St. Rita’s Haunted House 2012 Review

St. Rita’s Haunted House (Cincinnati, OH)
“Evendale Horrors”
By Noah Wullkotte: Jollypumpkin@aol.com

St. Rita’s Haunted House in Evendale, Ohio is turning 37 years old this year. This makes St. Rita’s one of the oldest haunts in the nation. Profits made are used towards St. Rita School for the Deaf and the money has helped tremendously over the years. St. Rita’s Haunted House has become a Halloween destination for those who live in Greater Cincinnati and it holds a warm place in my heart. I remember visiting St. Rita’s Haunted House when I was a little kid. It was all I could think about on Halloween night and the experience scared the crap out of me. I would see St. Rita School for the Deaf nearly every day of my high school life since my school was located right behind St. Rita.

Since then I’ve grown up and I’ve been able to face my fears a lot better. I do still find St. Rita’s Haunted House to be quite spooky with some rooms that make me jump. We visited St. Rita’s on a Friday night. It was raining and the parking lot was a little muddy. I never quite understood why people would rather stay inside on a stormy night instead of going to a scary haunted house. Stormy weather adds to the atmosphere of a haunted house and makes it even more frightening.

Enter a dark passageway of coffins and Egyptian Tombs before walking up to the ticket booth. Tickets are only $10 a piece and there’s a $3 off coupon making it only $7 which is the cheapest admission in Cincinnati. Two skeletons stand guard near the queue line and a vampire stands next to an outdoor patio heater as she takes tickets.

Off to the side is a large tent area where Halloween themed weddings are held. This is the 4^th year for these wedding events and it seems to get more popular every Halloween season. St. Rita’s sponsor B 105 will be there to cover the ceremonies. We waited a couple minutes in line and then it was our turn to enter the haunted boy’s dormitory known as St. Rita’s Haunted House.

St. Rita’s Haunted House is a traditional haunt in a sense. You’re not going to see lots of blood and guts or controversial scenes. It’s a very detailed haunt with a mixture of homemade props and surprising scares. You’ll walk through a nasty bathroom with swarming cock roaches, a cavern with a rolling bolder, an asylum with a live electrocution, an outdoor graveyard with the living dead and so much more.

St. Rita’s Haunted House has a lot of unique effects like the Freddy Krueger catwalk that drops from underneath you or the homemade CGI Asylum Door. The outside section includes a bridge you must walk over as rain water pours from the side. There were a few props that weren’t working properly such as the Vortex Tunnel. It wasn’t spinning at all. But everything else seemed to be in working order.

St. Rita’s Haunted House is non profit and uses volunteer actors. For the most part, they’re pretty good. The best actor is the vampire bat creature (aka crawler) from “The Descent Part 2”. He hisses and growls and he wears the best mask of any character at St. Rita’s. The clowns inside the haunted carnival are also very good. An actor even loses their body at St. Rita’s and wants a helping hand.

Some sad news would hit St. Rita’s this year. On Sunday, October 21^st their ticket booth was broken into and $1,600 was stolen. If you would like to help St. Rita’s Haunted House then please click here to donate.

Our haunt season isn’t complete without heading down to St. Rita’s Haunted House. It’s one of the best charity haunts in Greater Cincinnati and seems to always add new effects and scenes that make the experience different from the previous year. The haunt lasts around 11 minutes. Tickets are $10 and there’s a $3 off coupon available at www.srsdeaf.org. There are plenty of concessions available. St. Rita’s is the only haunt I’ve been to that serves Goetta Dogs. They’re pretty good and only $1.50 a piece. Most of the concessions are a dollar or less. St. Rita’s Haunted House is everything the Halloween season should be. It’s scary, exciting and a good deal.