Dread Hollow, the nationally ranked haunted house and escape rooms, unleashes three new immersive nightmares, each one more horrific and gory than the last.
Dread Hollow creator Todd Patton said his team has spent the last 12 months meticulously building gruesome sets and crafting new suspense-filled scares. “We cannot wait for the screams to begin,” he said.
Conceptually, Dread Hollow is a fictional, small Tennessee town that was once a tranquil community. The town became cursed when a witch woman named Mercy Harker convinced the townsfolk that 13 young women practiced witchcraft. As the women were killed for their alleged crime, Mercy proclaimed Dread Hollow as, “forever mine.”
Just then lightning struck a tall clock tower and it smashed to the ground. Mercy vanished and the curse took hold. According to the legend, more people have disappeared from Dread Hollow than any other town – all due to the witch’s curse.
This year Dread Hollow is taken over by a secretive government group called Cerberus Corp.
“They've seized the town and taken over the Belle Royale Hotel,” Todd said. "Here, unsuspecting volunteers are dragged into a world of gruesome experiments powered by dark forces never meant to be unleashed."
Visitors will then walk through Dread Wood Forest and its cemetery, where an ancient evil hibernates deep in the earth. Spiders, reptiles and undead soldiers erupt from the ground, while Cerberus wages a bloody war with the supernatural army.
Finally, visitors will walk through the former High School which Mercy has turned into Skud Row.
"Here, she lies in wait to ensnare all who venture near,” Todd said.
For this year’s Halloween season, Dread Hollow is open Friday, October 1 until Sunday, November 1 on Thursday through Sunday nights.
Dread Hollow is a 25,000+ square foot haunted house containing these three ultimate nightmares. The staff started planning, staging, decorating and creating all the pneumatic and animatronic figures as well as employing nearly 50 actors, providing moments of jump scares and thrills for all.
More importantly everyone employed goes through rigorous training for the safety of all patrons.
“We do our classroom training where we go over what they can and can't do and then how to read people,” Todd said. "Everyone on our team knows where the emergency exits are, where their zones are, and the safety aspects of it all.”
Employees are then trained in their costumes and later the team gets their final practice during their soft opening.
“That’s why we continue to get ranked among the top haunts in the nation,” Todd said. “We just got recognized again this year as one of the iconic haunts in the nation because there's only 50 of us that meet all the safety standards, all the classes, and all the training. Out of 4,000 haunted attractions in the United States, we're one of 50 that got that recognition.”
Scurryface.com ranks it as a Top 10 Haunt in the Nation, and ScareFactor.com lists it as one of the 10 Must-See Haunted Houses in Tennessee.
Todd’s daughter, Kasey, is the makeup artist who said she was literally born into the business.
Todd, Kasey and a few key staff members walked me around the massive, haunted house. Despite it being daylight and with hardly any of the mechanical items turned on, I got a bird’s eye view of just how much blood, sweat and tears they put into it. Guests are led through in small groups of six so the crew can control a safe environment.
The lab was dark and spooky enough to where I could feel the hairs on my arm stand straight up. There were a few spots where Kasey popped out from seemingly nowhere that made my heart skip a beat.
Haunted house admission is $25, or horror fans can purchase a $35 ticket that includes exclusive access to the RIP Lounge where guests control several scare zones inside the nightmares. In addition to the interactive haunted house, Dread Hollow’s Deliverance Escape Rooms offer two separately ticketed horror-themed challenges.
Specially priced admission tickets are also available for College Night on October 1, Girl’s Night Out on October 8, and Date Night on October 9. The season ends with Black Out Night on November 1. During this lights-off experience, visitors make their way through Dread Hollow’s nightmares solely by the light of one hand-held glowstick per group.
Tickets are on sale now at: dreadhollow.com (due to the intense, graphic, and often loud nature of the haunted house and escape rooms, parental discretion is advised).