The Fear Haunted House

I’ve always enjoyed The Fear Haunted House at Navy Pier for the quality of the production, acting, makeup, etc. Haunted attractions don’t scare me (I’m an adult — I know it’s not real), so all I want out of a haunted house is to be entertained, which The Fear has never failed to deliver.
This year, though, they went in a completely different direction with Zombie Containment, and I just freakin’ loved it. As much a darkly comic experience as anything else, this is how corporate America might actually deal with a zombie virus outbreak at one of its facilities: Pretend nothing’s wrong even when something *clearly* is. The absurdity of that idea is played to the hilt, as «Merikorp Industries» leads you through an increasingly deteriorating «zombie containment facility», all the while insisting that everything is fine.
I found myself laughing out loud throughout Zombie Containment, and in a good way — it’s genuinely funny… until it’s not, for just a moment, and you jump out of your skin at a well-​placed scare. One scene in particular went from funny to creepy, as a young «worker» in the facility, who clearly has been infected, goes about her business singing cheery songs — funny when you’re looking at her doing it, but when you get to the other end of the room where it’s much darker and you can still faintly hear her sing-​song echoing after you, it’s suddenly very spooky…
If you’re looking for hard-​core scares… well, that’s not really the point, here. If you’re looking for fantastic, original entertainment, though, you *have* to see Zombie Containment. There really is no other attraction like it in Chicago or, possibly, anywhere!

I kind of wanted to give it 1 star, because it was honestly the least scary thing I’ve ever paid to be scared by. But, with the Groupon (two tickets for $ 24), it was very affordable, being at Navy Pier it was very easy to get to, and the atmosphere of the crowd and actors was fun (waiting in line, etc) Also they serve beer while you’re waiting to go in — so that’s pretty legit.
However, as far as the actual «Fear» experience, the fear part was missing. They shuffle you through in big groups, and if you’re at the back of the group (like we were) there’s no chance of even being startled by one of the actors. In addition, there was a guy following behind us the whole time, shuffling us forward — the whole thing felt very rushed. At the end, they make you walk through a whole bunch of… bubbles (terrifying!) which were all over my pants … but don’t worry they have a guy with a leaf blower standing at the exit to blast the bubbles off of you.
I wouldn’t go again, but it wasn’t the worst one I’ve been to.

My fiancé, little sister, and her friends all came with me to try this haunted house. we usually try a bunch of different haunted houses and get disappointed. Not this one, it was a lot of fun and one of the better ones that I have been to in a long time. I also like being Downtown Chicago.

It said in the poster that this was Adult fun scare. but I would say that this is really geared towards families. It wasn’t really worth it to us. It felt like they were just repeating the same maze over and over. 13 terrors on the lake was WAY better for adults. This was OK. also worth paying the extra $ 5 for the no wait line. I would’ve been bummed to have to wait an hour for this. just saying’ it could have been so much more creative.

I have loved Halloween since I was a kid, granted back then it was
because I could dress up in some really stupid looking costume and go
trick or treating with my pumpkin bucket in hand. Ah, memories.
And, this year, I was/​am really in the Halloween spirit, I mean, I got dressed
up as a kind of goth vamp for the Unilocal eerie party at theory, even put
black streaks in my hair, I was really into it this year.
So, yes, I am a bit of a ghoul, I love horror movies and I love haunted houses,
so, I decided to give this one a try.
Well, here’s my rundown of the night,
I did not purchase my tickets online as I should have, because I thought
it would be pretty easy just to pick up my ticket there at the pier.
Wrong Answer, I definitely should have done it online!
The Fear Haunted House is all the way at the back of that damn pier so
I got my cardio in, and I get back there, well, I tried to get back there but there
was this massive line of people, like nothing I’ve ever seen!
So, this employee comes over and tells us that it will take at least 1 and a half
hours for us to get inside this haunted house due to this massive crowd,
so, I decide to spend a little extra cash to do this speed pass thing so I
can get in there and they can do their best to try to scare me, because,
it takes a lot to really scare me.
F.Y.I. It is $ 20.00 to get into this attraction, and once you get in after
waiting for a very long time unless you do the speed pass for additional
cash, time actually spent inside attraction, about 20 minutes.
And, yes, there are macabre clowns, (think Stephen King’s Pennywise
the Clown from It) and a few other little chills and thrills but, I will
just say Ho Hum.
Gotta do better than that!
Back when I was a kid there was a haunted house in Melrose Park in
back of Kiddieland run by a company called Amlings, now, that was scary!
But, this, just didn’t do it for me.
So sad, because I really wanted to be scared,
I wasn’t. end of story…

