Hera’s Nightmare Introduces The Horror Vault Selfie Walkthrough

In Westminster, Maryland, Hera’s Nightmare is planning an ambitious year-round expansion. After winning the 2025 OSCARES Award for First Year Haunt, owner Carlos Rivas doubled the attraction’s size to 25,000 square feet and introduced The Horror Vault — a selfie walkthrough designed for guests to capture their own horror moments.“People want to take pictures when they go through the haunt, but that’s hard when you’re getting scared,” Rivas said. “So I wanted to make an interactive version of a haunted house where you can take videos, take pictures, and really see the scenic details we put in.”For Rivas, The Horror Vault isn’t just a gimmick; it’s a glimpse of how haunted attractions can stay relevant beyond the Halloween window. By offering a photo-ready environment open throughout October and beyond, Hera’s Nightmare is tapping into the social-sharing culture that drives modern audience engagement.The takeaway? As haunts search for year-round revenue, the next big innovation may not be a bigger scare — but a better way to keep guests involved between them. Read more here.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Harrah's Nightmare in Westminster, Maryland, is taking haunted attractions in
a new direction that's coming up on today's show. Welcome
to the show. I'm Philip on the Haunted Attraction Network show.
We bring you the news and stories you need to
prepare for Halloween. This podcast is just one part of
what we do. You can find our videos, articles, and

(00:30):
our free weekly industry newsletter in the link in our
show notes today. Harrah's Nightmare opened in twenty twenty four
with three full scale haunted houses and quickly earned recognition
for its immersive design and details by receiving the Haunted
Attraction Association's All Scares Award for First Year Haunt this
previous March of twenty twenty five. Now, the owner, Carlos Ribas,

(00:53):
has set his sights on expanding the experience for year
two and beyond. This previous season, Harrah's Nightmare doubled to
twenty five thousand square feet and introduced the Horror Vault,
a selfie walkthrough that lets guest take photos and short
videos inside horror themed rooms with actors. Designed for fans
who want to capture their night out as much as

(01:14):
live in it. The attraction blends art installation and haunted
house design into something completely new. This interview was from
back in September, before all of these expansions opened. However,
Harro's Nightmare is going to be doing a Christmas walkthrough,
and of course this experience we're going to be talking
about with the photos is going to be open year
round and as you'll hear rotate, this is also available

(01:37):
in video. You can watch the full video on our
YouTube which is linked in the show notes. Okay, here's Carlos.
We're in Carol County, Maryland at Harrah's Nightmare today. I'm
joined by Carlos Rebus. Carlos is the owner of Haro's Nightmare.
Harra's Nightmare opened last year. This is their second year,
but already after their first year, they've already received one

(01:57):
of the awards from the Haunt Trash Association for best Attraction,
and this year it's even larger. Carlos is not satisfied
with last year, so he decided to expand not only
the three attractions, but also add a whole new selfie experience.
It's an eighteen room walkthrough experience, plus adding food, adding
scare zones, just beefing up the entire atmosphere for the

(02:18):
Halloween event. So today we're going to talk about all
the original haunt and how he's expanded for this year,
and why he decided to go through the selfie route
instead of adding a different attraction. So Carlos, welcome to
the show.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thank you for having me. We are going on our
second year and we decided to go bigger, so we expanded.
Now we have twenty five thousand square feet. Then we
have a fourth attraction. We're opening up a scare zone
and expanding the horror shop.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Talk to me a little bit about the first attraction,
you know, how big how to do during the year.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Our first year we had three attractions, so the curs
Affex and Hollow Containment X and Random Darkness. We also
had our horror shop. We did pretty well. We staffed
around four the actors. You started out immediately with three
hunter attractions. So why did you choose to do so
much in the year one. I wanted to start off
from the beginning, just doing it right. I didn't want to,
you know, start small.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Work my way up.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I had, you know, worked in other haunted houses as
a senate designer, so I kind of spent a lot
of time working for bigger Haunts, learning how it worked,
and the year before I actually opened, I traveled and
hit thirty two attractions that October just to kind of
get ideas of like the right time length of a
haunted house before it becomes too much, like what you

(03:32):
need in it, what people really enjoyed. So I kind
of took everything I could put it into it, and
I wanted to just do it right from the beginning,
which I think turned out well. And then this year
just I wanted to go bigger. Just I just want
to keep getting bigger and bigger.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Initially, you opened, like you said, with the Horror gift shop,
and that was open year round until you closed it
for the renovations.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Correct, And I thought, all right, well, if I did
a horror shop, it could translate well for Haunted for
the Halloween season. So we opened that in March and
it actually became a big hit. As being a sanior designer,
I built all the shelve and we lit it cool,
and we collected so much strange stuff, which I thought
was cool.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
We sold insects, we sold skalls, we sold things that
I don't think you find anywhere else. We had Halloween
bath bombs, which I don't take. I don't use them,
but you know, people like that.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Then you open the hunt during the haunt season, and
then you chose to expand again this year, so you're
adding an attraction this year.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Basically, we pretty much doubled the scare footage and we
gave ourselves a bigger outside entrance so we can do
a bigger show. I took the store down and I
moved it to the news space to make it larger
and have more stuff in there. But with doing that,
it allowed me to expand the third attraction that we had,
so now it's double the scare footage, and we added
a fourth attraction, which isn't necessarily a haunted house. It's

