Iowa-based haunted house information, since 2010. Posting haunted house videos since 2006.
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.
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:
If you think you are done visiting haunted houses for the season, please vote for your favorites now. (If you are not sure you are done, you can’t still vote, and if you go to any more haunts later, you can re-vote using the same e-mail address and I will discard your earlier entry.)
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!
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:
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…
Another video has been posted to YouTube and Facebook. And the Video page of this site. And here:
Last night we visited Barnum Circus of Freaks and Linn’s Haunted House to get some interviews. The first one done is Linn’s, so here it is:
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.
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…
WHO 13 did some early morning coverage of Future Nightmares, having their newscaster out live, speaking before, and then after, the experience.
https://who13.com/news/new-fully-accessible-sci-fi-horror-show-brings-fear-to-merle-hay-mall/
The Videos page now has several new interview videos from 2017 (Zombie Hollow, Haunted Woods and Trail of Terror). I will be working on interviews from Barnum Circus of Freaks and Linn’s Haunted House next. I have many more I want to get to and get interviews with, but we have some family obligations (Living History Farms and Night Eyes) that limit my haunt time.
In addition to these new videos, I have posted some pre-DMHH videos, which were the predecessors to Des Moines Haunted Houses:
…and if I can find time, I’d like to organize all the various haunted house TV commercials I did over the years and get them uploaded to the new DMHH channel.
Time permitting.
Stay tuned…