Ok I would of never gone here unless I got a Groupon for 2 passes for $ 11. I went on a sunday afternoon cuz dat was all the passes Groupon had left. Waste of time and money… It was more like a fun house I didn’t get scared one. Don’t waste your money here.

The actual haunted house was mediocre– fairly short and lacking any real creativity. But the thing that really made this a negative experience was a man in costume who was taking tickets and leading people in line into the haunted house. He was incredibly rude, yelling at customers who were not facing directly forward in line, and could be heard mocking some customers («What kind of a creep goes to a haunted house alone?» or making fun of an older man’s age.) I’m not sure if this was his «character» (i.e. there’s a werewolf, a vampire, and an asshole) but it was very unpleasant, not fitting with the scary theme, and I felt badly for the customers who were singled out and mocked.

I visited The Fear on a Friday night around 8:00pm. There was a 45 min line, but my group opted to get the lightning pass for a few extra bucks. We didn’t have to wait at all! Some of our group ordered online and the tickets were less expensive that way. There is a link on The Fear website.
The interior is very winding, trying to get as much scare space as possible out of a relatively small area. It worked! By the time I reached the end I was justting the sweet spot of ready to go– not so freaked out that I couldn’t enjoy and not so desensitized that I stop suspending disbelief.
Some of the cool features inside without giving away to many spoilers: very awesome animatronic beasts that get very close to you, innovative uses of compressed air guns for audible and tactile scares, and some truly disorienting rooms where either pure darkness or fog and restrained use of strobes conspire to fully blind you. If you’re afraid of the dark (like me) this will certainly give you a good scare.
The reason this is four stars is that some of the darkness and purposfully disorienting room exits caused a person in the group in front of us to go through the wrong door. This caused her group to stall, making us get held up for three or four minutes in a hallway hung with corpses. I give the crew credit for persistence, but it’s hard to remain threatening when your prey (us) is immobile and you don’t carry through on your that to gut us with your knife because you can’t touch us (legally). Perhaps add a crew member to the link between houses to keep people moving in the right direction.
I highly recommend this to Chicagoans and visitors looking for a scare.

Eh… It’s ok.
My girlfriend wanted to go to a haunted house this year, so we decided to give this place a go. We opted for the VIP tickets, which were $ 5 more, because the line was pretty long. With VIP we were taken straight through to the staging area door, so I think it was worth the extra dollars.
It takes a lot to scare or even startle me, and Fear just didn’t do it. My girlfriend on the other hand was scared. She screamed and hid from the actors; it was great.
So although Fear didn’t do it for me, I did enjoy myself watching her react, and seeing the other people freak out. I was also able to scare a few people myself at one point by banging on a fiberglass window at one point where the lone double-​backed on itself; I just couldn’t help myself. ;)

