Since I'm a huge haunt enthusiast I decided that it would be a great idea to take a trip over to Fort Worth to check out Cutting Edge Haunted House's Sneak Preview Weekend. I've been a faithful Cutting Edge patron for the last 3 years, hitting them up during the Halloween season as well on their other Friday the 13th events. This haunt does not disappoint and lives up to its great reputation.
This weekend showcased the changes that have been made to the show, and served as an actor warm up. The set were fantastic as always. Cutting Edge is an interesting experience for a haunted house. They play on all of your sense and use amazing lighting effects to disorient the customer at every turn. The things I noticed were additional massive Gore Galore (?) puppets that were great! One thing I really love about Cutting Edge is that they use a minimum of animatronics. They rely more on their timing and atmosphere to get their scares. The actors were great and moved through their scenes and kept us on our toes the entire time.
The meat processing room was one of my favorite scenes. The ceiling mounted track allows the actors to swing body bags around and constantly change the look of the scene and allows them to create multiple hiding places for quick scares. There was also a room with a mobile floor that rocked back and forth that was a great effect and really got us off guard for the actor in the next error. Perhaps my favorite effect there is a strobe light room that makes you look like you're frozen as you move through the room. The actress in that room was amazing, contorting herself and moving in time with the light, extremely impressive.
The coolest new addition was the outside area of the haunt. It was set up to look like a junkyard or prop graveyard. The atmosphere was creepy and there were multiple false paths and excellent places for the chainsaw actors to hide. The props on display in the graveyard were very cool and the whole set up was a great use of the stuff that usually piles up all over a haunt's backstage area. After the junkyard was the grand finale: The Foam Tunnel. My companion got a bit miffed because he missed the bypass but I charged through the tunnel alone. The Foam Tunnel is a great way to end an amazing experience. Cutting Edge should be on the TO SEE list of every Haunter and Haunt Enthusiast. It is an amazing show and is totally different than the typical show.
