Ghouls' night out
Looking for a good scare? Haunted castles are a good place to start.
Haunted castles are bringing out the undead in droves for Halloween. We visited three, each of which gave us the creeps in very different ways.
WINNEKENNI CASTLE
Haverhill
We thought we were lost at first, driving down an unlit, unmarked dirt road twisting through the trees off Route 110 in Haverhill; then we heard the chain saws revving in the distance. In the eerily dark parking lot, I turned to see a hooded man standing silently on the other side of my car window, and I screamed.
But the thrill soon evaporated at the Castle of the Living Dead. Inside the diminutive 1870s castle, built as a chemist's summer home, we made our way through a dark, flimsy corridor constructed out of boards and sheets - and shrieked each time a creature jumped out from nowhere. Outside, the Toxic Tunnels of Terror (which turned out not to be a tour of the portapotties) seemed to have been created from a junk drawer of cheap props, made slightly surreal with the help of 3-D glasses. The Zombie Lazer Encounter consisted of a strobe light, a smoke machine, and teenagers clicking their guns at other teenagers dressed as zombies. The highlight was the Hayride to the Cemetery of the Undead, a journey into the forest past partially buried body parts and figures jumping out from behind trees, chain saws roaring. It didn't work for everybody. "My grandma's scarier than you," one visitor told a woodland demon who crawled aboard the wagon.
Fear factor: Pretty weak, and yet, despite the dollar-store decorations, this was the only place where we grabbed each other like frightened schoolgirls.
Awe factor: Nonexistent - the castle interior was blocked from view beyond the enclosed corridor; it might as well have been the Trailer of the Living Dead.
Watch out for: Ghouls lurking in the parking lot.
Recommended for: Families - parents can sit around a bonfire by the concession stand while the kids shoot zombies.
Dark until 10:15 p.m. tonight and tomorrow. $15, $10 kids under 12. 347 Kenoza Ave., Haverhill. 978-521-1686, www.winne kenni.com
HAMMOND CASTLE
Gloucester
This medieval-style structure, built on the cliffs above the sea in the 1920s by an inventor known as the father of the remote control, gets seriously spookified for Halloween. We wound around the outside of the castle, past a gravedigger sharpening his shovel and a ghoul massaging a bloody heart in his hands. Then it was over a drawbridge, into the castle, and down a narrow, winding flight of stairs. Inside a vast stone hall, a crazed surgeon paced back and forth; mutilated bodies and cleavers swung from the ceiling.
Wherever we went, the damned were there - a bloody girl with bulging eyes, another girl with her head stuck in a cage with two hairless rats. In a bedroom, a little girl rocked back and forth on the floor; next door - a toothy predator-like Santa creature loomed over a girl tied to a bed. "I'll be good," she whimpered. "I'll be good."
Fear factor: The impressive, professional setup is creepy but not particularly frightening.
Awe factor: The grounds are beautiful, and the castle's towering rooms and drafty nooks are begging to be haunted.
Watch out for: The incredibly long line.
Recommended for: Couples - what better way to get cozy than in a dark passageway next to a man sharpening a cleaver?
7-11 p.m. tonight and tomorrow. 80 Hesperus Ave., Gloucester (park at Stage Fort Park and take the shuttle bus). $12, $10 students, $8 kids under 10. 978-283-2080. www.hammondcastle.org
BELCOURT CASTLE
Newport, R.I.
Finally, a castle with real ghosts - 17 of them, to be exact, according to ghost expert Virginia Smith. The 60-room mansion built in the 1890s was feeling wonderfully eerie, and then Smith launched into a dry half-hour slide show on other haunted castles around the world. Later she recounted a chilling tale about a "cuddling child" who pressed his cold little body against houseguests at one castle while they slept. Things looked up when castle owner Harle Tinney told us about the man she once saw walking through her bedroom wall - and the figure in a long brown coat repeatedly seen walking around the castle. At the top of a creaky staircase, Tinney, who still lives at Belcourt, talked about blood-curdling screams and an apparition in a white ball gown, as well as a houseguest who felt someone pulling down his covers. When the tour stopped in a bathroom, I felt a cold draft on my neck. A ghostly spirit? No, just a man on the tour breathing behind me.
The tour ended in the French Gothic ballroom, where five ghosts are said to reside. One of them haunts a suit of armor - and is said to growl and shriek in the presence of teenage girls. The main attractions are the two high-backed wooden chairs, which, according to Smith, are surrounded by an electromagnetic field. Apparently the chairs used to throw people across the room, but the insurance company has since made the castle rope off the seats. Smith misses the show: "I used to love watching the flying bodies."
Fear factor: Could be much spookier if the lecture was replaced by ghost stories about Belcourt's spirits.
Awe factor: The 60,000-square-foot antique-filled residence seems genuinely haunted - if you believe in that sort of thing.
Watch out for: Electromagnetic force fields.
Recommended for: History buffs, ghostbusters.
Ghost tours today at 5 and 7:15 p.m., Nov. 6 and 8 at 5 p.m. $18. 657 Bellevue Ave., Newport, R.I. 401-846-0669, www.belcourtcastle.com 