Hush: Horror’s new home
It’s a new era for Hush. After years of being at their Ford Road location, they have moved to a new house of fear. An ambitious new haunted attraction has been created, making a far bigger experience than has existed before. Walking into the new location, and into the dark of the queue line, you can hear the screams of those who have been let in before. Reaching the end of the line, you find yourself in the lobby of a hotel that has certainly seen better days. Soon you will meet the bellhop, who will let you deeper into the bowels of the hotel, and the new Hush begins.
This year’s attraction is separated into three different themes, and the distinction between them is made obvious. Having been through other houses in the past that have claimed to have multiple attractions but end up having a medium length house that doesn’t differentiate well between the themes made me prepare for the worst. Instead, Hush does a great job of making sure the three themes are easy to distinguish and the house length is impressive. The set design lives up to their high standards, with scenes containing a ton of details. One area that this stood out was the entrance to the manor. From the furniture to the props put in all the nooks and crannies, the scenes of this house make you want to just take a closer look and find every small detail they put in to make every area feel realistic and threatening. The house also does a great job with variety in the size and scope of scenes. Going from huge rooms like a ballroom or a graveyard to small cramped areas like attic space filed with dolls do a great job of always keeping you off guard.
Another thing I love about Hush is how there are actors that you can recognize year after year. It’s nice to see a house keep people for the long term, especially when they are so good at what they do. In general, the actors are good, but there are areas where you could tell that actors were still learning their locations. It would lead to awkwardly timed scares that just didn’t work right. It should be noted that we went early in the season, so this is an issue that can be ironed out over time. Typically, the actors still do well at getting scares and in some cases good laughs as well.
An issue that came up multiple times during the house dealt with sound. The bleed through of sound from other scenes at times could be incredibly loud. The opening hotel scene had this issue big time. It was hard to hear the story from the bellhop with the loud sounds piercing through from other scenes. This was an issue for a lot of the house, and one of the reasons it can get so bad is the lack of music or ambient noise through the house. This again may have been an issue with going early into the season, but it influenced our experience. The sound issues affected how immersed we felt.
Despite the sound issues and some actor issues, Hush is still an incredible attraction. These issues can be written off as growing pains in a brand new location, and will get better over time, if not this season. Hush must be commended for making such a drastic change to their house, and it is still one of the houses that is on our must-do list every year. Watching the old location grow over the years was a ton of fun, and we can’t wait to see it happen with this new location.
4.5 / 5
