DULUTH — Dusk was falling and the Haunted Ship was about to open for the season. Lines of eager customers waited for the experience to begin, looks of nervous excitement on their faces as they peered up the stairs into the vessel's dark interior.
Dressed in black with his radio at the ready, Addison Severs stood at the foot of the stairs, as cool as a cucumber. Severs, one of the haunt's designers, knew the experience would be worth the wait.
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The designers have completed the monthslong process of creating a sprawling nightmare factory inside the 1937 laker, turning it into a marquee attraction of the Twin Ports' spooky season. As in previous years, a few elements remain the same but it's largely a new experience compared to the previous incarnation.
The biggest new twist this year is a VIP experience providing access to the ship's pilothouse. There, attendees find an atmosphere of genteel decay.
After passing through what seems to be the scene of multiple murders — with body outlines taped in unnatural arrangements on the floor and up the stairs — VIPs are invited to relax and enjoy a unique view of the city while sipping (nonalcoholic) beverages from blood bags.
First, though, VIPs and all other attendees pass through a dark carnival inside the vessel's almost unrecognizable stern section. Where shrouded corpses hung last year, now the circus is in town. Visitors get their first look at this year's outstanding makeup work as creepy clowns host a birthday party where it's considered a favor if you make it out alive.
(Santa's elves, from last year's holiday theme in the stern section, have not been entirely forgotten — but they may wish they had been.)
Thursday's stormy skies provided an exceptionally eerie setting for the long walk across the ship's cargo deck toward the pilothouse and entrance to the hold, but even the pleasure vessels moored in the Minnesota Slip take on an ominous cast when you're looking down on them from the Haunted Ship. Docks' ordinary creaks and groans invite thoughts of mortality, and joggers along the harbor seem to be running from unseen pursuers.
If you thought Wednesday's Emergency Alert System test was unsettling, just wait until you discover what's in store for you at the bow of the Irvin as you descend into this year's Haunted Ship. The first area visitors experience is dressed to evoke a WWII-era German U-boat in a situation where the Allies have scored a direct hit. Water pours in as torpedoes hiss, with most (but not all) members of the crew already gone to meet a final reckoning.
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While nautical themes are understandably prominent in the Haunted Ship, the large open space in the Irvin's hold allows designers to build a warren of interior spaces with different themes, meaning that you can find yourself stepping out of a submarine and into a dungeon.
Something like that takes place this year, with ghouls who show they've done their homework at Scare School. On Thursday night, the only Minnesotans more excited than Twins fans were the two undead persons so comfortable in their lodgings, they were positively shrieking with delight at the possibility of new initiates to the coffin club.
A section of the ship resembling a haunted mansion is apt to compare favorably to the tepidly received live-action film based on Disney's iconic attraction. The detail work is particularly impressive in a library where, despite the abundance of reading material, you may not wish to linger.
Elements returning from last year include a walkway through a hypnotic spiral of light and a burning house where visitors are invited to enter. The family room TV is stuck on static, and what's happened to the family is left for you to discover.
In addition to enthusiastic ghouls and questionable smells, this year's Haunted Ship boasts particularly impressive sound design. Within the ship's hold, the air is thick with portentous music, the screams of your fellow guests, and a veritable symphony of slavering from the attraction's well-trained cast.
A percussive clangor pervades the hold, accentuated by the screams of guests startled by things that go bump — or, rather, that bang very loudly — in the night. The sounds of slamming bars and rattling grates aren't piped in, but made by very real set elements beside, above and even below you.
The experience culminates in what a news release called a "choose your own adventure" segment, in a maze marked by unreliable arrows and populated by impatient entities with gaping eye sockets. When (if?) you escape the maze, a set of stairs leads to the attraction exit.
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But first, there's a gift shop. On Thursday evening, the cashiers were already doing brisk business as patrons selected shirts and other souvenirs to commemorate their experiences on the Haunted Ship.
Severs and his colleagues looked on with pleased expressions as the ship's first victims emerged, shivering with pleasure and swapping stories of the horrors they'd endured. Everything was unfolding, it seemed, exactly according to plan.
For information and tickets, see duluthhauntedship.com.
The Trust Project
