Monster Bash 5: Hotel of Horrors Media

The Hotel of Horrors was the last of our Haunts to be produced in the gymnasium of the Harmony Community Center, and was also the last Haunt we did before the creation of the 501(c)(3) charity called Monster Bash Incorporated. Just prior to the start of the Haunt that year, it was announced that the building known at the time as Slim's Woodshed was going to be put up for auction (there's an article below that mentions some of the initial discussions about that), and ultimately Slim's Woodshed became The Monster Bash Building! But the Hotel of Horrors itself wound up being our biggest build to date (spilling out of the gym because of space needs!) and not only drew in more guests than any of the previous four Haunts, it also was the first to win an award: a Top Rated Attraction award in Minnesota by the minnesotahauntedhouses.com website. See below for the various media regarding the Hotel of Horrors, and for a summary of the Haunt itself, you can go to the the Hotel of Horrors summary on our History page!

Here's that writeup in the Fillmore County Journal - dated October 3, 2016 - that highlights the beginnings of the effort that ultimately led to the creation of the Monster Bash Incorporated 501(c)(3) charity and the purchase (by the charity) of what is now known as The Monster Bash Building.

A PDF version of the FCJ article is shown here, but the original website for it was: http://fillmorecountyjournal.com/fillmore-central-school-board-considers-purchase-of-slims-woodshed/

Fillmore Central School Board considers purchase of Slim’s Woodshed - FCJ article - Oct 3 2016.pdf

Some of the scenes from the Hotel of Horrors! this is part one. A few more from this fun Haunt are below. The Hotel was probably the most detailed of our Haunted Houses up to this point in our history, and considering that we were still using the Harmony Community Center and only had 3 days to build and decorate, it really was an impressive effort by all the volunteers who put this Haunt together!

This is also the Haunt that incorporated one of most unique efforts: that our "Hotel Guests" wound up coming back to the exact same room (the Hotel Lobby) that they started in for the final twist. It was crazy idea, and it took some thinking and planning to make that idea work with the timing of the incoming guests and the guests that were finishing their trip through the scares, but it wound up being a real unexpected, somewhat discombobulating (and fun) experience for the guests to find themselves in a space they had been in before!

The additional pictures from the Hotel of Horrors. Among the many fun aspects of the Hotel was the "neon" sign. It was put together with the idea that it needed to look a bit "beat-up" by the elements and that it also needed to have a lighting effect that changed the name of this spooky place from the "Heaven Valley Hotel" to the "Hell Hotel"! The sign also couldn't seem to decide if there was, or wasn't, any vacancy!

The sign itself now graces our indoor queue as a fun memorabilia item of a great Haunt which happened to be our very last one at the Harmony Community Center before we made the move to our very own building!