Just came back from The Fear this evening. They have two levels of access for General Admission and for VIP. With General Admission you can expect to wait in line outside for 45min-​1hr, with VIP the wait is under 30mins.
This seems to be the only haunted house in Chicago that is easily accessible via public trans, so we decided to go here. First impression as we approached the long lines was that the guests of this event were almost ALL teenagers — rowdy, loud and immature, so be prepared to deal with that as you wait in line to purchase your ticket and also wait in line to enter the house.
After 50mins or so of waiting in line to enter the house, they take you up a ramp and pack you in line very tightly. The ushers at the front door are extremely rude and impatient. I was told to hang my arm over the railing as to get as close to the railing as possible. This really hurt me as I was packed in so tight that I was STANDING ON MY TIPPY TOES FOR 10MINS at the front door waiting to enter this place. So yeah, again, those ushers at the front door are pricks. These a-​holes even yelled at my gf and she didn’t even do anything! Eff them guys, for $ 20 per person you would expect to be treated with some respect, especially after waiting in the cold weather for an hour. So just be prepared for that kinda treatment from the front door folks. Between that and the rowdy teenaged hoodlums, I was ready to go home.
The experience inside the house was pretty good. The actors inside were friendly and made sure you had a good time. Not for kids — pretty scary stuff in there. I recommend this place because it was a pretty entertaining experience and something nice to do for the holiday. Wrap up cause standing in line for almost an hour can be quite uncomfortably in the cooler weather right on the lakefront.

All I have to say is that I’m grateful that a cop stopped and alerted me to a woman selling tickets for half price… The staff people were out of line and caused this to be a true buzz kill. Stick with your local haunted houses and don’t try to go downtown to this one… Not worth it… Not many good scares and it’s just not a good experience, in my opinion. I now understand now why there wasn’t a line to get in here on a nice night.

Much improved since last year, the Fear at Navy Pier was truly enjoyable. For those of you who visited this haunted house last year, you will recognize that the first half is quite similar to last year’s house. However, I feel that the actors have improved significantly, as they were more menacing this year. The set decorations also improved, and are more detailed than last year.
What really made this year better was the second haunted house, which has a clown theme. The addition of this second section effectively doubles the length of the Fear at Navy Pier, and was truly creepy! They made good use of strobe lights, mirrors, and some really great actors.
And, just like last year, one of the best things about this haunted house is that they send you in groups of 4. This makes the wait a little longer, but wow is it worth it! You get a LOT of individualized attention.
Although I still balk a bit at the $ 20 price tag, this year’s house did not feel like a rip-​off (like last year’s did). I was very impressed by this haunted house. If you really want the «best» haunted houses, feel free to drive an hour out of Chicago and wait 2 hours in line. Or, come down to Navy Pier and have a fun scary time!

Meh.
This place is all hype. We got discounted VIP tickets for Goldstar, thank god. It was not worth full price.
We felt rushed through. I had no idea what was going on because we were placed into the main line in a matter of minutes. The house itself was sparse and the characters (other than the queue) did not seem into what they were doing. Plus there was a major mud issue and I was scared of falling in the inflatible portion.
I am probably not going to return next year.

I guess it’s convenient since it’s close to the Loop, but I wasn’t really impressed with this place. They mention some vague theme of a demented sea captain, so we were hoping more of a creepy sailor nautical experience. No such luck. There were a couple good scares, and the giant monster rats were cool, but it was your usual run of the mill haunted house stuff. The second part of it takes you through an inflatable tent that seems more suited to a children’s block party. The floor was real squishy, which I thought was a cool effect until I noticed that it was only the wet grass and mud underneath the plastic floor. Ugh. We got VIP tickets through Goldstar, which was fortunate since it’s really not worth full price.

This haunted house was as good as the Haunted Sanitarium at Theater on the Lake (see my review). Normally it’s $ 25 for a VIP pass which means you don’t have to wait in line. I bought two tickets for half price on Goldstar, definitely go that route because it’s not worth $ 25. We didn’t wait in line long but while we did there were some pretty creepy characters walking around. I never knew a ski mask could be so freaky. And these actors are some big boys. The house itself was pretty scary, although the absence of the creepy clown was a downer. The website (or maybe it was the confirmation email) said that it takes 55 – 65 minutes to get through. Maybe they meant from the time you go to pick up your tickets to the time you exit the house (including the time you stand in line and the time it takes to get your picture taken etc.). It didn’t take that long to get through the two haunted houses, maybe 20 minutes. The second house which was like walking through some kind of creatures insides wasn’t that good, but I did enjoy the first one. All in all, check it out but get the tickets half price through Goldstar. I would have given it more stars but I subtracted one for the price (to non-​Goldstar peeps) and one for the promise of an hour in the house when it was actually about a third of that.