By Jamil Oakford/se news editor
As October settles in and the leaves begin to change, Lancaster Avenue in Fort Worth is welcoming back its regular haunt.
Cutting Edge is one of the most well-known haunted house attractions in Fort Worth. It’s ranked in the top five haunted house attractions in the country and has been featured on both the Discovery Channel and the Travel Channel.
The attraction itself is quite spectacular. Located in an abandoned meat packing plant, the outside feels just a tad creepy, especially as visitors wait in line.
The moment visitors enter, they are engulfed in fog and darkness. It’s easy to argue that it’s hard to navigate the way through the first third of the attraction, but there are walls on either side.
Notably, Cutting Edge has a few places where they attempt to slow down the flow of groups. It may seem meticulous, but it’s needed. This keeps groups from bumping into other groups and ruining the scares that could come their way.
The maze is probably a great touch as well. Groups are told to wait here as well, and not too long in, the workers hand visitors a glow stick, make them pick from four doors and play a message from Jigsaw (the puzzle maker from the Saw franchise).
It’s a mad dash through that maze although workers tell people not to run. With Rob Zombie blasting through the speakers, it kind of feels less like Saw and more like House of 1,000 Corpses.
One area where one should probably try and slow down enough to enjoy is the meat storage room. Very great effects can be found here, not to mention the absolutely terrifying, chainsaw-wielding madman.
The best part too is the silence from the actors. Owner and founder Todd James explained this is a key element to the experience.
“We follow a lot of the great horror characters,” he said. “A lot of them don’t vocalize. That’s kind of what we base things on.”
So instead of actors popping out and screaming, visitors are met with chilling silence as an actor approaches, sometimes unbeknownst to that one person in the group.
Cutting Edge is definitely worth the price of admission, where a visitor can spend up to a complete hour inside the building, which earned it a Guinness World Record for longest haunted house attraction.
The haunt is located at 1701 E. Lancaster Ave. in Fort Worth and is open 7 p.m.-midnight Thursday-Saturday and 8-10 p.m. Sunday.
