Shrouded in a daft disguise

[austin_dern]

At the end of the Casino Pier is something called Stillwalk Manor, which I learned from bunny_hugger is an example of what are known as Dark Rides. This is a slow, car-on-a-track ride through a Haunted Mansion-type attraction, with the promise of corpses lunging at cars and flashing lights to spook people. The sign out front spins a bit of a legend about the tragic Captain James Stillwalk who abandoned the life of a sea farer to turn to piracy and whose house because cursed and all these instruments of torture were turned against the inhabitants and now you were about to enter.

In looking up the attraction so I could write about it more wisely than I could ride it, I discovered that the ride has a pretty convoluted yet intriguing history. Until a few years ago it had the theme of being a Haunted Hotel, and it's not hard to find pictures of the old design and exposition panels and such. And the ride itself was assembled by taking pieces of similar Dark Rides going back to 1961, so it's good to see that the older rides were salvaged for rides.

Also I learned the ride has a lot of fans, including several rather good tours only one of which seems to be from the ride builders. They're justified. The ride is a tour of very compact rooms, of course, with skeletons popping out at you and ghosts flying overhead and corpses leaping out of chairs. The props are pretty sharply timed -- which actually worked a bit against me since I'd be off looking at some obscure detail (the rooms were packed and it was not too dark, so you could see it) and miss bits of the trigger -- and there's surprisingly little distance between the riders and the props. This is probably why there are multiple warning signs outside that the whole ride is under security cameras and vandalism will be dealt with severely. Vandals to this should be dealt with severely. Add to it a generous use of light flashes, of snapping caps, and jets of air and you have a rather good ride, even before you get the real live attendants striding in and adding extra bits of action to the rides now and then.

Trivia: Fred Lorz, who broke the tape for winning the marathon race at the 1904 Saint Louis Olympics, rode in an automobile part of the race. He was not credited as the winner; Thomas Hicks was. Hicks, during the race, was given strychnine as a stimulant. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968, William Manchester.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

That was one of the scariest dark rides I have been on. Some of the stunts (this is what dark ride enthusiasts call mechanical props) came darned close to touching me, and of course the window curtains did, as they are supposed to. I notice you're too kind to tell your readers that I screamed repeatedly.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I didn't feel like the props were coming that close to me, despite my being taller. Maybe they were more oriented towards your side of the car, which seems peculiar.

The web site http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/stillwalk/stillwalk1.htm (http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/stillwalk/stillwalk1.htm) has some of the history and pictures of the interior, incidentally, and it's one of the web sites I had been talking about.

And screaming is a perfectly normal response to a ride like this.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Oh, no, I'm sure it's just that I thought that they were closer than they really were. I love that Web site, by the way, and though I hadn't been there recently I had, at one time, read every article on it, and perhaps had even read that one, though I don't remember for sure. I was just amazed by how much of Stillwalk Manor was working and in good shape; nothing appeared damaged, there were more mechanical stunts than I think I've seen in any other dark ride, and the facade was beautiful. I think it might be the most elaborate haunted house I've been on outside the Disney parks!

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Maybe you did, although it's an intriguing difference that I didn't see them as close as you did.

Mainly, though, I'm very glad you liked the ride. It was a fun one. I look for that sort of ride on Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 now, although you can't actually ride inside it, it seems like.