Entering the Chamber of Horrors haunted house on West Capitol Avenue in Little Rock during the daylight hours is only mildly scary. The light bleeding through the front doors of the old Sterling department store building where the chamber is located betray the spine-chilling intentions usually hidden in the dark.
But as fans of haunted houses know, the truly frightening thrills of haunted houses are best viewed in fog-filled narrow passageways, where werewolves, mummies and other fear-inducing characters lurk behind every twist and turn.
And the Chamber of Horrors offers a nerve-wracking 20-minute walk through a maze of rooms filled with animatronics, special effects and live actors intent on eliciting screams.
But for owners Donna and Michael Higgins, the Chamber of Horrors is much more than the kickoff to the holiday season featuring Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. It's an obsession that included working 18- and 20-hour days, including some nights of Michael Higgins sleeping in the front window of the building, waking up to go home, take a shower and eat, and returning for another marathon work session.
"To me it is a bigger holiday than Christmas," Michael Higgins said. "As a kid, I used to have nightmares that I missed Halloween. I would wake up and call for my mother."
The passion for the holiday is evident in Higgins' creation, a 13,500-square-foot haunted house in the downtown building constructed in 1913.
While the enthusiasm for Halloween was instilled in Michael Higgins as a young child, it was not until his teenage years that he directed that energy toward haunted houses.
Growing up in Oklahoma, Michael Higgins started working for local haunted houses at the age of 15, doing whatever was asked of him. Finally, after years of helping others with their haunted houses, he decided to start his own. Operating Chamber of Horrors is now his day job, and Michael Higgins throws all he has into it.
"When people come to a haunted house, I don't just want them to see things jumping out at them," he said. "I want people to see the details in the house, the little things that might go unnoticed.
"A lot of the time it is all about the illusion. It's all in the lighting and how you place your effects."
An attention to detail is a primary ingredient in creating a successful haunted house, a fact that Becky Bolding and her husband Mikey know all about. For the past 12 years, the couple have been running haunted houses around central Arkansas and have spent the last five years as proprietors of the Haunted Hotel.
"Halloween is our favorite holiday," Becky Bolding said. "We just put our heart into it, with the decorations and everything.
"We do the normal things with the movie characters, but then we make things ourselves."
The Haunted Hotel includes 22 indoor and outdoor rooms, and it promises to "never leave the light on" for guests as they check into the last hotel they will ever visit.
Although the Boldings have used the same Little Rock location for the Haunted Hotel for the past three years, constructing and improving the hotel is an intensive process, a creation that started in August of this year with a whole team of workers.
But even with the rooms of dread prepared, it is the people behind the terrifying characters who create a successful experience, Becky Bolding said.
"The key to a successful haunted house is having good characters," said Bolding, who said many of the people in character at the Haunted Hotel are friends and fellow racers at the I-30 Speedway. "It doesn't matter how much decorating you do or how scary the characters are. If you don't have good people as the characters, it doesn't work.
"[Our key to success] is our employees."
While petrifying patrons is the main purpose of haunted houses, safety also is a main concern. The Chamber of Horrors and the Haunted Hotel are prepared in case of emergencies, with plenty of fire extinguishers and hidden exits throughout.
"Safety is the most important thing when we bring people in," Michael Higgins said.
Besides the Chamber of Horrors and Haunted Hotel, several other central Arkansas locations offer a unique twist on celebrating Halloween, from family affairs to a full-on horror convention and film festival.
Once again the Little Rock Zoo will be home to bears, lions, ghouls and ghosts this Halloween as it throws its Boo at the Zoo. The zoo grounds are turned into a playground for ghosts as the 16th annual event includes a haunted house, fun house, a beauty shop of horrors and talking pumpkins for Halloween fans of all ages.
The Haunted Cathedral on the EMOBA (Museum of Black Arkansans) campus uses live actors and animatronics to create one of Arkansas' scariest haunted attractions. The haunted house, located in an historic 14,000-square-foot Gothic church is intended for the whole family.
There will be a Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre at the MacArthur Museum of Military History on Saturday and Monday. The event is put on by Little Rock Tours, and reservations are required. The former arsenal is rumored to be one of the most haunted places in the Southeast. The $42 per person admission price includes a three-course dinner, tour of the arsenal, murder mystery show, taxes and gratuities.
And Arkansas' first Full Moon Horror Convention and Film Festival being held Friday through Saturday at the Statehouse Convention Center and Market Street Cinema also throws in a haunted house for good measure.
The convention has a 1,500-square-foot haunted house with about 10 rooms at the Statehouse Convention Center, with entry to the haunted house available for an extra $5.
"It's a miniature haunted house, not really a full on," said James Snyder with Green Grass Entertainment.
But the haunted house is not really the main draw of the convention and festival. Over the weekend, the event will play host to several horror celebrities, including Linda Blair (The Exorcist), Michael Berryman (Weird Science and The Hills Have Eyes) and Shawnee Smith (the Saw movies), who will be available for autographs and photos, along with sideshow performances, live music performances, independent horror films, costume contests, and collectibles and memorabilia for sale.
Market Street Cinema will show late-night screenings of horror classics, including the Re-Animator on Saturday night with star Jeffrey Combs and director Stuart Gordon in attendance.
But even with several haunted house and Halloween options in the area, Michael Higgins said there is a certain brotherhood among the operators. For the most part, the different haunted house owners don't look at each other as competition but as friends with the same love for Halloween.
"The haunted house business is a big family," he said. "We are called haunters. We're here to help each other out."
And after months of hoping and waiting, the Halloween season is upon central Arkansas. Talking to Michael Higgins, it is often hard to determine who is more excited - himself or his patrons.
"Out there is reality," he said, pointing to the post-lunch traffic and pedestrians walking down the street, unaware of the horrors concealed by the windows of the old downtown building.
"In here you get to let loose and be something else for a little while."