Enter America’s Most Extreme Haunted House

Every October we are oversaturated with haunted houses that all follow a similar formula featuring ghouls and goblins that leap out from dark corners, startling their patrons. But things like genital mutilations, half-naked people covered in excrement, and a full bar are not typically expected at your local spook house. In the city of Atlanta, however, the fine people at Gorehound Productions have cooked up a twisted R-rated haunt designed not only to scare it’s visitors, but to shock them – perhaps even scar them.

We arrived at the famed Atlanta concert venue, The Masquerade, on a Monday afternoon to meet with friend and Gorehound Productions co-founder, Lucas Godfrey. One of the first things I noticed was an evil version of Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine pulling into the back gate. The old Chevy van – driven by celebrated Atlanta artist and Chambers co-founder, Rene Arriagada – was dressed in a flat black paint job with a large decal on the side that read “Chambers of Horror”.

The venue itself is an old, dilapidated warehouse. Panes of glass have been knocked out of the upstairs windows, the metal siding is rusted and old, and graffiti blankets the walls outside. To add to the industrial feel, there was construction on the other side of the desolate side street we were parked on. The rumble of heavy machinery only added to an already ominous ambience.

Lucas arrived shortly after us. We walked with him to the “Chambers of Horror” entrance. It was an industrial brick building directly behind the concert venue, complete with bars on the windows and a sign beside the door, reading: “TORTURECO, We Understand Your Pain”.

“We’re all somewhat part of the disaffected youth, so to speak… You can’t really scare us. But you can shock us.” Lucas tells me as he lights a cigarette, a wall of dusty security monitors behind him. “And it’s still hard to do that, nowadays.”

In only it’s second year, Chambers is seeing success in a very tough market for Halloween attractions. Even if you cut out huge conglomerate entities like Six Flags and their Fright Fest, there are still some very renowned go-to events in the area for the Halloween season. “Instead of a haunted houe market with a bunch of haunted houses doing the same thing, you have a haunted house market with ‘Netherworld’ – number one haunted house in the country, (Chambers of Horror) – most extreme, ridiculous, sadistic thing you’ve ever seen, and then you’ve got like the Zombie Apocalypse thing down on the south side which is all just… You’re jumping into a movie thing trying to fight zombies. You know, that kind of thing.”

The storyline of the haunt is much like a guided tour through Eli Roth’s “Hostel”… Only much more brutal and ruthless. You are introduced to “Tortureco”, a company that provides certain services to rich sadists. And though you will never make enough money to be a client, Tortureco is kind enough to provide you with a tour of the facilities. Along the way, you will be subjected to nudity, verbal abuse, cruel pranks, gore, and the occasional mouthful of body fluid.

“As far as the edgy issue, it took a lot of fighting. I mean, you know me and (partner) Nick… We’re sadistic fucks. We don’t care, we’ll do anything… We had to be edited a lot. What we’d really like to do would piss off and offend the entire fucking country.” And if they really wanted to go much farther than they already have, he is probably right. But for people that “get it” and genre fans, Chambers of Horror is an attraction that has been absent for far too long.

Visit chambersofhorroratl.com for more info.