Texas Scaregrounds Review
October 12, 2019
Score-9
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Online tickets here
Dates and hours open-Open every Friday and Saturday in October, plus Halloween and November 1 and 2. 7pm-midnight.
Price-$20, group rates and combo ghost hunting tickets are available. Ghost hunting tickets, without haunted house tickets are also available, and are $20. Text 817 819 6773 for details about group rates. Bring a can of food and get $5 off the regular haunted house admission price.
Phone-817-819-6773
Address-314 NW 4th Street Mineral Wells TX 76067
Parking-Free. A lot for Texas Scaregrounds is available at Hwy 281 and 4th street, and there is plenty of parking on the streets around the Scaregrounds.
Number of attractions-One, although a ghost hunting trip can be purchased to go with the haunted house.
Walk through time-12-15 minutes. Possibly longer if you aren’t good at mazes.
Review
The setting for Texas Scaregrounds is one of the best I’ve seen. Scaregrounds is located in Mineral Wells, a small town west of Ft Worth, in an old multistory building called Nazarene Hospital. The hospital itself is allegedly haunted, and Baker Hotel, only a few blocks from the Scaregrounds, is on all of the paranormal sites. Nazarene Hospital is a big, creepy looking building, and it’s at the western edge of downtown Mineral Wells. When you drive down the street to the Scaregrounds, it looks like you’re driving off into the country, which helps set the mood for a haunted house. The front of the hospital building is brightly lit with what look like LED lights shining onto it, and the hospital lobby, now the ticket booth, is nicely decorated. The decor in the lobby reminds me of old school 90’s haunted houses, and it’s appropriate for the look Texas Scaregrounds is going for.
So far, Scaregrounds hasn’t used much of the huge hospital building. They are only on the first floor, but they have made the of the most of that area. Greeters begin your experience with a talk about rules and expectations within the haunt. They’re in costume and in character, so the usual bit about house rules is turned into something fun.
Most of the rooms in the Scaregrounds are like mini mazes. They don’t have obvious exits, so you have to feel along the walls and push on doors to find a way out. There are actual mazes in the haunt, which are difficult enough that one group of girls accidentally exited the house and had to be let back in to finish their trip through. Lighting is dim or dark, for the most part, which makes the mazes and mini mazes even more difficult. Actors are allowed to touch in the Scaregrounds, and they usually went for my ankles, while they were under a bed, or behind a door. When you combine very dim lighting with difficult to navigate rooms, and actors grabbing at your legs, you end up with very startled guests. There was a great deal of screaming inside the Scaregrounds. Much of it came from guests, but a fair amount came from the actors. There were several actors who screamed loudly and frequently, and I have to admit that it was unnerving. There were also lots of actors in every area and room. I use a voice recording app on my phone to make notes while I walk through haunted houses, and I like to speak into the phone when there are no actors around. In the entire haunt, I was only alone twice, so I ended up making notes with actors around me, screaming quite a bit of the time.
Props and decor inside the haunt do their job, which is to set you up to be scared by the actors. I like the creative use of space to break the place up and increase the walk through time. Being as dark as it is, some of the guests were frightened enough to panic and back up, and, as I mentioned, one group backed up all the way out of the place. It’s an intense experience, so you might want to avoid bringing very young kids, unless they are very difficult to frighten. I was nervous most of the way through, and I’m pretty desensitized to haunted houses, so most guests will end up jumping around at least a few times.
The price at Scaregrounds ($20) is great, and you can get another $5 off by bringing a can of food to donate. I wish that I had scheduled a ghost hunt to go along with my visit to the Scaregrounds, and I suggest that you do just that. You can do both for $35 (with a donation of a can of food) and, if you have the time, you can also go by the Baker Hotel for a ghost walk. That has to be scheduled as well, but you can do it all if you plan a few days in advance. If you are from out of town, highways 180 and 281 have lots of dining options, fast food and restaurants. I suggest that you plan ahead and make a night of your visit to Mineral Wells. I live in middle of DFW, and it took less than an hour and half to get to Mineral Wells. People in Fort Worth and the rest of the western side of DFW can get there in much less time. Ghost hunting at Nazarene Hospital and the Baker Hotel, in addition to Texas Scaregrounds, will make your trip more than worthwhile.