I’m not a fan of haunted houses. Hell, I’m not even really a fan of scary movies. It’s not that I scare easy; it’s just that I don’t like surprises. Haunted houses are all about surprises and startling the shit out of you. Don’t startle me, bro. Ya know? However, outside of Atlanta exists a meshing of haunting with a world I’ve got some unintentional experience with: the trap.
Thirteen Stories Haunted House in Newnan, Ga., about 30 minutes southwest of Atlanta, partnered with 2 Chainz Pink Trap House to create the Haunted Pink Trap House. It does not disappoint. While I don’t like getting the shit scared out of me, I was offered free passes to check it out from Vibrant Communications, which is doing promotion for the haunted house. Besides, I’d read that there were strippers. Free? And strippers? It felt like $5 lap dance Wednesdays at Club Nikki’s on Stewart Avenue in the ’90s in Atlanta. RIP.
Because I rather enjoyed my experience, I figured I’d tell you the 10 blackest, funnest, littest things about my time at the Haunted Pink Trap House:
1. Let me start with free passes. Free passes are awesome. I received two sets of All Attraction Passes with front of the line VIP access, which go for about $76 on the website. I paid for one set of All Attraction passes myself for $56, which they bumped up to VIP status. Yes, the kid was straight VIP stylin’ on you.
What does VIP mean here? Does it mean you get two lap dances from a zombie stripper instead of one? No. Unfortunately not. It means you get to go to the front of the line like a motherfucker. And famo ... the lines out there on the Saturday night I went were long as the fuck.
I went out there with four of my homies, and we all had the VIP experience. That shit was worth it! You have to print out your tickets if you buy them online, then stand in a line to get hard copies, then stand in a long ass line to get into the haunted house. With that VIP sticker though? Nigga, we were in there immediately. Then there was a VIP line where we could enter the Trap House to go even further ahead. I will count this as the trifecta of black, fun, and lit. Shouts to Vibrant Communications, which was promoting the haunted house. They did us right with the VIP.
2. I never got to visit the actual pink trap house that I saw all over my social media feeds last year in support of 2 Chainz album, Pretty Girls Like Trap Music. Being in the midst of its re-creation, which included a seasonal pink hearse that doubled as a Twerk-For-the-Pictures prop—lawd, the flexibility in Atlanta is otherworldly—more than made up for what I missed. Also, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a “trap” house; I had. I lived next door to one. Because I’m not entirely sure about statutes of limitations, I’ll just stop while I’m ahead. Let’s just say, it felt trappy. I’m just saying, just being outside felt like a party unto itself. Various folks dressed up as scary iterations of people who would walk up behind you and get you to turn around. You’d instantly be startled by a scary-ass white woman whispering in your ear while holding a fake dead baby. There’s a lot of security on premises; black folks are not good at surprises.
3. So, was the actual haunted house, like ... scary? I think it depends on who you ask. I was definitely startled several times, but not for conventional reasons. Also, shouts to my boy who made me go through every door first since “I needed to fully experience it to write about it.” I believe this is the equivalent of dying first in scary movies. Look, there are random motherfuckers in various versions of scare-the-shit-out-of-you all through the house. They come running at you. They scream out of nowhere. A random black kid just rolled up and started walking next to me—no makeup, no costume, nothing—and was possibly the scariest shit I experienced because I was so confused I didn’t know if he was part of the haunted house, lost, or going to kill me. That’s some effective haunting. Because the participants can’t touch you, nor you them, it made it a little better getting through. Also, they tell you this several times—DO NOT TOUCH THE ACTORS. Again, black folks don’t like surprises.
4. The All Attractions Passes I received came with three separate activities: The Haunted Trap House, a Zombie Shooting excursion, and an activity called Sacrifice. We did the haunted house and the zombie shooting excursion. We basically walked around with a heavy ass gun and shot zombies; it was a good stress relief. I didn’t do “Sacrifice” because I was told this would happen there: You go into a dark room (all the rooms are dark) where the actors can touch you, grab you, push you, scream in your face, as you try to get out.
Nigga. Nawl. Bitch, I said nawl. Ain’t no way. I was already on edge, but somebody with a Purge mask could run up on and touch me? I’m cool. Might as well do the Coffin Ride. What’s that? I like to call it white shit where you can literally pay money to lay inside a closed coffin for like 6 minutes. I’ve seen people, and by people, I mean white people, pay money for this.
5. I don’t know how else to say this because I’m not sure if this is supposed to happen or not. As we were making our way through the haunted house, we ran up on some chick who was maybe a zombie version of, like, Lil’ Kim? I don’t know. She came the fuck out of nowhere and scared the bejesus out of me. I threw my hands in the air and waved them like I just didn’t care. (Apparently, that’s what I do when I’m scared.) In her irate-acting mode, she either called somebody a “whole ass nigga” or a “ho ass nigga,” and even today, I have no idea which one she said. But you haven’t lived until you’ve been called a whole or ho ass nigga at a haunted trap house, which is very on brand, but probably not allowed. Either way, I appreciated that.
6. Can’t lie, I was waiting to see a haunted trap house stripper. Lo and behold, about 20 minutes into it, we turned down a hallway and on a pole was someone fully clothed (haunted trap houses and ODB are for the children) working a pole. To the right was a dead stripper who, if I remember correctly, had been vertically speared with a stripper pole, which is a terrible way to die. Either way, strippers in the haunted trap house is not only an awesome attraction but would be a dope name for a song, 2 Chainz.
7. By the time we got to the end of the haunted house—which is huge, by the way; the joint just kept fucking going and I was exhausted—I’m fairly certain my blood pressure had gone up several points. But the scariest thing I saw in the whole place was these white kids trying to dance after we exited.
8. Yes, trap music, and especially the musical stylings of one Tauheed Epps, aka Titi Boi, aka 2 Chainz, was indeed playing all over the premises. That, I rather enjoyed.
9. I cannot stress enough how much attention to detail and how much planning clearly goes into the creation and execution of this type of exhibit. That might have stifled some of the scary for me because I was so damn impressed with the details. I mean, some rooms, the more trappy of them, definitely looked like houses I’ve been in before: empty bottles of cough syrup; fake weed plants; floor model televisions; broken ashtrays laid about. It was quite impressive, aesthetically. It gets all of the high marks for that alone. I felt like the old nigga in the club looking at the drapery while some young women were twerking for my attention. I was wondering if I could get the number to call the drape guy.
10. This Haunted Pink Trap House was thoroughly fun, lit and black as fuck. I’d do it again in a heartbeat—as long as I have those VIP passes, fam.