Defunct Howl-O-Scream Masquerage

[Zachary]

Somehow there wasn't yet an official seasonal attractions thread for Masquerage. I'm fixing that.

Some of the best photos I've seen from the exterior of Masquerage come from the always excellent AmusementPics.com. I'm only going to mirror one of their photos in this post (below) because I'm fairly confident that AmusementPics won't be vanishing anytime soon. Anyway, if you haven't already, do check out their 2008 Howl-O-Scream page. It's an incredible collection of photos.



The actual reason for the creation of this thread is that I just stumbled across a Masquerage cast photo posted to Photobucket by "koreacali." It's incredible to see so many of the house's characters in full daylight.



Lastly for now, for anyone who hasn't seen it before, Busch Gardens Williamsburg actually posted a (horrendously low-res) reverse house POV of Masquerage back in 2008.

 

[Ice]

The exterior of this house looks so bootleg and thrown up but nothing has beat what was contained inside.

Classic don't judge a book by its cover

 

[BGW Family]

Wow. How did we miss making this a thing?

To gather some of my info here.

10th Anniversary blurb.

Masquerage: RSVP if You Dare - Welcome to the Masquerage - R.S.V.P. if you dare. Only the brave have survived this nightmarish journey through a ruined Italian palace where grand galas were once thrown. Under the guise of a masquerade party, a dark deed took place here and many were horribly imprisoned and tortured. For centuries, beings known only as Cloakwalkers have haunted these ruins, searching for new victims to perform their Danse Macabre. Turn upon turn leads you further into the house and deeper into the crypts that spell your doom. Voted best maze in park with Wicked Woods in a close second.

MasqueRage's ghost lived on in Catacombs and Bitten. Most of the walls made up Catacomb with the arch and other props used in Bitten. MasqueRage had a feature where they just had two paths near the end. I don't recall having a choice. A cloaked figure would close one path to lead you through the other path. Therefore, no stacking. They liked to split groups up, if they could tell you were together. Tidbit of info, they also did not allow you to carry umbrellas of any kind through that maze. Mirrors were heavily used as was a room full of cloaked figures where some figures were alive, a tactic reused in Circo Sinestro.

Photos from old posts.
Set shots.
Favorite Howl-O-Scream Attraction of All Time? Thread

T-Shirt. Possibly the best ever made for a house.
Merchandise Thread

 

[CastleOSullivan]

Way back in 2008-2009 I saw a similar album to what Zachary found. It was a MySpace album and it contained some photos in the dressing room, but most of them were of the house itself. I suppose that album is long gone by now, but I'm still hoping that someone, maybe a cast member still has some of those photos.

Here are the scenes that I remember without the video. I tried to order them chronologically. The video shows that some are out of order.

-The house started outdoors, weaving trough gothic archways and past some thrashing animatronic figures chained to plywood.

-A hallway with realistic arms holding torches. The torches repeatedly went out and relit themselves in sync with sound effects of wind. At the end of the hallway was a masked party guest wearing a black hat. The park called these characters "cloak-walkers." The actor seemed to be blocking the path when in reality, there was a hidden turn next to him/her into the next scene.

-In at least one hallway (possibly the one mentioned above) they had the same whispering voices that could be heard at the start of Catacombs.

-A room with 4-6 cloaked animatronic figures that were looking down and chanting. They all simultaneously looked up and blasted air at guests.

-A small dining room with gory food items. The walls were all fabric.

-A prison cell where an actor "broke free" and reached at guests as they turned the corner.

-Heads dropped from the ceiling in synch with a sound cue that said: "Watch your head!"

-Catacombs and a torture chamber with various animatronics that had no cohesiveness aside from each one being tortured.

-An outdoor segment that lead into the finale where groups were separated into two identical hallways.

-A strobe hallway with mannequins that looked like the actors hanging from the ceiling.

Edit: I posted this without really reading the above posts because I wanted to share my unaltered memories. I love looking back at this maze since it was very cheesy at times yet it left a big impression on me. I have more fond memories of this than most houses but I think it would be a major disappointment to see the same thing today. It was a great concept, but it hasn't aged very well. On top of that, the maze was allegedly abandoned mid-construction due to logistical concerns of it being right next to another maze.