(04:55):
a selfie experience yea. So the idea of it is,
I want people to go in there and take pictures,
take videos because obviously people want to do that when
they go through the haunted house, and no phones because
otherwise you lose it because you're getting scared. So I
wanted to make an interactive version of a haunted house
where you can take videos, take pictures and you know,
get the sit in the room and see the scenic

(05:16):
details that we put inside the haunted house.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
That's the biggest expansion for this year, and that's going
to continue past the hot season.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yes, so the idea is for Halloween season, it's going
to be based on horror. You know, obviously it makes
sense where we're a haunted house and that's where we're
good at. But we want to grow the selfie experience
and eventually expand away from horror and do other things.
We want to do a Christmas walkthrough, and I think
both of them just working together just creates a whole
separate event year round. When it's all said and done,

(05:44):
I'll be around sixteen to eighteen scenes. Some of the
rooms will just be where you just take a picture, right,
maybe you put a head through a prop and it
looks like you're gored up, or you take a picture
where you're being attacked. But there'll be some rooms that
will actually be interactive, so you can hit a button
and something will happen. But overall the rooms you can

(06:04):
record TikTok videos, animations might talk to you, and like
I said, there's tons of photo ops that you know, okay,
make cool backgrounds, got it.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
So So basically it's gonna be similar to one hundred
traction in terms of there's gonna be rooms with scenes
and props, and there's you know, full walls and fabrication
and details, except you're gonna be able to walk through
its your own pace and be able to film content
in it, and they're you know, therefore make memories in there.
So it's I think it's similar to a lot of

(06:35):
other things we've seen. There's like a selfie museum, there's
like Male Wolf, there's the some of the larger escape
experiences you know that allow you with those photo experiences.
So it's a kind of walk at your own pace
type of experience to make not make content per se,
but just like enjoy that and that's going to be
included in the ticket price or how does that work.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's actually an add on so not because not everyone
likes this capacity.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Also, yeah, because to take longer, because they're going to
be stopping.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, at each and some people just want to come
to the hont House and just gets haired and that's okay,
But there's people that want to make a big night
of it and what else can you you know, It's
it's something different too. I think it's going to be
a little difficult trying to explain that to normal haunt
coors because they they're going to think it's a haunted
house actors are scaring you, but this is it's a
different thing. But it'll also be open all October, not

(07:23):
just when the haunts open, So the horror Shop is
opened all October with the stuffy experience. Now the actors
will only be there dooring the haunted house, but you'll
still have the rest of the experience. So it's a
thing that's opened all October.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Got it, got it, Gotta got it. Why did you
decide to make this your major expansion? Well, like I
referenced earlier, there are other places that have done this.
I mean even like the Myssic Museum, you know in California.
I mean it's exactly like you're describing. So there's there
is a model out there that I mean, we've seen
it work in other places. Why did you think about

(07:58):
doing it here as your expansion?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Well, the main goal was, you know, what could we
do that was an add on and without a giant overhead,
so I could have done a fourth attraction, But then
I'm hiring twenty more actors training them doing that old thing.
Eventually it becomes stagnant, like you went through four attractions,
you just spent an hour, You're not scared anymore. So

(08:22):
the idea was I wanted to do something different. I
think eskate rooms are are still popular, but they're just
done everywhere. And I'm honestly not good at puzzles, so
I'm never going to figure that one out. And coming
from a scenic background, I like making pretty sets, and
I felt like this is a way for me to
do it and people actually appreciate it. For once, Yeah,
I just walk through it and go, oh, that was scary.

(08:42):
I like the dark maze kills me, kills me. I
hope everyone can make it out here to Harrow's Nightmare.
This year we've expanded, Like I said, it's twenty five
thousand square feet, not just being in the haunted House.
We're a Halloween event, having the selfie experience, the horror Shop,
which now we add more stuff that's just strange to me,

(09:03):
but you know, more collectible things that you can purchase here,
add in food, add in mocktails, drinks, treats, and more
photo ops than ever, and just a bigger Midway experience
for everyone.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
So Today's episode was edited by me Philiprinandez, with post
production by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas.
Support for today's episode comes from Gantum Lightning and Controls.
Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligent spotlights.
From Dark hourg to Other World, Super Mario Land to
Hagrid's Bike, Gantum goes where other fixtures can't see what

(09:38):
you're missing With a free demo. Sign up at gantum
dot com slash demo. That's scantum dot com slash demo.
The h A N Team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua,
Megan Spells, Gavin Burns and Omniadventures. Until next time, Stay scary.
This is a haunted attraction.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
What you me