I love Halloween activities and this year, in the Bay Area, there is a new experience for the season.
Unhinged, from the Winchester Mystery House (WMH), is a new experience for visitors of the historical site during the Halloween season.
In the past the Winchester Mystery House would host candle light tours throughout the house. While exploring the house at night, guests would be scared by actors. Unhinged is similar in that it is set up as a tour of the house in the evening. Guests explore various rooms in the house in which each rooms becomes another scene in the story. After exploring the house other activities, like shopping, drinking and playing games, are available.
So what is my take? The best part of it all was the actors and actresses! They played their part extremely well!
Overall I wasn’t too scared. There were some places in the house that really got me good though! I think the scariest part was entering a dark room and trying to figure out where to go! Your imagination can run wild.
Looking back, I now see the story of the tour was trying to escape from the house and the scenes and actors along the way were from a previous tour that went missing and got trapped in the house. Unfortunately I didn’t get this story line until the next day. I had no idea on the tour about the story line and thought each stop on the way was just a different scene or experience. I do follow WMH on social media and they were posting about a tour that got lost in the house and pictures of the people of this lost tour. This was connected to the people/actors you saw on the tour in the house. But again, to me the story was not clear on the tour and I didn’t connect the dots. And what about the people who do not follow WMH on social media? How are they to make the connection? The story is not critical to the experience, but for me personally, I wish I knew about it during my visit. (While preparing for the blog post I learned there is mentioned of the theme on the Unhinged website. Apparently I didn’t read close enough…)
I really enjoyed that after the tour, or before, you can hang around and there are other activities to do. There is a cool projection show that takes place on the front of the house. It uses the house’s architecture as a feature in the show. It is a must see!
You can also get drinks with cool names and a changing, light up, fake ice cube. While drinking you can participate in some games set up or shop in the renovated gift shop. These other activities easily makes the visit to the WMH a whole evening experience.
My final verdict? If you are looking for something to do in the Bay Area for Halloween, I would suggest it. This is a new experience which is nice since other Bay Area yearly Halloween attractions are repeats each year.
To learn more about Unhinged, and get tickets, visit the Winchester Mystery House’s website.
Some other notes:
-Parking- the house has its own, small parking lot. Right across is an additional parking lot.
-ticket prices depends on the day and date
-drinks were around $12 each
-claustrophobic spaces/areas along the tour
-no real air conditioning so it can get warm while walking through the house
-some areas are extremely dark and it’s hard to see/navigate
-to participate in the games it is an additional cost
-not wheel chair accessible
Caroline Evans 
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