McKamey Manor: Inside the Extreme Haunted House From Hulu's Monster Inside

Table Of Content

• Interactive horror house or a torture chamber?
• Tennessee Attorney General takes a look at McKamey Manor
• 'There's a chance of death': Inside the chilling 40-page waiver
• Getting into McKamey Manor takes some harrowing feats
• McKamey Manor: Everything To Know About The Haunted House From Hulu's ‘Monster Inside’ Documentary
• A participant (supposedly) had a heart attack there
• The Depraved Real Life Attraction Behind Hulu’s ‘Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House’
• McKamey Manor: Too Extreme for Most, But Creator Calls It PG-13

During one of his times a McKamey Manor, Brandon was put through different scenarios involving water. Including one of him being locked in a cage as water came pouring in and he soon had little to no room to breathe. Brandon, who was interviewed by The Nashville Scene in 2018 and was described as a repeat participant, described himself as a thrill seeker after his days in the Army.

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Interactive horror house or a torture chamber?

With a waitlist that supposedly consists of more than 27,000 people, Russ McKamey is naturally a bit choosy about who he admits to McKamey Manor. Russ McKamey might accept that he’s created the scariest haunted house in America — maybe even the scariest haunted house in the world. But he’d deny that McKamey Manor is anything but an extreme haunted house. It's been repeatedly called a "torture chamber," and a Change.org petition asking the Tennessee state senate to shut it down has more than 183,000 signatures.

Tennessee Attorney General takes a look at McKamey Manor

He films each tour and shows the participant the footage if they need to see it. McKamey told The Washington Post that he didn’t “want to confirm or deny which areas are real and which are not” from the petition but that no torture or illegal activities are part of the experience. Law enforcement keeps a close eye on the manor, he said, and he calls police to warn them before each new participants begin the tour in case they get reports of any issues.

'There's a chance of death': Inside the chilling 40-page waiver

To satisfy that hunger for more visceral fun, numerous haunts have popped up in recent years that go well beyond the usual scares of traditional attractions. One of these haunts is McKamey Manor, founded by Russ Mckamey, which since launching has generated considerable controversy for its incredibly violent nature. “I’m a very straight-laced conservative guy, but here I run this crazy haunted house that people think is this torture factory, fetish factory,” McKamey complained. A YouTuber, Ben Schneider, also known as Reckless Ben, signed up to go through the manor to expose the reality behind the attraction.

Getting into McKamey Manor takes some harrowing feats

Today is the last hurrah for the San Diego house so a “special” farewell haunting is planned. A day earlier, McKamey tried to cajole two local women to participate. Lindsey Boley, a 36-year-old housewife and mother of three, and Nadia Nagor, 28, a fashion blogger and stylist, had each done it once before and were mulling a return visit. A lively community of online critics brands McKamey an abomination, a sadist, a psychopath and worse. However, that perception is a problem because, having recently been laid off from the navy, he now wants to make the manor commercial.

McKamey Manor: Everything To Know About The Haunted House From Hulu's ‘Monster Inside’ Documentary

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A participant (supposedly) had a heart attack there

So seriously, in fact, that he’ll offer you $20,000 if you make it through. According to this local Houston site, no one has yet to succeed. In the end, McKamey claims that his haunted house is all smoke and mirrors. Mere suggestion is often enough to scare people — and sometimes convince them that something happened that didn’t. He currently offers a “Descent” experience which is six hours long.

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The Depraved Real Life Attraction Behind Hulu’s ‘Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House’

It was founded by Russ McKamey around 2001, and quickly developed a loyal fan base. Modern audiences demand extremes; torture porn franchises such as Saw and Hostel have now migrated to the mainstream. Less well known is this boom in “extreme haunts” in which people sign liability waivers and pay more than $40 to stumble through dark, dungeon-like places where actors grab and manhandle them to amplify the frights.

