It had never specifically occured to me that Halloween would be a special holiday in Las Vegas, but in retrospect, in makes total sense. The city would make a big deal out of anything that could be a special occasion in Las Vegas, right?
Well, this recent trip to Vegas found me there in the month of Halloween, and I got to see firsthand what that means. Several casinos were advertising the special acts they have booked for the night before and the night itself. (Convenient that Halloween is a Saturday this year, no?)
Other casinos had set up haunted houses for the occasion. On our night downtown at Fremont Street (just before the real scare that was the incident), my group decided to check out the "Haunted Casino" at Binion's Horseshoe. It turned out to be well worth it.
The haunted house had many of the conventions I've seen at other houses over the years -- a simulated elevator, hanging body bags, actors pretending to be statues so that they can jump out at you when you're unprepared... that sort of stuff. But it also had some original elements I personally hadn't seen before. For example, there was the "suffocation chamber," a walk through two... well, call them inflatable bouncy castle-type walls that pressed in on you from both sides. Very clever; just long enough to be unsettling, not long enough to make real claustrophobia set in.
But even the conventional stuff was really well done. There was an incredibly convincing gargoyle outfit on one performer, who held so still before "coming to life" that everyone in the group went for it. And the zombie-esque elevator operator had a creepy, dead-eye stare through black-light-reflective contacts that stayed fixed on one person in our group for the entire duration of the phony elevator ride.
In any case, it wasn't an activity I expected from my Vegas trip, but it was kind of one of the highlights. Should you ever find yourself in Las Vegas in October, you should check out what haunted houses are up and running. Good times.
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