Wednesday, April 16, 2008 BY JEF RIETSMA, THREE RIVERS -- An abandoned hospital that has been an eyesore for more than two decades in Three Rivers appears to have the chance to become a major attraction.
The Three Rivers City Commission on Tuesday agreed to sell the three-story, 89,000-square-foot facility to a Jackson man who plans to convert it into a seasonal haunted house.
Businessman Lance Cuffle, 42, owns and operates Homer Mill haunted house, which opened in Homer in 2005 and attracts 1970s shock rocker Alice Cooper for an appearance each fall.
Three Rivers officials had discussed selling the property for $25,000 but plan to negotiate a figure with Cuffle and his attorney. They also will propose that a percentage of all ticket sales go to the city's coffers.
Cuffle said he envisions splitting the old hospital into four different haunted houses.
``It will take more than a year to have it in full operation, but the idea right now is something for the smaller kids, a haunted house for middle-school-aged kids, something neutral like what most people think of when they think of a haunted house, and then an extreme haunted house on the lines of the Homer location,'' he said.
Cuffle said he hopes to have a scaled-down version in operation by this fall.
The boarded-up building, located on the city's south side near Scidmore Park, was abandoned 21 years ago after Three Rivers Health opened its facility off Broadway Street.
Cuffle said he would keep the haunted house open four nights a week, Thursdays through Sundays. He said it would include Disney-quality animatronics. ``This will be more than someone jumping out of a dark space and yelling `Boo!''' Cuffle said. ``People come to the Homer Mill to get scared, and few people leave disappointed.''

4/8/08 Julie Fertig KOBR - The future of Roswell's planned alien theme park is now up in the air. Last year the state agreed to shell out more than $240,000 toward the alien amusement park. But the state pulled out once it realized the city wouldn't be in charge of the park.
Roswell's mayor now hopes a private investor will step in to make it happen.
"We're absolutely still for it. If an investor came in or if Disneyland or Six Flags came in and wanted to put a theme park in Roswell, let me assure you, we would absolutely be working with them to accomplish that," said Roswell Mayor Sam LaGrone.
The park's creator says he still wants to build the park, and said he is also looking for private investors. Officials say the park will not open until 2012, if it opens at all.

Zap2it 3/17/08 - The horror. The CW has teamed up with "Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi to bring a little more fear to TV.Raimi, Jay Bienstock and Robert Tapert will executive produce the series "13" that combines the horror genre with a reality show format, it was announced Monday, March 17."This series is the first to take the horror movie into the reality world," says Dawn Ostroff, The CW's President of Entertainment. "The action takes contestants on a journey with challenges and games designed to frighten them along the way. Similar to horror films, the challenges will play into our deepest fears and anxieties and will reveal things the contestants never knew about themselves."

By Richard N. Velotta - With the popularity of Halloween skyrocketing up the holiday popularity charts, exhibitors at the 24th International Halloween Costume & Party Show and the 13th National Haunt & Attractions Show at the Sands Expo Center had little trouble scaring up business.
The shows, produced by TransWorld Exhibits of Northfield, Ill., made their Las Vegas debut last week and if show producers have their way, it will be back - but not next year.
"We had a bigger turnout than we had last year," Eileen Oswald, vice president of business development for TransWorld, said of the inaugural effort.
"With the growth in the show, we wanted to see if we could spread our wings," she said. "When you take a show to a new location, you're always a little nervous about what's going to happen with attendance. But I think the reception has been good and we've gotten some West Coast participants that we may not have gotten at Rosemont (the Chicago-area convention venue where the show traditionally has been held) and we're gotten quite a few more names in our database."
The four-day show, which concluded March 19, includes more than 700 exhibitors and an estimated attendance of 10,000 people from 47 countries. The show has three distinctive exhibit areas - costumes, which run from the macabre to the scandalously sexy; haunting attractions, which include a wide range of animatronic displays and ghoulish visuals; and a party section that features a variety of non-Halloween displays for every festive occasion.
In addition to a trade show with displays titled "Maggot Mayhem," exhibitors showing off which toy chainsaws have the best sound effects and an assortment of hanging heads, the event included a series of panel discussions and guest speakers. Among the topics: "The Art of Haunting," "The Science of Haunting," "Selling Balloon and Party Products Online: It's Not as Scary as It Looks" and "Classic Scares, Good Old-Fashioned Gore and Things that Will Make Your Customers Scream without Breaking the Bank."
The show had a black-lit section that can demonstrate the full effect of sound, lighting and the hydraulics and mechanical movement can bring to a haunted house.
Most booth operators say business was brisk at the Las Vegas events and worries that people coming to the city would play instead of be in a business mode were unfounded.
"We actually found that there were a lot of locals that came to our booth," said Marsha Taub-Edmonds, vice president of Distortions Ultd., a Greeley, Colo., dark attraction and illusions producer.
Oswald said with local casinos getting more into the Halloween holiday for their own promotions that they were among the new attendees at this year's show.
Other industries sending representatives to the show were cruise lines, which provide their guests with holiday accents, amusement park chains wanting to keep with technological advancements in scaring people at special events at their theme parks and theatrical people looking for ideas in costumes and special effects.
Oswald acknowledged that the attraction of the Halloween show is a lot like the attraction of Las Vegas - participants enjoy the fantasy of having an alter-ego that is somebody that they aren't.
That's why Halloween has become one of the top non-gift-giving holidays of the season. Oswald said the $7 billion industry still trails Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Father's Day, but retail sales associated with those holidays center around gifts. Halloween, considered by many to be a holiday for children, is branching out into a more adult event with grown-ups enjoying dressing up in funny costumes or in sexy attire. Last week's show featured several fashion shows with models wearing outfits that will be on display in the months leading up to Halloween.
And that's where the problem lies for Las Vegas hosting the show in the years ahead, Oswald said.
A mid-March show is extremely late in the retail cycle, since costume suppliers need plenty of lead time to prepare to stock the shelves for the ever-expanding Halloween sales season.
TransWorld had a tough time getting a Las Vegas venue large enough to handle the Halloween show in 2009. Oswald said she knows the Las Vegas calendar already is jammed with major trade shows and events in January and February when producers prefer to stage their show.
So, the company canceled its option with the Sands Expo Center for next year and will return to Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, near O'Hare International Airport, in mid-January in 2009.
But Oswald said if Las Vegas Sands gets its new convention center addition built quickly or another sizable venue is available, the show producer is anxious to hear about it for the years ahead.

