REVIEW: Gateway Playhouse

Gateway's Haunted Playhouse
215 South Country Road
Bellport, NY

Long Island's Gateway Playhouse produces one of the best haunted houses in the country. With a new theme every year, it is always fresh, exciting and innovative. 

For the 2013 season, they combined dark fairy tales and creepy circus themes to create "The Grimling Family Travelling Circus." The unusual combination was their finest and most detailed haunt yet.

The amount of sensory detail is astounding. The journey is covered with uneven and moving walkways, electric sparks, pungent smells, and spectacular visuals. The superb costumes and makeup help the talented actors create an environment straight out of your worst nightmare. 

Gateway also succeeds in creating the party environment that so many haunts are trying to achieve. There is an outdoor bar and food trucks to enjoy while you wait to enter the haunt. Their brilliant ticketing system limits wait time, so patrons can enjoy food, drink, and roaming characters and entertainers.   

Final Thoughts

Gateway Playhouse has once again created a brilliantly theatrical haunt. It is visually stunning and scary as hell. Gateway's Haunted Playhouse is a MUST SEE. You will not be disappointed. Their 2014 season begins September 26th! We can't wait to see what they have in store for us this year.

Gateway's Haunted Playhouse 2014 Season

September 26 - November 1

Ticket Information

General Admission: $25.00   |  Fast Pass: $35.00

Additional Information

• Official Website
• Facebook Page
• 2011 Review
• 2012 Review

REVIEW: Gateway's Haunted Playhouse

Gateway's Haunted Playhouse
215 South Country Road
Bellport, NY

A plague of mysterious origin has spread through a 1940s era Bellport, NY. Upon entering its doors, you realize that the source of the outbreak is the Gateway Playhouse. To survive this airborne illness you must journey through a labyrinth of infected military, civilian, and hospital employees covered in the telltale facial pustules. This infection spreads fast and quickly begins to degrade the brain. Will you survive?

 

Is It Scary?

This sickening love letter to zombie infection will terrify kinemortophobics (fear of the undead) and germaphobes alike!

 

Here's A Tip

Get there early for some food and liquid courage at their bar and dining area. Their timed ticketing allows you to wait in the bar/dining area until your number is displayed, which means shorter lines for everyone. 

 

What We Loved

Gateway Playhouse always has amazing actors, original custom made props and sets, and a historic venue full of authentically creepy sights and smells. We were impressed with their 2011 haunted house, but they have out done themselves for 2012. Everything is more detailed and each scene expounds on the infection theme in a new way.

The blood smell in the chapel where the zombie groom was eating his bride was both disturbingly perfect and nauseating. The mirrored medical room of mannequin doctors was unsettling and visually stunning. The talented actors induced fear and anxiety as they coughed uncontrollably into your personal space. Textured, uneven, and unpredictable floor coverings were used in certain areas to make the detailed environments come alive. The grotesquely fabulous makeup and 1940s era costumes are exquisite and largely responsible for the success of the haunt's stylized period look.  

 

What Could Be Better

Each room is dressed with the perfect vintage era props and sets with one exception. There are a few areas papered with missing person fliers that have clearly been printed on crisp white computer paper. The photos showcased on the fliers are of contemporary 21st century faces that seem very out of place next to a cast of meticulously designed 1940s zombies. Having gone to such great lengths to create a detailed period piece, it's odd that they dropped the ball here.

 

Final Thoughts

Gateway Playhouse has once again created a brilliantly theatrical haunt. It is visually stunning and scary as hell. The addition of a unified theme has helped them to create a perfect walk-through haunted house.

 

Gateway's Haunted Playhouse 2012 Season

September 28 - November 3

 

Ticket Information

General Admission: $20.00   |  Fast Pass: $25.00

 

Additional Information

• Official Website
• Facebook Page
• 2011 Review