NETHERWORLD Haunted House Review 2024
Sean Padelsky
NETHERWORLD 2024 Review
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Netherworld Haunted House (Stone Mountain, GA)- There was no way I was leaving my #1 rated haunted house in the country off my 10th anniversary haunt tour this past season. My 5th consecutive visit (8th overall since 2013), I rarely miss an opportunity to see what Ben and company have cooked up each year. Exemplifying the epitome of visual theatrics and tech savvy know-how, Netherworld has long remained at the forefront of the haunt industry showcasing just what can be done within the context of a “haunted house”. I know I have yet to find a place that can compare with what they do here.
Year number 28(!) found this place boasting yet another entirely new production, as per always. But I noticed that their secondary feature (Mr. Grendel’s Birthday Party of Horrors) appeared to deviate from the usual sci-fi themes that have dominated this place for as long as I can remember. Primary feature, Wake the Dead, still sounded very much close to their typical wheelhouse of fantasy-based horror. Either way though, this sounded like a winning combination and there was no way I was going to miss out.
It was a stressful (and humid) night in the south (Sat, Oct. 5th) as I dealt with wave after wave of setbacks for the first half of my night. Somehow, I managed to hit all 4 of my appointed stops, including this one, literally scraping in at the 11th hour. So I was cutting things a little too close for comfort. But I had no doubts that I’d make it in time. I rarely falter when it comes to this sort of thing.
I arrived at their Stone Mountain location, 30 min. east of Atlanta, about 11:45 (they close their doors at 12). I was relieved to see others arriving that late as well. But it was also a Saturday night in October-the busiest nights of the season. So, I wasn’t surprised to see foot traffic here at this hour. Big area. Huge name attraction. Perfect weather.
I parked across the road at the storage depot lot like usual and proceeded on foot from there. Parking here remains free as always. They had a crossing guard directing folks safely across the busy intersection there, which is sort of a necessity with the amount of traffic coming through there even at that hour.
I headed around to the entrance side of their large building and headed up the stairs to the info window to have someone radio Ben for me. I’d already shot him a message ahead of my arrival to let him know I’d be by at some point later that evening. Though I didn’t know just how late I’d wind up being.
Standard online admission for both attractions here ranges from $32-$47 ($55-$70 for speed pass). It’s only $25 for the primary feature here. But you’ll want to do both. Especially after the amazing increase in quality content this season. They do operate on a timed ticket entry system here (as has been the case for years), so you’ll want to get tickets in advance. Walk up tickets are more expensive anyway, so no need for any of that hassle.
Ben appeared a few minutes later and cut me inside past the line area and photo op section. Though I did pause long enough in their strangely empty inner museum-like queue chamber, which looked surreal with no one in it, to take a quick video (see attachment). Just this room alone is more impressive visually than many entire haunted attractions I visit every year.
I apologized for looking like I just crawled out of a hospital dumpster. I was smeared with crusted gore and soot from head to toe from an earlier stop that night (that shall not be named). I had no idea how awful I looked till I caught a glimpse of myself in the rental car’s rearview mirror on the way over. I practically looked like I came in costume.
We wasted no time in heading over to the first attraction here, lovingly titled “Wake the Dead”. Traditionally, the first feature here has always maintained the highest profile and offered up the biggest “wow” factor. Massive monster props, immersive and cinematic set designs, Universal Studios-inspired scare tactics, and more animatronics than you’re likely to see anywhere all in one place. This has remained Netherworld’s claim to fame for as long as I’ve been coming here.
Ben accompanied me, as per usual, through the attraction-which is always fun. It’s always interesting to get a creator’s perspective going through these things. Additionally, we were among the last souls through for the night. So, it didn’t look like running into other groups would be too much of an issue. But most importantly, I could take my time and not feel rushed. You’ll definitely want to hang back in some of these sets and check out the insane level of detail present in their composition. I could go through here a dozen times in a row and still not see everything.
The adventure began, appropriately enough, with an imposing monster face entrance portal. They still had the hydraulic rising and falling ship’s deck platform just beyond there from year’s past, along with assorted undead animated figures jutting out of the surrounding walls and writhing all about. Early highlight for me here was the animated violin-playing reaper character.
The slanted floors in the newly furnished vampire crypt provided some fun physical challenges, and the shaking coffin and speaking figure at the end of the room were fantastic. Some more early highlights for me here. Though picking favorites in this place can often be quite hard.
