Recently, a “haunted house,” located in Tennessee has come under fire. The “McKamey Manor haunt,” located in Summertown, TN. has, in part, gain attention because of the extreme measures taken just to enter. The requirements of having a Doctor’s note, signing a 40 page waiver, providing a “safe word,” proof of medical insurance, and even a background check are mandatory. With all of these guidelines, how does a Halloween event become so contraversial?
To start, many people are claiming that it is a legal form of torture. This derives from the amount of mental and physical traumas that are often reported at the location. Within the waiver, it allegedly states that the staff may inflict a variety of injuries to the visitors. Rather it be suffocating a person with a plastic bag, using tools to break bones, and so fourth, people find themselves in a variety of potentially life threatning situations. The staff themselves have been within the scope of contraversy.
Allegedly, the staff of this “haunted house,” comprise of former inmates who have convictions ranging from violent to sexually based crimes; this isn’t to farfetched as there are reports of rapes at this location. The house owner, Russ McKamey, allegedly forces people to watch a two hour video prior to entry. During this video, the observer sees other people who have attempted, and failed, to complete this event. The phrase, “You really don’t want to do this,” is seen throughout the video; given what we have learned about this house, we have to agree. The waiver, as previously mentioned reads as follows:
74. Participant fully understands and agrees that they may have a plastic bag or wrap on their face which could possibly cause suffocation, blackouts, etc. and particpant will not hold MM responsible or libel.
For us, the portion that has really stood out is the use the term “etc.” This leads us to believe that a particpant may very well die from this situation should the employee decide not to remove the bag, something that seems very plausible given how the waiver is written. Other portions of the waiver discuss “being crushed in a pit by various objects,” being injured with fishing hooks, and even being tazed. Another repeating issue is in regards to the alleged safe word. According to some posts, employees are notorious for ignoring the word completely and continuing this torture.
Halloween is meant to be a fun family event, while there are those who take it to the extreme, from what we have learned about this place, it’s on a whole new platform. With this article we hope that anybody who intends to visit this location: research it first. This is a location with many reports, some we only mentioned without discussing further. We did this not to hide information, but to protect any reader who may suffer from PTSD or have been a victim of rape. We are looking further into this and hope to find more information soon. This article will be updated as needed.
