Walking through nightmares at Fright Dome

Friday, October 2, 2015 ♦

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What would it take for you to pee on yourself? Lying on a real autopsy table? Smelling the putrid, dripping flesh of dead bodies? Feeling the fiery breath of a crematorium oven on your face? If you answered yes to any of those scenarios, you’re gonna want to bring your adult diapers to Fright Dome this year. In honor of their 13^th anniversary inside Circus Circus, we asked if we could go behind the scenes of one of the scariest haunted houses in the country. They said yes.

This year, Fright Dome creator Jason Egan has created an “Insanitarium,” which will send visitors on a terrifying journey through an authentic morgue. It was disassembled from one of the most historically haunted locations in the country, the abandoned insane asylum Norwich State Hospital in Connecticut. It was been reassembled at Fright Dome and will feature freezing temperatures, hellfire from the crematorium, and rancid smells of burning and rotting flesh.

I met up with the makeup artists who specialize in “gorifying” the Fright Dome’s 300 scare actors to get the low down. They’re the real deal you guys, and have worked on major Hollywood productions like “Hellraiser,” “Halloween” and “Exorcist.” They spend five to six hours each night perfecting each actor’s makeup and props down to the last brutal detail, like decomposing flesh and arterial blood splatters. Here’s my own zombie makeover:

Very similar to the way I look on Sunday mornings before my coffee. Photo courtesy of Alonzo Wright.

Not too bad, huh? I definitely looked the part but there was no way I could play the part. I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to be scary so I’ll stick to the “Hocus Pocus” side of Halloween and leave the “Friday the 13^th” to the professionals.

Egan and his crew guarantee they’ll scare the crap out of everybody that comes through Fright Dome, so don’t say we didn’t warn you. You’ll even have to get checked out at a nurse’s station and sign a waiver before going in alone.