Oct. 22 (UPI) — A Tennessee haunted house billed as the scariest in the world requires visits to sign a 40-page waiver, pass a physical and undergo a background check — and no one has ever finished the attraction.
Russ McKamey, owner of McKamey Manor in Summertown, said the price of admission is only a bag of food for his five dogs, and the prize for finishing is $20,000, but no one has ever collected the prize money.
Interested visitors must first complete a sports physical, sign a 40-page waiver, pass a drug test, provide proof of medical insurance, and prove they are at least 21 years old.
The visitors must then watch a 2-hour video called And Then There Were None, which features footage of every visitor from July 2017 and August 2019 quitting before the end of the experience. Visitors leave by uttering the code phrase, “You really don’t want to do this.”
McKamey said the key to inspiring terror is a “mind game” that relies on hypnotism to have visitors tricked by their own minds. He said each experience is video recorded to prove to visitors — and authorities — that nothing illegal took place.
“When I use the hypnosis 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,” he told WFLA-TV.
“And so, when you have that kind of power over people, and have them do and see things that you want them to see, then they can leave here thinking it really happened, and they’ll go to the authorities and say, ‘oh, whatever,’ and I have to come back and show the footage and say, ‘it didn’t go that way at all,’” McKamey said.
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