sometimes you encounter other groups heading in the opposite direction, and wonder if they are going where you just were, or if you are headed to where they are.

One room had a small stage and a performer on it – a contortionist, but the looks of the shape they could bend themselves in to. Should you stop and watch? Or will lingering get you some undesired attention from something else nearby?

The rooms all have a general circus/carnival type theme. Our favorite was probably the funhouse area. If you go looking for a creature in a cage, you probably will find it. If you wonder where that smell of cotton candy is coming from, you definitely will find it. If you are observant and notice details, you might even find out what happened to circus legend P.T. Barnum.

And yes, there are clowns. There are also a few automated props — the first one actually caught me off guard and made me jump. Our favorite character was probably the mime that you run in to several times as your path winds in and out of its room. It is a very clever and efficient way to have an actor be able to cover multiple scare zones. The mime was funny, as he pulled us towards him with his invisible rope.

The entire walk takes about 20 minutes, but I could see it taking longer if you were hesitant to approach something at the end of a hallway. And, although “haunted house” appears in the description, I think the key word is “experience.” You are walking through a twisted circus-themed funhouse of lights, sounds, and creatures. This is not your typical “walk in to a room and someone jumps out and screams at you” haunt, though there were plenty of those moments.

I find it hard to describe, and even remember all the scenes (it just kept going, and going, and going), but I know I enjoyed it. It was not what I expected, and I want to see it again. I think a second time through would be even more fun. The first time, we were constantly on the lookout for folks to jump out and scream at us and likely missed plenty of details.

This haunt has a number of jump scares, but if you can handle those, I think it is more accessible to a wider age range than some extreme haunts are. We saw families with young kids coming out without any signs of trauma. While there were some minorly graphic scenes (butcher shop, some random body parts), it was not at all a gory splatter fest. It’s a circus, after all. Just a weird, dark, and twisted one.

Barnum Circus of Freaks was actually the first area haunt to reach out to me this year and invite me out to see what they were up to. I was too busy and did not have time to event start working on this website until mid-October. I regret not making time to visit with them earlier. I feel like I was late to this party.

If you go see it, tell them DM Haunted Houses sent ya. Thanks.

Surprising voting start…

Since over half of the overnight votes (not even 100 yet) are not sure they are done with haunts yet, any predications made now are most certainly going to be wrong. Very wrong.

So let’s do that…

It has been five years since the last DMHH Victim’s Choice voting. I still expect the overall outcome to be very similar to past years, with two haunts taking most of the categories.

I was quite surprised to see both of them getting absolutely trounced in the initial voting from last night. There are so many new competing options that did not exist in 2018 that the whole haunt dynamic for Des Moines is very different. The more fragmented the audience gets, the less predictable the voting becomes.

Think of it like voting for a favorite TV station back when you usually had only a few TV stations (yeah, I’m old), versus cable with a hundred channels, versus streaming with millions of shows available on demand.

I think we have entered the early cable days with the haunt scene here.

This is going to be fun to watch, though I feel bad for any haunts that may get absolutely crushed.

DISCLAIMER: The results, as always, only represent a tiny portion of the haunt-going audience. These are folks so die-hard that they follow a site like DMHauntedHouses (or a haunted house site/social media). This naturally gives a haunt with a larger following an advantage, but in the past, a haunt with one of the smallest social media followings has come out on top in many categories. Just remember this is all for fun, and for bragging rights.

Performers Wanted

PERFORMERS: Tormented Souls Haunt in Madrid, Iowa is looking for some acts to book for their final few nights this season. If you think you have something that would fit in with a Halloween crowd, get in touch with Kumari Henry:

515-321-8356

https://tormentedsoulshaunt.com/contact-us/

I know she’s had various things out there over the years, from fire acts to other sideshow type performers. I’ve passed this along to my various Renaissance festival friends as well.

Living History Farms video

One of the best trick-or-treat traditions in the area is Living History Farms annual Family Halloween. I’ve visited it a few times over the years (some friends of mine used to vend “sugar coated kettle popped corn” there, long ago). You can see some old photos over at my theme park photo site:

http://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Iowa/LivingHistoryFarms/index.html

We visited it this past Sunday right as it opened. Here is a video montage of the trip:

https://youtu.be/1a5XpM0uel8

Weather warning

This weekend will be the busiest of the season. If you are wanting to do a haunted house, consider going on Thursday or Sunday (if the haunt is open on those days).

There is currently the potential for rain this coming weekend. This can cause outdoor haunts (Sleepy Hollow, Haunted Woods, Haunted Forest, Trail of Terror, Tormented Souls, etc.) to not be open. If you want to see them, go on the first day you can (Thursday, if they are open) just in case they get rained out over the weekend.

Plan ahead. Have some great Halloween fun this weekend!

Barnum/Bussey Circus of Freaks

I previously hosted the website for Circus of Freaks in Bussey, Iowa. The last time I posted about them was in 2020 when they announced they would not operate that year but stated “huge things are coming for the circus. (Ah, Covid, we lost so many things to you that year).

At the time, I had a site category of “Circus of Freaks” for them. With the new-for-2023 Barnum Circus of Freaks, I kept accidentally using the old “Circus of Freaks” category in posts about them. I have now renamed both categories so we will have:

  • Bussey Circus of Freaks
  • Barnum Circus of Freaks

And they both start with ‘B’ so I’ll try hard to select the correct one. For now, I think I have the Barnum posts updated to use their new category.

I also added a new tag in the Directory for “Women Owned“, assigning it to Barnum. I may need to add “Women Managed” as well since in her recent video interview she mentioned this.

I need to see if there are more. Tormented Souls Haunt is led by Kumari Henry (she’s the Walt Disney of that operation), and Haunted Woods is led by Marilyn Harris. They might need one or both of these tags added. I am not sure how many women-owned haunts we have had in this area, but Ankeny Haunted Barn was ran by Mindy Bales after her husband passed, then later ran by her daughter and sons. Going back twenty years, several of the haunted houses at Sleepy Hollow were designed and managed by women. Have there been many/any others?

More to come…

2006 videos found!

I did my first haunted house video in 2005 – a TV commercial for Sleepy Hollow Sports Park‘s “Fear 2005” Halloween event. In 2006, I began what would become a 31-part series covering the Sleepy Hollow Sports Park haunted houses. These videos were available in a video podcast (for the iPod with Video, if anyone is only enough to remember that). The videos had to be made tiny (320×240) for easy download.

Later videos in the series (starting in 2007) were also uploaded to 2006, but as far as I remember, the first eight episodes were only available through that video podcast.

Or so I thought.

Last night I discovered I made a DVD of them. It contained 7 episodes of the video podcast (in full size DVD quality) as well as the TV commercials from that year. I seem to remember it also had a hidden easter egg for a secret video. I do not recall how to get to it, but I will be trying to figure it out.

DVD main menu from 2006

Even if I cannot find the original video files, I should at least be able to pull video from this disc and make this available on YouTube.

More to come…

UPDATE: I found the easter egg. Or at least, I thought I dad. I have recollections of adding easter eggs in other DVDs I made, but when I tried that here, I got a dead end.

But some random trial-and-error led me to this screen. I have only managed to get to it once, but knowing my sense of humor, this screen saying there is no easter egg is probably where the easter egg is.

UPDATE UPDATE: Found it! I don’t know how, but I found it.

Oh man, DVD easter eggs. Those were fun. I’d forgotten all about them… Now to see what all is on this hidden menu…

This will be fun…