While visiting Dallas recently, I attended The Fatal End. The weather was just beginning to turn wet after a long draught, but it hadn’t yet begun to storm. It was a Sunday evening in early October. After snacking on alligator tail at Gators, we walked over to The Fatal End in Dallas’ West End tourist mall. Talking with the manager, I learned that The Fatal End is a year-round haunt. I wish I hadn’t known that before attended because it prepared me for what I expected to be an attraction that had twelve months of care and upkeep as well as a full staff. That was not to be.

After leaving the ticket booth, we were pointed toward the entrance of the haunt where a fun, friendly man ran through a well-rehearsed precautionary list of things we weren’t to do. There was no line whatsoever, so we were ushered down a flight of stairs and started the tour right away.

The Fatal End is a standard walk-through attraction with one small maze area. Right away, I was worried that it wouldn’t be a high quality adventure. The walls of the haunt were generally plain, straight, and featured an exposed ceiling. This didn’t do much to transport me to a horrifying place though it wasn’t at all as uninspired as some haunts I’ve been in that have nothing more than warped walls of plywood painted black.

I was also saddened to see several objects I shouldn’t have seen, such as an air compressor in the middle of a scene. Some camouflage netting has been carelessly strewn on top of it in an attempt to hide it, but half of it was exposed. This simple thing that would be so easy to conceal really killed the mood.

Before entering, I has asked the usher if the haunt was fully staffed on our Sunday night. He replied with a pithy remark about having enough folks to handle us and promised we’d be “scared”. Not the case. We had followed the twisting plain walls for a couple of scenes before someone finally showed. When they did, I wished they hadn’t. It was the typical young actor with a yell or a roar or a boo that was completely juxtaposed from their character or costume, then they followed us around a bit, and eventually tucked tail into a dark corner.

One of the only creepy moments, and thereby the creepiest, was turning a 180 corner to see a television set on a TV cart at the end of a short hallway. Howdy Doody crackling in eerie black and white was the only light flickering in a small bedroom. As we were walking towards the TV, I had crossed my fingers hoping that there’d be a motion sensor that would cause the show to sputter into a very creepy black and white demonic child trying to grab us through the set or something, but no… Howdy Doody continued playing and there was only a small pneumatic prop of some small gory scene in the bed that had nothing to do with the TV set or the show.


One of the things I was excited about was that The Fatal End is advertised as two-stories of terror! Sounds great!! I didn’t want to let myself believe that a haunt would take the insurance risk of stairs or a real elevator, but when I let my mind wander, I envisioned a creepy elevator or themed staircase that appeared rickety but was really extremely safe and sturdy. So another disappointment occurred when we rounded a corner and came to a wide bare staircase. It had no theme to it. We climbed the stairs and continued the haunt. It didn’t feel as though it was a continuation since there was a separation of the two floors connected by a span of 30 boring seconds, and even worse, it didn’t feel like a two-for-the-price-of-one either. It just felt like an unfortunate situation to have two uninspired floors of attraction divided by an even less exciting interruption.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that the relative quiet and lack of actors did cause me to actually jump a bit when a lone actor (one of ten maybe?) lurched from a hidey near the floor. Otherwise, there were a few interesting animated props that were interesting, but far from engaging or scary.

Overall, I was disappointed with this attraction. Like so many today, the website promises a strong and psychologically terrifying theme, but the house just doesn’t deliver. Even if it weren’t all it promised on the terrifying side, at least it could have been thematically strong. As is, it’s a hodgepodge of thinly connected scenes that take about 15 minutes to walk through.

Hi Luna. RFlatstone's right. If you don't feel you don't fit in there, you should try to come to Chicago or any other bigger city where people are more accepting and will enjoy you for you and not reject you based on the color of you hair, or your clothes, or how you dance or the music you listen to. However you express yourself in a goth (or any) lifestyle, that's what makes you uniquely you and special.

I grew up in the very deep woods of Washington where I felt very very isolated. Fortunately, I had some great friends that I got into a lot of mischief with, but when I moved to the big city, I was thrilled to find so many more people and places where I could just be me. If you come up to Chicago, Neo is a great place to visit. There's also the Goth Meet-up that Scary Lady Sarah runs through Meet-up.com Ask to be invited to this group. She won't refuse you. Flashback is a very fun horror movie convention coming up in Chicago in early August, and there'll be another Horrorhound coming to Indianapolis soon.

It might sound counterproductive coming from a webmaster, but this site isn't the best place to be to meet people. RFlatstone is an amazingly awesome supporter, but the truth is, these blogs aren't visited much and I don't want you to feel any more lonely or isolated. If you haven't already, check out VampireRave or VampireFreaks. While the names imply jkust vampire folks, the communities are actually composed of people that identify with the gothic culture. You'll meet tons of great people. There'll be the drama of course that you'll have to steer clear of, but for the many terrific open-minded people you'll meet, it's worth it. Please write me directly if you need any links or if you'd like any more suggestions on finding some like-minded individuals. chateaugrrr at gmail dot com

Dark dude, you are awesome. THanks for the support and congrats on getting Chiller Theatre to swing into town!!

Definitely check around for you on this one. There are lots of places that do occasional swag, but constant swag, not sure.

Welcome back, dark friend! I've missed your poetry and prose.