Caters News AgencyA petition is calling for the ‘world’s scariest haunted house’ to be shut down over claims it’s a ‘torture chamber in disguise’.
Frankie Towery, the petition’s organiser, wants to close the McKamey Manor haunted house in Summertown, Tennessee, which requires participants to undergo a sports fitness test, sign a 40-page waiver, have a doctor’s note, a safe word, proof of medical insurance and a background check.
Towery claims the haunted house is ‘literally just a kidnapping and torture house’.
Caters News AgencyThe petition comes after a social media user shared some of the 40-page waiver online, revealing how participants must agree ‘a nail may pierce their hand’, ‘their hand may be smashed with tools’, and they may ‘have a plastic bag on their face which could possibly cause suffocation, blackouts etc, and participants will not hold MM responsible’.
It goes on to say participants may be injured during their time in the haunted house, which may include ‘head, neck and back injuries, death, stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain aneurysms, cerebral or retinal hemorrhage, subdural hematoma, loss of consciousness, whiplash, harmful heart reactions, nausea, headaches, dizziness, lacerations, broken or sprained bones, torn ligaments, bleeding wounds, scrapes and/or cuts, heatstroke or drowning’, to name just a few.
Caters News AgencyThe terrifying tour, titled ‘Desolation’, can take more than 10 hours to complete. Participants can brave it by themselves or they can take part in a two-person ‘personalised interactive experience’.
It costs nothing to enter and all owner Russ McKamey asks for is a bag of animal food to feed his dogs.
So, why do people put themselves through it? Well, because McKamey promises anyone who completes the ‘experience’ a prize of $20,000 (£15,000), but so far no one has been successful.
Caters News AgencyThe petition, which has since received more than 55,000 signatures, says there are reports of a history of sexual assault in the haunted house, as well as claims McKamey hires people with a violent criminal history to work as torturers.
In previous interviews, the horror fanatic has denied the house is a glorified torture chamber, arguing people only believe this because of the video he made to show participants before they enter the manor.
He told WGNTV he’s taken inspiration from horror films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Rear Window, Birds, Psycho and more.
‘Because that’s what the Manor really is. It’s a mental game. It’s really me against them,’ McKamey told the news outlet.
Caters News AgencyHowever, he insists people are actually hypnotised into believing the manor is a lot more scary than it is.
He added:
I can put you in a kitty pool with a couple inches of water and tell you there’s a great white shark in there, and you’re gonna think there’s a shark in there.
McKamey said people have even called the police over things they believe have happened in the house, which is why he films everything that happens during the hauntings.
‘When you have that kind of power over people… they’ll go to the authorities,’ he said. ‘I have to come back and show the footage and say, ‘it didn’t go that way at all’. It’s saved me a thousand times.’
You can view the petition here.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.