Scary things are happening on Hallock Drive. Everyone who loves a good scare has fallen in love with the Hallock House of Horrors! This new attraction, sponsored by the Santa Paula Rotary Club, is offering a fun tour of fear at the former car dealership on South Hallock Drive (off Highway 126) through Sunday.

BOO-dacious! Hallock House of Horrors
a unique shriek treat, killer clowns

October 24, 2014
Santa Paula News

It’s BOO-dacious and area teenagers - and adults that like a good scare and a good laugh - are giving rave reviews to the Hallock House of Horrors and its tour of terror! 

Killer clowns give you the creeps? Chucky give you nightmares? Ever been in a shrinking room with a ghostly presence or had a man in a mask with a chainsaw ask to give you a buzz cut? 

These scary characters and more - many monstrous more - will guide you through the Hallock House of Horrors this weekend.

This new attraction, sponsored by the Santa Paula Rotary Club and supported by dozens of volunteers, is offering a fun tour of fear at the former car dealership on South Hallock Drive (off Highway 126) through Sunday, October 26.

Inside, the office cubicles have been turned into one horrifying tableau after another featuring characters borrowed from famous horror films, others from the imagination of Chairman Carlos Juarez and his committee and of what some people say is their biggest fear, clowns... killer clowns!

To some visitors it’s now competition: hands down they find the clowns the creepiest addition to the Hallock House of Horrors which has elaborate staging, plenty of moving parts, live actors, sound and special effects and lighting to highlight the terror.

“The kids are doing a great job,” said tour guide Gina Marquez - volunteering with her Rotarian husband John Marquez - of the Santa Paula High School student actors. 

Perhaps too good: When asked, Marquez said, “Am I afraid of the clowns? I’m afraid of everything in there!”

Rotarian John Freeman said guides, who sheppard each group of victims, ummm, visitors, through the attraction wear glow stick necklaces to be easily identifiable in the dark.

Juarez pointed out the wall mounted TV House of Horrors waiting room playing a zombie film to whet the appetites of visitors, “So they’re hungry for fun... or fears. We all have fears,” and Juarez said the committee tried to focus on and exploit those that would make the best attractions,

For some it’s spiders and the clap of a guide’s hands brings one particularly large, black and lethal looking sound activated humungous black widow almost to eye level. 

Curtis and Mae are a strange pair on a date night benignly looking back at those staring at them, but around the corner is horror, horror and more horror including those particularly creepy killer clowns, rooms with walls that move and others that threaten to collapse.

And plenty of terrifying characters, blood, chainsaws, red eyes glowing in the dark, screams, shrieks and other things that go bump in the night... and more killer clowns.

Some props, noted Juarez, were donated by Bonnie Mihalic, the former owner of Bonnie’s Warehouse in Downtown Ventura who closed her business several years ago and recently offered charities the opportunity to have thousands of items from her vast collection.

“So far,” said Rotarian Michele Johns, “it’s just been great,” with many compliments from visitors.

Refreshments are available ranging from hot dogs and funnel cakes prepared by the Odd Fellows to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Clara Valley’s booth offering cotton candy.

“They did an amazing job... I went through the House of Horrors Monday with the lights on,” said Club Executive Director and Rotarian Jan Marholin. “There’s no way I’d do that in the dark!”

The Hallock House of Horrors was created to address the five primal fears - extinction, mutilation, loss of autonomy, separation and ego death...  well, make that six primal fears if you include the creepy killer clowns.

“It was a lot of work,” said Juarez at the end of the tour, raising his voice to be heard above the screams from those still inside, “but a lot of fun!”

And hopefully, a lot of help: the attraction was created to try to replace the funds that the Rotary raised each year through the Faulkner Farm Pumpkin Patch; after a dispute with the University of California Hanson Trust, which owns the historic farm, the Patch - which annually raised about $100,000 donated to community nonprofits - was cancelled.

The House of Horrors will be open Friday and Saturday, 5 p.m. to midnight and Sunday 5 to 10 p.m. 

Tickets are only $10 each; the attraction is recommended for children 13 years and older.

Easy to find, impossible to forget: the Hallock House of Horrors is right off Highway 126 in Santa Paula. Heading west? Turn left at the Highway 126 traffic signal onto Hallock Drive; if you’re headed east make a right turn at the light. 

For more information, visit www.hallockhouseofhorrors.com 

And be sure to “Like” Hallock House of Horrors on Facebook! For more information, call 1-888-522-1884.





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