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The Washington Post

Before someone can enter the “survival horror challenge” of McKamey Manor, there’s a physical exam.
Then there’s a background check, a phone screen, a 40-page waiver and a drug test. If all that goes according to plan, participants have to watch a nearly two-hour documentary featuring every person who has attempted the haunted attraction in the past two years.
McKamey Manor, based in Summertown, Tennessee, bills itself as “an audience participation event in which (YOU) will live your own Horror Movie”.
“Understand that each tour will be different based upon your personal fears, and can last up to 10 HOURS,” the website says.
“Each guest will be mentally and physically challenged until you reach your personal breaking point.”
An online petition with tens of thousands of signatures says it’s all a front for a torture chamber and urges state officials to shut down the attraction.
The complicated screening process for McKamey Manor is meant to select participants who can be easily manipulated as the attraction’s cast duct-tapes their heads, forces them to eat things and waterboards them, according to the petition, which had been signed by more than 67,000 people by Wednesday.
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The petition also claims that founder Russ McKamey hires employees with violent histories and makes people ingest pills that cause hallucinations.
“It’s literally just a kidnapping and torture house,” the petition says.
“Some people have had to seek professional psychiatric help and medical care for extensive injuries.”
McKamey told The Washington Post that he did not “want to confirm or deny which areas are real and which are not” from the petition but that no torture or illegal activities are part of the experience.
Law enforcement keeps a close eye on the manor, he said, and he calls police to warn them before each new participants begin the tour in case they get reports of problems.
McKamey said he does, however, use psychological techniques to convince people that they are experiencing things that they are not. He said he films every visit so he has proof of what happened and did not happen during it.
“There’s no torture, there’s nothing like that, but under hypnosis if you make someone believe there’s something really scary going on, that’s just in their own mind and not reality,” he said.

Hundreds of haunted house attractions alarm and delight Americans each year, particularly around Halloween.
“Extreme” haunted houses, which aim to terrorise through physical and psychological stress, are less common. They are often subject to fierce criticism, while thrill-seekers line up for the chance to be scared out of their minds.
Since a story about the manor from WFLA-TV this month made waves online, McKamey said he has kept his phone on “do not disturb” mode because thousands of people have been calling to set up visits. He said the attraction has a long waiting list.
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The manor, he said, is an interactive experience that relies on mind games meant to make people believe things that aren’t really happening. He said people are not really waterboarded, for example, but he uses hypnosis and other mind-control techniques to put that thought in their heads.
“If you’re good enough and you’re able to get inside somebody’s noggin like the way that I can,” McKamey said, “I can make folks believe whatever I want them to believe”.
McKamey, who said he served in the US Navy for 23 years and moonlights as a wedding singer, started the manor 30 years ago as a cross between his theatrical background and his love for haunted houses. In all that time, he said, no one has completed the manor experience.
Reservations are required to tour McKamey Manor, and only one or two people are allowed in at a time. Participants have to be over 21, or between 18 and 20 with a parent’s permission.




Guests who are pregnant or claustrophobic, or have seizures, or respiratory or heart problems, are urged not to participate.
The cost of admission is a bag of dog food for McKamey’s five dogs.
Participants start the tour with the chance to earn US$20,000 and lose US$500 every time they fail an activity, McKamey said. He also takes away US$500 if a guest says a curse word, since cursing is not allowed at the manor.
“I’m like the most strait-laced guy you could think of, but here I run this crazy haunted house,” McKamey said.
“And people twist it around in their little minds.”
McKamey said he has invested more than US$1 million in the attraction, which is a mobile experience. Guests start in Summertown, but McKamey said he transports them to different locations in Tennessee and rents other people’s farms and abandoned buildings for the stunts.
If participants lasted long enough in the experience, McKamey said they would end up in Huntsville, Alabama. No one, however, has ever gotten that far.
“It really is a magic act, what I do,” he said.
“It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors.”


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Halloween

Halloween horror: this haunted house challenge is so ‘extreme’, participants need to sign a 40-page waiver

McKamey Manor, based in Summertown, Tennessee, bills itself as ‘an audience participation event in which (YOU) will live your own Horror Movie. Photo: www.mckameymanor.com

Halloween horror: the McKamey Mano 'haunted house challenge' is so ‘extreme’, it requires a 40-page waiver. Photo: www.mckameymanor.com

From haunted houses to abandoned villages: seven scary sites in Hong Kong to get spooked out by this Halloween

Performers photographed during the Ocean Park Halloween Fest 2018 Media Briefing, Ocean Park, Aberdeen. 23AUG18 SCMP / Nora Tam

Victorian relic...The Old Mental Hospital on High Street, Sai Ying Pun. It is rumoured that the spirits of those ill-treated and killed by the Japanese during their occupation of Hong Kong return to the hospital every night to seek help. 26OCT95

File photo of a flat which of the Fan Man-yee's murder case, Granville road, TST.

Water cascades down the Brides Pool waterfall in Hong Kong. 30JUN14 [31JULY2014 LEAD FEATURE 2 48HRS]

Exterior of Nam Koo Terrace also know as "Red House" in Ship Street, Wanchai. 27SEP09

Revellers dress up in scary costumes and masks to celebrate Halloween in Lan Kwai Fong. 30OCT09

Ocean Park closes Halloween attraction after man found dead inside haunted house "Buried Alive" on Saturday September 16, 2017. Photo / Handout

The allegedly haunted So Lo Pun village in Hong Kong. 18OCT13 [24OCTOBER2013 28HRS]

Exterior view of Miami Resort and Bela Vista Villa in Cheung Chau, a place where several suicides had happened there.

Death of man crushed inside Ocean Park haunted house was an accident, Hong Kong coroner finds

Cheung Chiu-kit died of back injuries inside the Buried Alive attraction. Photo: David Wong

Aerial drone view of Ocean Park, Aberdeen. 12DEC18 SCMP / Roy Issa

A picture of Joel Brett Talacko, show director of Ocean Park. 10SEP19 Photo:SCMP/Brian Wong

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World

United States & Canada


Petition launched to close McKamey Manor, which critics describe as a ‘torture chamber’



Petition launched to close McKamey Manor, which critics describe as a ‘torture chamber’.


United States

Halloween horror: this haunted house challenge is so ‘extreme’, participants need to sign a 40-page waiver

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Petition launched to close McKamey Manor, which critics describe as a ‘torture chamber’

Petition launched to close McKamey Manor, which critics describe as a ‘torture chamber’