Actors burst out of dark crevices in dramatic explosions of sound and light (much like Universal Horror Nights). There was an overt sci-fi slant (mixed with the usual gothic and fantasy horror elements) to some of the costuming and thematic content I noticed. Which is slightly unusual for the first feature here. That’s usually reserved for the second. But as you’ll see, things were much different this year.
A complex network of glowing alien-like tubes ran all around the periphery of the walkway. I asked Ben what this was all about (because who better to explain than the mad scientist himself), and he explained they was meant to signify the lifeforce feeding tubes. And I surely would not have guessed this. This place is never short on imagination.
A machine gun man stood overhead firing a gun turret at us as we continued, with it’s flashes of red lighting up the surrounding scenery. I noticed a bunch of repurposed monster props from years gone by on display, such as the giant animated eyeball, cyborg spacecraft that came surging at us, and (later on) big, slimy tentacle creature and thousand-toothed sand worm creatures near the end. This place literally has so many monsters in their storage facility they can just leisurely swap them out according to whatever that year’s theme is.
They utilized lots of uneven flooring-some spongy in nature, or slightly raised (such as in the pirate vessel interior) to keep me on my toes. A rule of thumb here is to constantly look both down and up as often as you can, because there’s almost always something happening either below you or above. Whether it’s moving floor panels or actors soaring over your head, this place will have you craning your neck in every direction for the bulk of the duration.
I was happy to see the arctic landscape set here, complete with its towering wooly mammoth and snow beast props. The falling snow overhead provided the perfect level of realism for this already captivating scene. And lest I forget the fantastic “ice king” actor standing overhead.
The mirror maze was still here, though I didn’t recall the moving walls at the end from last time. Same with the miniature dollhouse in the mansion set. But I noticed they’d altered a few things in the study area as well as utilizing way more flying bungee harness actors this time around (by far the most effective actors of the night). You literally could not see these guys until they were an inch from your face. I recall them “getting” me on more than couple occasions with some well-timed jump scares. Ben explained they’d even constructed a bungee device that swung an actress from around a corner which I’d not seen done before. This was seen in the second half of the attraction as well.
Their high-powered air cannons hit with quite an impact, stopping me dead in my tracks several times. These things were no joke. And neither was the awesome giant skull head with the big foam helmet (courtesy of Distortions custom props). I thought it was new, but Ben informed me it was brought in from the midway area and repurposed inside the attraction. Well, they definitely fooled me. Either way, that thing is killer!
The holographic image of a floating candle was a really neat special effect in the mansion room with the splintering floorboards. And they really switched up the hillbilly shanty portion here, with some of the most significant changes I’ve seen to date. This was refreshing to see, as this section has kind of remained a bit predictable for several years now. I was sad to see the amazing bone room no longer in the show, however. This was one of the absolute visual highlights for me here previously.
The low point of the show, unfortunately, came near the end when some actor guy that got like an inch from my face shot a chunk of spit in my right eye. On accident ofcourse. But that kinda sucked. It seemed like this was predestined to be my night to get showered in goop and filth.
The spinning sci-fi portal at the tail end was still here from before and was just as stunning as ever. I made sure to demonstrate my vortex tunnel prowess by walking through backwards with no hands. When you’ve been through as many of these things as I have, you can navigate this stuff in your sleep. And their obligatory chainsaw guy was patiently waiting for us on the way out to the rear midway area.
20 minutes in duration, this year’s “Wake the Dead” production was on par with all the recent Netherworld themes-as predicted. They rarely falter when it comes to putting forth an amazing main feature here. I was happy to see they’d changed up as much as they had for this season though-even some sets that had remained static for as long as I can remember. An overall triumph, as well as visual feast for the senses, WTD was first rate in every way. But the real surprises here were yet to be revealed…
Since it was as late as it was (12:15am), we headed straight over to the secondary feature which was located across the midway (that looked amazing as always). I wanted to stop and take pictures, but I figured I could do that afterwards. They were right at closing time, so I needed to get through before they completely shut things down.
With a bizarre name like “Mr. Grendel’s Birthday Party of Horrors”, I didn’t know what the hell to expect. It sure didn’t have any notable sci-fi connotations that I could detect-which has always been the case here with the second attraction. So I was intrigued with what could possibly be lurking behind door #2…
Ben accompanied me through this one as well, entering inside the same large, industrial-looking “hell-evator” room as always with an overhead LED monitor. After a minute or so of shaking all about, we were dumped out in some sort of hybrid clown-themed science laboratory with colorful circus-like actors scurrying all about. Well, this was certainly different. I guess that’s one way to mix things up.
