Post a Comment On: Horrorthon

From huffingtonpopst, You'd better watch out -- Santa Claus is coming, and he's got a chainsaw.

A Christmas-themed haunted house called "A Very Scary Christmas" is opening this weekend in Hauppauge, NY., complete with "killer snowmen, evil elves, man-eating reindeer and murderous Christmas trees."

Of course there's a Santa as well, but he's not the right jolly old elf most people picture.

"I want people to be terrified. I want people to soil themselves," Frank Ingargiola, who portrays Santa, said in a video on the Newsday website. "Naughty. Nice. It don't matter to me anymore. I'm coming. And you ain't gonna stop me."

A few chills on Christmas aren't completely outside of the spirit of the holiday. "A Christmas Carol," is, after all, a ghost story complete with rattling chains and a graveyard. And in recent years, operators of Halloween haunted houses have been adding Christmas shows to earn some extra money.

Call it "Halloween Creep."

"Once Halloween stops, the haunted house season is dead. People have to wait a year to go to the next one," Marty Arominski, owner of Chamber of Horrors NY, which operates the Christmas-themed haunted house, told Newsday. "This is something different to do during the holidays."

Live outside of New York? Well, there's also the Frightmare Before Christmas near Chicago, Nightscare Before Christmas and Wreck the Halls in Dallas, Santa's Slay in New Jersey and Creepo's Christmas in Pittsburgh.

Even Disney gets in on the act, giving the famous Haunted Mansion attraction in Disneyland an annual holiday overlay based on "A Nightmare Before Christmas."

Some attractions, like Disney's, are for all ages. Others are decidedly not. The one in New York is on the more extreme end, promising thrills, chills and gore.

“This is not a holiday show for the faint-hearted, but rather an interactive theatrical experience," Arominski said in a news release. "As participants go from room to room, the settings and characters get progressively more frightening."

A Very Scary Christmas does have one thing in common with more child-friendly Christmas events: Everyone gets a photo with Santa, and this one will probably make for a very memorable Christmas card.