For 10 months of the year, Ken Honigman is a mild-mannered millwright who likes to keep his Anmore home tidy and organized.
But come early September, he begins to transform his environs into a creepy house of horrors where all sorts of genetic experiments have gone terribly wrong.
For eight Halloween seasons, Honigman has been the creator and keeper of Anmore Manor, an immersive haunted house experience that last year raised $12,000 and collected more than 400 pounds of food for the SHARE Society food bank.
Anmore Manor is loosely based on H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, in which an evil scientist’s experiments to create half-human/half-animal creatures ultimately destroys him.
Visitors enter Moreau’s abandoned encampment along a shrouded wooden walkway Honigma built over his front lawn, flanked by beady-eyed crows and some sort of swamp creature.
It’s at the front door the frights really begin.
Honigman said his descent into Halloween scare-meister started with a giant spiderweb crafted of ropes and tombstones scattered across his front lawn.
Dozens of visits to Halloween houses across North America and attendance at conventions of haunted house enthusiasts called Hauntcons to glean ideas have evolved his annual effort to a “full-on Walt Disney experience,” Honigman said.
“It’s like if you’re a stamp collector,” he said. “If you enjoy it, it takes a hold of you.”
Honigman built most of the components for the ruinous rooms that consume his living and dining rooms, backyard deck and part of the garage himself, using props and materials he’s acquired through connections in the film industry as well as estate sales.
Everything is modular, so the set can be disassembled and stored away at friends’ homes and garages then pieced together again in the eight weeks preceding Halloween.
Many of the elements are animated. Lights blink, fake flames flicker, wisps of fog creep across the floor, doors unexpectedly pop open. Some actually come to life, thanks to a cast of up to 10 amateur actors Honigman recruits from fellow volunteer firefighters.
Honigman said Anmore Manor is more about suspenseful scares than gore. Each of the set pieces he’s constructed are filled with details that draw visitors in, then, when they least expect it, a hand reaches out or a corpse pops up.
“That makes is so much more frightening,” Honigman said.
Anmore Manor is located 1151 Robin Way, with parking available at nearby Eagle Mountain Middle School. Admission is by donation to SHARE's food bank.
It opens tomorrow (Oct. 22), from 7 to 10:30 p.m. and then 7 to 10 p.m. on Sunday (Oct. 23).
Next weekend, it operates from 7 to 10 p.m. on Friday and Sunday (Oct. 28, 30), 7 to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday (Oct. 29) and 7 to 9:30 p.m. on Halloween night (Oct. 31).
Private tours are available through advance bookings on Oct. 24, 25 and 26, but no actors will be on site.
For more information, you can visit the Manor’s Facebook page.