I had to laugh as two of the clown actors dashing madly about collided with one another head on. Pretty sure not on purpose either. Meanwhile, a host of other overly caffeinated characters were bouncing and honking all about amid a cacophonous wall of circus noise. This attraction’s intro was basically the equivalent of an oversized carnival mallet to the face.
The giant, Transformer-like robot and Mothman creature props definitely gave off a decidedly sci-fi feel to things. There was even a Jersey Devil in there somewhere. But this was an entirely different animal so to speak this year. And the further I delved into this attraction, the more this became apparent.
I had to maneuver around the giant, spinning saw blade prop in their slaughterhouse set. But I didn’t quite make it past the butcher character, who inadvertently slammed one of his giant slabs of meat into me as I was squeezing by. I’d already been knocked around so much earlier that night that this barely even registered with me.
“Things are about to get weird,” I was informed around this time. Slumped over hybrid ogre-clowns in a shimmying subway car, a clown-headed millipede creature (???), a flashing red laser passage, and moving spiked foam walls that closed in were just a few of the visuals and set devices utilized here.
An all-new outdoor segue led to a custom clown-faced façade entrance serving as the portal into the former paintball extension of the property. This wing of the attraction wound up being sort of like Netherworld’s take on a traditional funhouse. And the results were nothing short of spectacular! Loads of colorful 3D artwork and assorted circus-themed animatronics, as one might expect. But the custom-created props in this section were off the hook! There were so many I couldn’t possibly recount them all. My favorites: the rotting clown that rolled up in a roller coaster car, clown puking some neon liquid down a sliding board into a drain, surging clown face that shot at me, and the goblin’s party room with the enormous birthday cake and towering creature muttering “It’s my birthday” in a demonic voice. Some of the most fun and demented circus-themed stuff I’ve seen to date! Ben informed me this last half was meant to be sort of a “dark ride” themed walkthrough-not unlike the one at Salt Lake City’s famed Nightmare on 13th. And it indeed was a fine tribute to the dark rides of the past in a way only this place could pull off.
It was great to see some of the old Netherworld museum props, namely some of the Egyptian stuff, incorporated into the show as well. The freak show museum of oddities as the end was awesome. And the insanely creepy puppet show was unsettling as hell! Factor in the wacked out circus music playing throughout, and Killer Klowns on acid vibe and we had a real winner on our hands here!
I genuinely feel sorry for anyone that missed out this past season, because this was the first year I’d say the second attraction eclipsed the first for me. And with all the new additions the 14 min. show was even extended by several minutes over last year’s “Parasitic” entry.
It was hard to contain my enthusiasm for Mr. Grendel afterward, as I made sure to let Ben know they’d hit a homerun with this venture. Maybe it’s just because it was so drastically different for these guys, but this just ticked all the right boxes for me. I’m not sure where they will go from here, but this is going to be HARD to beat next season.
My brain was beyond fried by the time we emerged back out in the midway again. Most everyone was gone by that late hour, but the gift shop and vendors were still open. So I made sure to grab a commemorative shirt of this year’s unbeatable show and met Ben back over at the nacho stand for a custom Netherworld “Zombie Rampage” energy drink, and scorching hot Cheeto’s walking taco platter (thanks Ben!). Pretty sure I got some Liquid Death and donuts for the road as well. Probably not the best stuff to be consuming that late but what did I care?! If Halloween had anything to do with making healthy choices, I’d be long dead.
We wound up chatting till 1am, long after everyone had departed, and I was the last car in the parking lot. But the fun part was I got to walk back through some of the attraction with the lights on. It was very strange seeing the giant skull helmet prop and goblin party scenes in full light. This was basically an expedited backstage tour more or less. But I’m grateful for what I got.
Thanks as always to Ben and crew for the amazing hospitality. I remain ever indebted to these guys for consistently being some of the most generous folks in the industry. It’s always an absolute pleasure coming here. Which is why I try to take time out of my busy haunt touring schedule to make my annual trip to Georgia.
I do believe of all the trips I’ve made through Netherworld, at this and their former location, this was probably my favorite. They were my #1 rated haunted house (and best overall attraction) of the 2024 haunt season after all. I only wish I would’ve made it there sooner, so I could’ve seen some of their amazing line actors. This really isn’t the kind of place you blow through at the end of the night. You can easily spend a few hours here checking out their many displays, escape rooms, photo ops, concessions, etc.
Whether you’ve been here many times like me, or not at all, I couldn’t recommend a better time than the present to make the pilgrimage to Stone Mountain and experience the very best haunted house attraction going right now.
Hauntfinder Rating: 4 (out of 4)
