Terror Behind the Walls

 I have to say, this place was pretty AWESOME!  It's been Theo's goal to take me to a GOOD haunted house ever since I can remember, but I'm not too big on haunted places.  I should clarify that, I'm not too big on 'pretend' haunted houses.  I just can't disconnect myself from the fact that the people trying to scare you are just actors with make-up.  All they do is get right in your face, and I'm like, "Dude, personal space!".  It's not scary, it's annoying.  This place did a little of that, but it actually was successful in scaring me a bit!

 Eastern State Penitentiary.  The first official jail in the history of America.  It was housed Al Capone!  It's built like a castle to intimidate anyone who even thinks about breaking the law.  It's so menacing, what a cool place!

They still have the original heavy oak doors to the cells.  They focused on isolation as a recovery, so the prisoners had no windows, just a small vent at the ceiling.  They had a small courtyard right outside their cells, that they were only allowed to come outside for 1 hour a day, and the courtyard was enclosed also, so they didn't even get to interact with any other prisoners.  They even fed them their food through a slot in the door.  Pretty lonely if you ask me.

They did an awesome job of scaring throughout.  There was those few who would just get up in my face and stare, but their make up was unbelievable!  I was staring more at the make up than the whole scary picture.  The one place the really got me was this room where the prisoners were in cages yelling and banging on things, and then all of a sudden one would actually come out at you!  It wasn't the prisoners that frightened me, it was the anxiety of not knowing which one was going to come out at you.  Then they would redirect your fear, you would see you're coming up on something scary and then BOO! someone is waiting behind you!  They got me so many times with that tactic!  It was so good!  No wonder it's rated in the top 10 scariest Haunted Houses to go through in the nation.

I found myself trying to look around more in between the acted chaos just so I could get a look at the place, I can't wait to come back during the day to take the daytime tour!