Cutting Edge Haunted House Review
October 13, 2019
Score-10
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Location-1701 East Lancaster Avenue. Fort Worth, Texas 76102. Just west of the I-30/I-35 interchange, on E. Lancaster. Cutting Edge is on the north side of the street, parking is on the other side of the street. Directions here.
Phone-817 348 8444
Dates and Hours open-October 18 from 7pm-12:30am, October 19 from 7pm-1am, October 20 from 8pm-10pm, October 24 from 8pm-10pm, October 25 from 7pm-1am, October 26 from 7pm-1am, October 27 from 8pm-10:30pm, October 30 from 8pm-10pm, Halloween from 7pm-10:30pm, November 1 from 9pm-10:30pm, November 2 from 9pm-10:30pm.
Price-Cash only at the box office. Credit cards can only be used for tickets online. Click here to buy tickets. Tax is not include in the prices listed below.
General Admission-$34.99, plus a $3.75 fee online.
Timed Ticket-Allows you to drastically cut the wait time in line. No more than a 30-45 minute wait on busy nights. Choose your time when you buy the ticket. $44.99, plus a $3.75 fee online.
Speedpass-Allows you to skip the wait altogether on slow nights, and the wait is around 10 minutes on busy nights. $54.99, plus a $3.75 fee online.
Combo with Thrillvania General Admission ticket-Can be used on any open night. $70 if purchased onsite, on sale for $59.99 online, plus a $3.75 fee online.
Speedpass with Thrillvania Combo ticket-Can be used on any open night. $105 if purchased onsite, on sale online for $84.99, plus a $3.75 fee online.
Group tickets-Group rate tickets are for 15 or more tickets purchased, and they must be purchased online for the group rate discount.
Group rate General Admission-On sale for $29.75, plus a $3.75 fee
Group rate timed ticket-$38.25 online plus a $3.75 service fee, $45 onsite.
Group rate Speedpass-On sale for $46.75 plus a $3.75 fee
Coupon Promo codes here.
Parking is $15-$20. Parking is now across the street. Credit cards are accepted for parking.
Miscellaneous-Cutting Edge is an indoor haunted house, but they have changed their parking this year to open up the area around the haunted house. With plenty of room, Cutting Edge has a souvenir shop, a barbecue stand, and a stand with an assorted menu. Now you can get something to eat and spend some time outside the haunt, before or after you go in.
Even though the haunted house is indoors, it is a huge house, so you need to wear comfortable shoes. There are stairs, and some wet areas, so your shoes also need to have some traction. Do not wear anything that can’t get wet. Also, keep your phone in your pocket. You don’t want to lose it, or for it to get wet. Speaking of phones, remember that flash photography is not allowed inside Cutting Edge.
Walk through time-This will vary, depending on how fast you walk, and how good your night vision is. We made it through in about 35 minutes, but we did not go through the bubble tunnel at the end. Taking the bypass probably cut a couple of minutes off of the time.
Review
Cutting Edge began changing it’s outside two years ago. What used to be their main parking lot is now used for music, concessions, and space for people to move around. Figures on horseback line the area around the haunted house entrance, and the giant skull that you walk through to enter the house is shrouded in mist. Once inside, actors are on you quickly while you approach a high speed vortex tunnel. The tunnel was almost fast enough to force me to hold onto the rails to get through. The tunnel sets the tone for the rest of the house, fast and intense. Mist in this area was a nice touch.
There is a nice wasteland zone, with actors jumping around, and props that look like something out of a zombie movie. Shortly after the wasteland, there is an interesting area with long racks of clothing. You have to walk between the racks, with very little room to move. Actors hide in the clothes and either pop out, or wave a hand in front of your face as you pass by. There are either lots of actors in this area, or there are some very fast actors who stay on customers as they make their way through.
One thing I really like about Cutting Edge this year is the lighting. Throughout the haunt, there is great mood lighting with lanterns, which are used to light many of the hallways. They could be Victorian, or Old West. Scene lighting is also effective, with red light in one area, while white light is used to reduce vision to almost nothing in some areas.