LAS VEGAS, March 18 (UPI) -- Las Vegas is the place to be this week for those into realistic animal entrails, creepy human corpses and bizarre Halloween costumes.Organizers say the four-day International Halloween Costume and Party Show and the National Haunt and Attractions Show at the Sands Expo Center features more than 700 exhibitors with more than 10,000 people from 47 countries browsing the wares before the convention ends, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Tuesday.Exhibitor Scott Bibus said Monday $170 would net a buyer a skinned horse head replica. A replica gutted dog hanging from the ceiling was going for $60.Meanwhile, Dapper Cadaver of Los Angeles was selling replica human and animal fetuses in jars while convention-goers walked the floor in elaborate costumes."Something like 20 percent of people in the U.S. will attend a haunted house," said Joe Thaler, chairman and chief executive of TransWorld Exhibits, which runs the Halloween convention. "It can be very valuable."

NOELLE CROMBIE
The Oregonian Staff - Friday, February 29, 2008

A 28-year-old man who perished this week in a Southwest Portland house fire loved Halloween and was a creative force in the local haunted house scene, one of his friends said.
Cody Reuwsaat died in a late-night fire Monday at his home in the 4700 block of Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. Portland fire officials said the cause of the blaze remains under investigation. Reuwsaat's roommate survived.

Dave Helfrey remembers his friend Reuwsaat as a quiet man who last year helped design and manage the House of Shadows, one of three attractions at Fright Town, which is one of the largest haunted houses in the Portland area. On the day he died, Reuwsaat was scheduled to meet with a dozen other Fright Town workers to brainstorm ideas for this year's event, Helfrey said. He said the event turned into an impromptu memorial to Reuwsaat.
Helfrey, producer and creative director of Fright Town, said Reuwsaat was excited to play such a large role in developing House of Shadows.
"It's some cold comfort that he got to do that before this happened," Helfrey said.
Helfrey said Reuwsaat was "very devoted to Halloween," and planned to attend a Halloween trade show in Las Vegas next month. He said Reuwsaat and his roommate designed Halloween props in a side business.
At 6-foot-6, Reuwsaat could appear intimidating, he said.
"Everybody at Fright Town would say he's really tough to know but it was worth getting to know him," Helfrey said.

By COREY LAROCQUE - Review Staff Writer Marriage can be a frightening prospect for any young couple. But Dante Aleman and Leah Eason laughed in the face of fear, choosing to tie the knot at the House of Frankenstein, one of Clifton Hill’s iconic tourist attractions. “We love horror movies and haunted houses,” the groom explained, while waiting at the makeshift altar – the projection screen inside the haunted house. “Spontaneity probably sums up our relationship. And chaos.” Aleman and Eason, two U.S. federal public servants from near Philadelphia, met in a Bible study group at work. But they also make horror movies in their spare time. Getting hitched at the House of Frankenstein was a way to combine those interests, the bride said. “We wanted to do a traditional wedding in a fun setting,” said Eason, who wore a traditional white strapless dress and veil. Her dress had black trim, paying homage to the horror-themed wedding. Rev. Michael Bittle, a Hamilton pastoral counsellor, joked about the unusual setting for the ceremony. “This is the scariest haunted house ever. You walk in single. You come out married,” he said. Despite the novel approach, Bittle said the bride and groom were taking the plunge for the right reasons. “They’re not crazy. They’re crazy in love.” The House of Frankenstein’s movie room was converted into a chapel Saturday morning. Regular tourists filed past the wedding guests as the ceremony proceeded in front of the projection screen that continued to play the original 1930s Frankenstein movie. To make their marriage legal, Aleman and Eason signed the registry atop a “Monster Mash” pinball machine stored in the corner of the room. Eason said, as a little girl, she never had visions of having a traditional big-church wedding. Both the mother of the bride and mother of the groom smiled and laughed approvingly as their kids took traditional vows in an unconventional setting. “Wild,” said Lori Young, the groom’s mother. “It’s going to be a very memorable occasion. It keeps life exciting.”