Haunted Houses Back In St Louis To Kick Off Halloween Season

by Chris Owen on

Kicking off Halloween season, haunted houses around the United States are opening their doors to brave travelers who come to experience spooky, scary things that go bump in the night. Between now and October 31, a variety of events around the country make for a great weekend diversion or road trip. Centrally located St. Louis is an easy drive from most mid-west states and offers Scare Fest, a trilogy of terror with three haunted attractions known as some of the best across the nation.

The Darkness is a two-story haunted house in downtown St Louis. Now in its 19th year of screams and scares, The Darkness has flying and flesh-eating zombies, Hollywood-quality sets and animated zombie effects and more. Included is admission to their Monster Museum and TerrorVisions 3-D, one of America’s first 3-D haunted houses featuring freaky crazed clowns in a 3-D environment where the walls appear to be moving, floors are floating and everything is right in the face of visitors.


The Haunting of Lemp Brewery takes visitors several stories below ground into real caves and caverns, just a block away from the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. In an interactive pre-show, sprits and ghosts of brewery founder William Lemp come back from the underworld to warn visitors of demons that haunt the caves under the brewery.




The Screampark in Fenton has the longest maze of scare inducing “hauntings” in the country that last more than one hour and feature more live actors than any other haunted house. New this year are Twisted Torture 3D, Demons Dominion, Grisly’s Gore Zone, the Zombie Town theme for the haunted hayride and the world’s largest Famous Faces Pumpkin Display.


Find zombies, ghosts, haunted houses or more at HauntWorld, a site that has listings for the United States and Canada as well as international attractions in the UK and other parts of the world.

[Flickr photo by dehub]

SkyMall Monday: Urine Gone

by Mike Barish on

You might not think that writing about SkyMall is very extreme. But I’m constantly dodging marshmallows, defending my lawn ornaments and hiding from biker gangs. The adrenaline rushes are frequent and intense. And while my SkyMall gadgets make my life comfortable and easy, they’ve also made me a bit of a wuss. Thanks to SkyMall, I’m too relaxed. I’m scared of my own shadow. And that means that every sound startles me. Every challenge seems daunting. And every person appears threatening. When your life is cushy and easy, everything new or different becomes extreme. And extreme becomes frightening. And frightening becomes terrifying. Sadly, I don’t handle fear very well. As such, I pee my pants…a lot. With every bump in the night, I get another puddle on my rug. And trust me, when it rains it pours. Since I can’t expect the rest of the world to calm down and take it easy on me, I have learned to adapt to how extreme everything out there is. That’s why I treat the symptom and not the disease (well, that and therapy is really expensive). Now, when things get intense and I get damp, I simply whip out my Urine Gone.Urine Gone is the answer to my prayers. Now, I can wet my pants, my rugs and my friends without consequence. I simply pee wherever my rapidly beating heart desires and then Urine Gone it away once I’ve stopped crying and come out from under the bed (Author’s note: under the bed is a super hiding spot). I simply locate the pee with the included blacklight (yes, you read that correctly) and the Urine Gone treats the stain and the asparagus smell (just because I pee my pants a lot doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop eating healthy).

Think that wearing a diaper would be a more effective solution? I think I’d look pretty stupid wearing a diaper. Besides, a diaper can’t handle the vast amount of urine that escapes my body when I’m scared. And Urine Gone is way more fun than wearing a diaper. Just take a look at the product description:

A UV black light detects the source – the cleaner removes stains and odors! Just darken the room–the black light makes stains glow.

Who doesn’t want to see their pee glow? Finding the glowing urine becomes a game that’s fun for the entire family!

So, the next time that life gets too extreme for you and you find yourself soaked in your own filth, don’t fret. Because urine comes and urine goes, but hiding under your bed is fun forever.

Check out all of the previous SkyMall Monday posts HERE.