The laboratory/experiment area seems to have been worked on in the off season, and the detail is impressive this year. The dim lighting in this fairly dark sets of the props and decor nicely.
You go down a flight of stairs to get to my favorite area, the swamp. It’s something you would expect to find in Louisiana, in the bayou region. There are Voodoo looking creatures, and the actors have great makeup and costumes. This is the most atmospheric part of Cutting Edge, with beautiful decor, and ghostly lighting. The path winds tightly, and the bridge is very cool. There is one area, sort of like a crypt, that reminded me of graveyards I’ve seen in the New Orleans area. Swamp actors were active, there were lots of hands close to my face as I walked through. They got close to me on the narrow path, but not too close. There is a area that transitions from the cemetery to the funeral home that looked great, with reddish lighting and interesting props.
The funeral home has some good props, nice caskets, and what looked like a crematorium. There are some very dark areas toward the middle of the house. It’s not like the old days when you had to feel along the walls for a good portion of the haunt, but the dark areas are still effective, especially if darkness is a phobia of your’s.
My second favorite part of Cutting Edge is what I call the farm. It looks more like something out of Pumpkinhead than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You go through the farm house, then the farm itself. It also has an Old West look to it in some areas. Parts of this area could pass as a mining camp. Whatever it’s meant to be, the effect is creepy. As with the rest of Cutting Edge, the actors really get into character and this area probably has better hiding places for them than in most of the haunt.
A clown area replaces the old blackout maze. The first part of the clown house looks like what you might see in a macabre circus. There are extremely detailed props. A lot of time must have been spent painting this part of the haunt. The clowns do not make the mistake I’ve seen in other houses where they just stand in your way and honk a horn. The Cutting Edge clowns run around their area and are able to come back to the same group a couple of times.
There is a heavily misted area close the end of the house that I mistook for the beginning of the bubble tunnel. At the end, I decided to take the bypass before the tunnel filled with bubbles. The bypass is in plain site this year, just go left instead of right.
Final Thoughts
Cutting Edge actors are always among the best in the industry, but they are really special this year. They must practice getting their hands close to people’s faces, without touching. They did this frequently in all areas of Cutting Edge, and it’s a very effective technique when they can hide next to the path or hall. They are also great at finding places to hide so that you are almost on top of them when they jump out at you. Team work was impressive this year. Several groups of actors worked together, with one coming at you from the left, while a second later another jumped out on the right. The costumers, make up artists, and the set designer exceeded the level of quality of previous years. I didn’t see any actors without the ideal costume and make up for his or her part of the house. The decor is now approaching the level of places like Verdun Manor and House of Torment. Cutting Edge has always been intense and scary, and it now looks great too.
A major problem in all large haunted houses is that slow customers cause a pile up that leads to everyone walking through the haunted house in a long line, making it impossible for actors to startle anyone, and causing most customers to miss the effects that are set off by motion plates on the ground. Cutting Edge has solved this problem by having breaks through the house, where people can listen to live music, or entertainment on screens, while they wait to go further. A talented trio of drummers are in the first break area, and a band called Chasing Rent is in the second break area. Some sort of clown programming was in the third break area, before the clown house. After a few minutes you and your group go forward into the haunted house, without a bunch of people in front of you. The wait in line in the break areas might be irritating in a smaller haunted house, but Cutting Edge is so large that a brief rest is welcome.
Cutting Edge has continued to make improvements each year, and while previous upgrades went well, this year has seen a major leap forward in both the quality of the haunted house, and the outside area, which is now fun to spend time in. Even the parking is better this year. It used to be a pain to get in and out of the parking lot because there was so little space. The new parking areas are spacious, and exiting is now simpler since the cars aren’t crammed into a small area. The price of parking has gone up, but the extra convenience is worth it.
There are still plenty of nights remaining for you to see Cutting Edge, and it’s open late on Fridays and Saturdays. If you are going to buy a general admission ticket, I would advise you to go on a Sunday (or one of the weeknights later in the season) or to show up very early if you’re going on a Friday or Saturday. This is probably the best year ever for Cutting Edge, so make sure you it at least once!