McKamey Manor: Too Extreme for Most, But Creator Calls It PG-13

After contacting McKamey through the website or on social media, future participants are invited to a private Facebook group where they are given tasks to record before they even sign the 40-page waiver McKamey Manor has. People who pass an initial screening and complete an on-site 40-page waiver must then endure a night-time series of what McKamey calls "epic stunts." Events can include having your eyes covered with duct tape, being submerged in water, buried in mud or being hypnotized. According to the Campbell Law Observer, there may be some way to accuse McKamey of undue influence (which they define as "when an individual who holds real or apparent authority over another, uses the other individual's confidence to obtain an unfair advantage"). This is largely due to a petition to shut McKamey Manor down, which alleges that they purposefully target individuals who are more susceptible to actually signing up, though the Campbell Law Observer states that the evidence behind this is weak. Even living in the same vicinity of McKamey Manor is quite hellish. Owner Russ McKamey has gotten quite used to having neighbors call the police on him, but the neighbors haven't gotten used to him in Summertown, Tennessee.

Guests who are pregnant or claustrophobic, or have seizures, respiratory, or heart issues, are urged not to participate. The cost of admission is a bag of dog food for McKamey’s five dogs. The manor, he said, is an interactive experience that relies on mind games meant to make people believe things that aren’t really happening. He said people are not really waterboarded, for example, but he uses hypnosis and other mind-control techniques to put that thought in their heads. There was so much demand for his extreme version of a haunted house, in fact, that eventually McKamey Manor had five locations.

Despite being unable to last throughout its entire duration, some attendees still managed to get some gratification out of it, such as Christina Buster, who signed up for a slot at the attraction when she was 44 years old. Buster told the Guardian, "I don't feel I was tortured or abused. It pushed me to my limits. I'm proud of myself. I still hold the record as the oldest person to go through." Buster even said that she would return for another try. With the right kind of gimmick, a haunted house attraction can attract a massive crowd, especially during the Halloween season.

"They have to do all kinds of crazy activities for the week before their tour — just fun and silly challenges," McKamey says. "The audience gets to know them and the contestant gets to know the audience. Everybody's really on their side. And then when it comes down to the real show, everybody's just really stoked about seeing what this person can do." Once contestants pass the screening and are selected to attend the haunt, McKamey says that's when the "show" starts coming together. He doesn't really mind that people think he's "some kind of wild psychopath," but he does feel that's a mischaracterization. While the two petitions are pushing for McKamey Manor to be shut down, it is still open to this day.

Then you have to have a sports physical and doctor's letter saying that you're physically and mentally cleared for the challenge. You also have to pass a background test and be screened by the haunted house's employees. After that, you must have proof of medical insurance and pass a portable drug test the day you go before finally signing a 40-page waiver.

All participants must be at least 21 years old (or 18 with parental approval), complete a physical, pass a background check, be screened by Facebook, FaceTime, or phone, have proof of medical insurance, and pass a drug test. McKamey told WFLA that before the tour begins people have to watch a two-hour video that shows past participants attempting to get through the entire haunted house. He told NBC affiliate WFLA in Tampa that his attraction is a "crazy haunted house," not a torture chamber. An online petition with tens of thousands of signatures says it’s all a front for a torture chamber and urges state officials to shut down the attraction. McKamey Manor in Summertown, Tennessee may lay claim to being the world’s scariest haunted house.

Since a story about the manor from WFLA-TV this month made waves online, McKamey said he has kept his phone on “do not disturb” mode because thousands of people have been calling to set up visits. “There’s no torture, there’s nothing like that, but under hypnosis if you make someone believe there’s something really scary going on, that’s just in their own mind and not reality,” he said. Previously, guests had to follow a "no safeword" policy that allowed the actors to continue their actions despite the participant's desire to stop, but that has since been changed, and visitors can call it quits once they hit their breaking point, per Fox Business. The half-dozen kidnappers are volunteer “actors” who originally came here as guests and now return to pass on that suffering, with glee, to others. A writer on The Truth about McKamey Manor, one of the several Facebook groups which monitor and criticise the haunt, accused it of recklessly endangering people by not properly training them. For the past decade, the manor has hosted a handful of guests each weekend, challenging them to last the eight-hour “tour”.