Haunted house with 40-page waiver faces call to shut down as people dub it a ‘torture chamber under disguise’
Topics: Halloween, Health, Mental Health, US News
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: McKamey Manor
Topics: Halloween, Health, Mental Health, US News
Calls for the closure of a haunted house which requires visitors to sign a 40-page waiver are growing.
There's Halloween, and then there's pure horror, and one haunted house very much breached the boundaries of the two.
McKamey Manor in Nashville, Tennessee has been shrouded in controversy for years, with a a recent video sparking further calls for the interactive Halloween house to be closed down.
A six-part TikTok series by user Scary Terry revealed a more in-depth insight into what really goes down after you sign the 40-page waiver and step inside McKamey Manor.
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Think of a Fright Night but on crack, with actors at the manor not just paid to jump out from hiding spots and give you a bit of a fright, but you to actually feel like you're running for your life, given you sign away your right to be kidnapped and fully 'interacted' with - one video even showing a woman appearing to have her hair cut.
One person even spoke out ahead of returning to the manor - yes, returning - to say they expected to be 'torn limb from limb'.
The haunted mansion's practices are so extreme that a petition was launched in 2019 to try and get it closed down with an investigation started delving into the practises.
A petition launched in October 2019 calls for McKamey Manor to be 'shut down'.
It's reached over 190,000 signatures, and branded the Halloween house 'a torture chamber in disguise' and 'torture porn'.
It accused the house of not 'previously' allowing visitors to have 'safe words', although noted that had since changed.
"But there’s been reports that the torture continues even when people repeat their safe-word for several minutes. One man was tortured so badly he passed out multiple times, workers only stopped because they thought they had killed him," it added, alleging people had experienced being 'duct wrapped' around their 'head' and 'forced to eat things' alongside 'reports of sexual assault' and people being 'inject[ed]' with drugs.
The petition alleges: "Some people have had to seek professional psychiatric help & medical care for extensive injuries."
Aan investigation was later launched into the manor's practices by Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti after a documentary about it was released on Hulu in 2023 (trailer above).
The investigation led to manor house owner Russ McKamey filing a lawsuit against Skrmetti in September earlier this year, claiming he'd breached his First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
A spokesperson for the attorney general's office told WKRN.com: "Attorney General Skrmetti’s focus is protecting Tennesseans. When the Attorney General’s Office hears allegations of serious consumer harms, we work hard to respond quickly."
And despite the controversy, the manor remains open to this day, people taking to social media continuing to question how.
One Twitter user said: "This place still runs????"
"Being reminded of mckamey manor and finding out it's Still open has been the most insane thing that's happened to me in a while," another added.
UNILAD has contacted McKamey Manor for comment.