Haunt Diary: West Bottoms’ backbone haunted houses are showing their age

Photo by Elijah LaFolette

This is part of our 2023 Haunted House coverage. Read more here.

Every aficionado of haunted attractions in Kansas City has made the trip out to The Beast and the Edge of Hell at least once. Located in the historic West Bottoms, on either side of the dramatic 12th Street bridge, these two venerable haunts have been the go-to attractions in KC for decades.

Photo by Elijah LaFolette

In fact, the Edge of Hell started terrifying haunt-goers all the way back in 1975 and is said to be the oldest still-operational haunted house in the country.

Besides a historic pedigree, though, these haunts had a well-deserved reputation for quality. Occupying multiple floors of two West Bottoms buildings, these elaborate haunted attractions were jointly named one of the 13 best in the nation by HauntWorld in 2012, and The Beast was named the number one such attraction by America Haunts in 2019.

Like The Beast and Edge of Hell, Macabre Cinema is owned and operated by Full Moon Productions, and partakes of a proud KC haunt tradition, even while this particular installment has only been operating since 2007. It sits in a building that was once occupied by one of Kansas City’s most venerable haunt institutions, the Main Street Morgue.

Other haunts have come and gone over the years throughout the West Bottoms, including others operated by Full Moon Productions, such as the short-lived Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe.

This year, however, the only three haunts they have up and running are their mainstays—The Beast, Edge of Hell, and Macabre Cinema. So, those are the ones we went to on a Friday night early in the season.

Photo by Elijah LaFolette

The lines at these classic haunts are almost as legendary as they are, encouraging haunt-goers to splurge for the more expense VIP passes that let you jump the line. However, this early in the season, they didn’t seem too bad, and outside of The Beast there was a flash mob of young dancers doing the “Thriller” every 20-30 minutes or so, to keep those waiting in line entertained.

Each of the remaining haunts in the West Bottoms are at least ostensibly loosely themed. At one time, The Beast was known for its massive werewolf-infested forest set, where haunt-goers wandered among smokey trees in a vast, dark room where it was easy to get lost. Edge of Hell, as the name suggests, involves infernal imagery, as well as a trip up to heaven before going down a long, twisting slide into the pit below.

Photo by Elijah LaFolette

Macabre Cinema was originally the most heavily themed of the lot. When you enter, you walk into a simulated movie theater and, from there, through the screen where the movie is playing. From then on, you are “inside” the movies, with each area of the haunt themed around a specific film or franchise. At least, that’s how it was the last time I was there, back when Macabre Cinema first opened.

This year, however, Macabre Cinema showed the worst effects of some problems that were apparent throughout these long-standing attractions. What had once been neatly-themed rooms had turned into loose gestures or the trappings of traditional haunts. While the themes of some rooms were still apparent, others were more difficult to suss out, and even in the most obvious ones, odd and deleterious omissions or changes had been made.

The scare actor in the Hellraiser room, for instance, was dressed as Ghostface, from Scream, while a scare actor doing his best Borat impersonation inexplicably met us outside the Frankenstein room. There were still occasional bits of clever design or ambitious ideas, but even these often showed signs of wear and neglect. A carousel-like spinning floor in a Killer Klowns room was fun, while a spinning tube room later in the haunt wasn’t operational at all, rendered into just a kaleidoscopically-colored hallway.

Photo by Elijah LaFolette

While The Beast and Edge of Hell fared better than Macabre Cinema, there was similar evidence of the once world-class haunts not always aging gracefully. The themes of the various attractions seemed to be bleeding into one another. There were more werewolves in Edge of Hell than in The Beast, while much of the latter had been converted using elements borrowed from the now-defunct Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe attraction.

There are still plenty of incredibly striking and inventive moments to be found throughout, however. Massive castle interiors and a giant headless horseman animatronic in The Beast provide wonderful atmosphere, while another section involves a substantial bayou sequence that utilizes many of the same impressive animatronics that can also be found in the bayou haunt at Worlds of Fun.

Photo by Elijah LaFolette

Edge of Hell boasts, among other things, a lengthy stretch where special glasses (handed out to haunt-goers) create a disorienting 3D effect with black light reactive paint on the walls. And, of course, both haunts still feature their infamous slides. The ones at the Edge of Hell—which are visible from the outside of the building—may be the most notorious, but the one that is the most fun might now be located in The Beast, as it makes extremely good use of the odd shape of its destination room, where you scoot along a curve in the wall even after exiting the slide itself.

The expansive forest set-piece that was once the heart of The Beast is gone, however, and in its place is something that underscores the biggest complaint that runs through all three of these attractions: It is simply too dark to function safely.

Yes, we hear what we’re saying. Of course darkness in a haunted house is the norm, and there are times throughout both The Beast and Edge of Hell when near-impenetrable darkness is used to extremely good effect. Other times, however, you are simply feeling your way interminably forward, through twists and turns, and over uneven flooring that reminds you of why you had to thumbprint-sign a waiver absolving them of liability before you ventured inside.

Even these lengthy sequences of darkness are clearly intentional, however. The real problem comes when the lights are up and there still aren’t enough of them to see what’s supposed to be scaring you.

One of the things that made these attractions and famous and beloved was their ambitious set-pieces and their attention to detail. As that attention to detail is left behind and the set-pieces are obscured by darkness, however, these once-great haunts threaten to lose the very things that once made them special.

Both The Beast and Edge of Hell are open weekends throughout the season and into early November, though Macabre Cinema closes down after Halloween. Tickets to each start at $35, but later in the season, it may be worthwhile to purchase the VIP tickets that let you avoid standing in long lines.

I wasn’t kidding about the uneven floors and all the bending, stumbling, climbing, and crashing into things that you’ll be doing, however, so caveat to all you haunters out there.

Photo by Elijah LaFolette