Darren Lynn Bousman from Saw dishes on ‘Crooked Rose Woods’ in Bonner Springs

Darren Lynn Bousman stands in front of EXILED tent

Darren Lynn Bousman stands in front of EXILED tent. // Photo Courtesy of Darren Lynn Bousman

With Halloween season just around the corner, haunted houses and amusement parks are making their way out of the shadows. This fall, screenwriter and director Darren Lynn Bousman has joined forces with the team from EXILED: Trail of Terror to create a new horror experience. 

From Sept. 13 to Nov. 2, EXILED: Crooked Rose Woods will be available to the public—if you dare. Located in Bonner Springs, the outdoor haunted house is an immersive experience where participants become one with the horror story. 

There are three levels to choose from—Torment, Anguish, and Annihilation—that grant access to different interactions and levels of terror. Tickets for EXILED can be purchased online

Known for his work in Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, Spiral, and more, Bousman’s passion for the horror genre began in his hometown of Overland Park. Five days before the grand opening on Sept. 21, we sat down with Bousman to discuss his process in creating EXILED: Crooked Rose Woods. 


The Pitch: According to the EXILED press release, you reached out to the company’s Managing Partner Dan Scott after your family participated in last year’s EXILED: Trail of Terror. What has the process of collaborating with the EXILED team been like so far?

Darren Lynn Bousman: Going to Kansas City last year and going to all the haunts, EXILED felt different. It felt unique, it felt special. It was hard, because so many of the haunts just felt redundant. There was something just different about EXILED. I was scared going through it, because, unlike these others I’ve been to a million times growing up, this was in the middle of nowhere. It did not feel commercial to me. It felt sinister and it immediately set a new tone. 

After I went through it, my brother, sister, and I were talking and I said, “I want this.” Dan and his wife Jen responded almost immediately. I flew back and it started probably three months of back and forth trying to get their heads wrapped around what I wanted to do. In June of this year, we hit the ground running to create this weird hybrid, insane cross between a haunted house, immersive theater, an escape room, and a video game kind of all at once.

EXILED: Crooked Rose Woods has been open for a few days now. What has it been like to see your latest idea come to life? 

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Photo Courtesy of EXILED: Trail of Terror

Courtesy of EXILED: Trail of Terror

The only way I can describe it is as a drug. It’s only once you’re standing in the middle of it and you allow yourself to turn yourself over to it. My partner, Morgan Rooms, sent me a text message after the first night, something like, “it was amazing to sit there in the middle of the midway and watch everyone’s face completely change with an ‘aha moment.’” I think that that is what I noticed this first weekend—all of the people, the actors, the producers, the former EXILED staff, finally got it because it’s an impossible thing to wrap your head around.

I want to create this open world thing where it’s not really jump scares, it’s not people in masks, it’s this kind of movie storyline taking place all around you. Immersive theater like this is different. Every single time you look at it and you see it, it changes, it shifts. It alters based on your decisions, your interactions. To me, it was watching magic. No matter where you looked, when you looked, it was completely different. I think there was this ‘aha moment’ where everyone finally got what this thing was and why it was special and why it was important that we do it.

You’ve directed multiple blockbuster hits such as Saw II, III, and IV, Spiral and the cult favorite Repo! The Genetic Opera. How has your previous work prepared you for this and did any of them inspire you with this new project?

Absolutely! It’s like riding the best roller coaster first when you go to the amusement park, Worlds of Fun. All of the sudden, the rest of the rides feel mediocre, because you’re comparing it to that first ride. I feel like I rode the best roller coaster because my first film was Saw II, and I didn’t understand how big it was going to become. I remember seeing them install the billboard for Saw II across from my apartment and I thought this must be what it means to be a director. Everyone after that was bigger and bigger, I just figured that is what it was like to make art and movies in Hollywood. When I made Repo! The Genetic Opera, I was smacked down with the reality that that’s not what it’s like. I just happened to ride the best roller coaster first. 

When you look at anything that you make, you have to know who the audience is, and then it is your job as an artist to find that group of people. When I watched the screenings of Repo! and then The Devil’s Carnival, I realized how important the user experience was to interacting with the art. Over the next five or six years, I started changing the way I made films.

Crooked Rose Woods doesn’t exist without the audience. The play doesn’t happen without you there, without you interacting or unlocking it. It only works when you are interacting with the world around you, the actors, the characters, sets the environment, the props, that is what unlocks crooked rose woods. So, to me, it was Devil’s Carnival and Repo! where I realized how important the audience’s involvement in the art. The entirety of Crooked Rose Woods is the audience and their involvement with the art.

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Photo Courtesy of EXILED: Trail of Terror

How do you hope EXILED: Crooked Rose Woods will redefine terror?

I always judged fear by a jump scare. I ask myself if something could make me jump. Could something make me frightened to turn the corner? There’s some of that in EXILED, but, as I’ve gotten older, that doesn’t scare me as much anymore. Now I’m in my 40s, I have kids, I have a family, and a mortgage, things that frighten me more now involve more psychological and emotional. We immediately rip you out of your comfort zone and we redefine what it means to be scared. For example, you may see a clown, but what makes his scary isn’t that he’s a clown, it’s that they are saying things that will make you uncomfortable, because it’s holding the mirror up to your face. 

One of the things that we do in the carnival of the level two experience is you get to interact with the family. There’s 40 separate storylines taking place and you can interact with any of them. Each one of these characters have their own wants and desires, and they have their own things that they believe in. You will be put onto a journey based on your decisions and will make you do things that will make you get outside of your comfort zone. 

What do you value about being able to provide this haunting experience to your hometown?

I think the reason that I got into horror stems from Kansas City and the West Bottoms. As a kid, every year starting in Sept. through the end of Oct., my Dad and I would go to the West Bottoms and hit at least three haunted houses every weekend. After the haunted houses, my dad would let my friends and I go to Blockbuster and rent a horror movie. It became this tradition, this ritual. My dad passed away last year and his burial site is eight minutes from Bonner Springs. To me, this is not only a homecoming of me coming back to Kansas City, it is also kind of a homage to my dad. He is the reason why I’m into horror, he’s the reason that I love haunted houses. Within a year of his passing, I was able to open up my own in the place that he was born and raised and where he’s buried now. 

To me, it’s cool, because it’s like my life has come full circle. It started in Kansas with my love of Halloween, and now here I am back, and my son is actually coming back with me this weekend to experience this with me. 

Is there anything else you’d like to mention? 

This is not what you think it is. Whatever you think it is, it’s not. EXILED is similar to an Alice in Wonderland experience, where you walk through the gates and you enter a world. It is scary,  it’s horrific, and it’s absurd and hilarious, it’s emotional and it’s dramatic. It is not a traditional haunt, as you would expect it to be. 

I think that the big thing for people to know is it’s not just about fear. It’s not just about being scared. It is about entering a universe that you can be anyone, you can do anything, you can say anything. Either you hate it and are angry that you went, or you are emotional because it touched something. That is why I love this type of art and why I want people to come out there. Step outside of your comfort this Halloween and do something completely different.

Categories: Culture