YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — It may sound ghoulish, but the former site of a longtime Ohio funeral home will be decked out as a haunted house for Halloween.
Youngstown’s McVean, Hughes & McClurkin Funeral Home, a Tudor-style mansion, was built in 1901, The Business Journal reported. It sits atop Wick Avenue, across from Ursuline High School in Youngstown, according to WKBN-TV.
Erik Engartner, who now owns the house, renamed it “The Wickyards” and uses it as a small concert venue. But this month, leading up to Halloween, he has transformed the building into a haunted house he has dubbed “Nine Lives at the Wickyards,” the television station reported.
Local funeral home transformed into haunted house https://t.co/KaPUgpxwkT
— WKBN 27 First News (@WKBN) October 14, 2022
The attraction opened Oct. 7 and will be open every Friday and Saturday during the month from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. EDT, according to The Business Journal. The cost is $10 to explore the building, which has passageways, a basement and embalming rooms.
Braver souls can take the extended tour for $20, which includes the building’s second floor.
The tour takes people into several rooms, where actors are used to strike fear into the visitors, WKBN reported.
“Then tragedy strikes, then I can’t really give anything else away,” Engartner told the television station.
The grand finale for the tour is through the basement’s eight rooms, where visitors will have to find their own way out.
“The building was my inspiration for (the attraction),” Engartner told WKBN. “Haunted houses and horror films aren’t really my thing but the inspiration came through the walls and the architecture. It was asking to be created. I feel like I did it justice.”
Engartner promised that the spooky house will provide some fright. There is also a “funeral director” on the premises, just in case.
“You’ll get scared,” Engartner told The Business Journal. “It’s much scarier than a kiddie attraction but it’s not an all-out gorefest.”
Enter, if you dare.
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