Review of Midsummer Nights Screams

By Jennifer Drendel

During the first weekend of August, The Haunted Infirmary in Bartonville, Illinois, opened for a pre-season show that they titled "Midsummer Nights Screams." I have been interested in visiting their haunted attraction for a few years now, due to their unique location inside of an actual haunted hospital. Pollak Hospital, the tuberculosis ward of the Peoria State Hospital, now houses The Haunted Infirmary, a haunted attraction designed by Insane Women Productions. On that note, a group of lady haunted house actors from Midnight Terror Haunted House in Oak Lawn and Terror on the Railroad (closed) in Union decided to take a road trip to the Peoria area to support another attraction and experience their show.

We had forewarned the group that we were coming from the Chicagoland area and that we were excited to see the show. Upon our arrival, they were very welcoming and anxious to share their scares. They even waited an extra twenty minutes after their scheduled closing time for us! We could not have been more grateful!

They split us up into groups of two, which added to the feeling that we were outnumbered by the characters inside. We found a multitude of rooms and scenes; like a wizard's lair, a haunted kitchen, and a hallway that had us second guessing our own eyes. I particularly enjoyed the room where we met the jesters, and I'll bet the jesters got a kick out of my reaction to them. Props to those guys for staying in character through all of my jumping and screaming and cursing.

All of the characters inside did a wonderful job explaining their scenes, improvising with our comments and dialogue, and staying in character. There were a handful of very clever tricks and illusions that we were impressed by. We thoroughly enjoyed our (very long) trip to Bartonville to visit this haunted attraction, and we all agreed that it was totally worth the drive to experience it.