This year, darkness has settled upon an unsuspecting building in Suffolk County, and any who dare to enter will finally emerge much later, shaken to their very core…and laughing from frightful delight.
Yes, it’s the return of Chambers of Hell, voted New York’s number one haunted house for the last four years running! Located inside goth-inspired entertainment and event venue Gotham at 1745 Express Drive North in Hauppauge, Chambers of Hell offers a unique and horrific view into the underworld, standing out when it comes to sheer creativity and decadent, bone-chilling insanity.
Chambers of Hell – and by extension, Gotham itself – is the brainchild of owner Matt Guiliano, along with his partner Robert Frankenburg, the creator of the haunt, and designer Oscar Gonzales. The facility bears neither visual nor thematic relation to the former business Matt ran at the same location, which was the indoor baseball training facility, Play Like a Pro.
Initially, Matt ran Play Like a Pro and, years ago, began operating Chambers of Hell as a yearly pop-up haunt. As Chambers’ ghoulish reputation began to grow, Matt began to notice a rift forming between his two distinct customer bases; after all, baseball fans and horror fans – with a few exceptions – don’t typically mix.
Following a health scare, Matt decided he wanted to get out of the baseball business altogether and instead attempt to parlay his pop-up haunted house into a year-round business. Last year, that aspiration became a reality when he painted the venue black, redubbed it "Gotham" and completely transformed it into a dark and distinctly adult event space where Chambers of Hell’s seasonal haunts continuously take place hand-in-hand with similarly-themed entertainment and leisure events, making it an all-in-one destination for those seeking the darker side when it comes to their nights out on the town.
“The venue has really evolved into a year-round horror and entertainment complex,” Matt noted. “Almost every month we'll have a new and special haunt with Chambers of Hell. For example, for Christmas we will do Krampus, and then in January we'll do a Witch's Coven haunt, and in February we do Love Bites, which is a Valentine's haunt, and there’s also a St. Patrick's Day haunt, an Easter haunt, and so on. We're constantly evolving and changing up things to reflect seasonal events in order to keep it current and fresh.”
Chambers of Hell is comprised of three separate haunts in one, although not all of them will reflect the seasonal design at any given time; for example, their Thanksgiving haunt – dubbed, naturally, “Thankskilling” – will take up one of the three spook-houses on offer, whereas the other two will be more standard in nature.
And all the while the haunts are operating, there's a plethora of other activities going on at any given time within Gotham itself, such as ax throwing, photo ops, lounge music, a bar, stage acts, horror movies playing on a big screen, and more, making for a complete entertainment experience for the entire evening.
But obviously, readers of this article will be most interested in the current season – Halloween – and the haunt’s setup leading up to this All Hallow’s Eve are sure to entice even the most hardcore horror fanatic.
First up is Shadows of London, which features theatrical callbacks to infamous killers in that infamous fog-strewn city of old, including The Werewolf, The Phantom of the Opera, and even the notorious Jack the Ripper.
The second haunt is something that Matt says they really went out-of-the-box when designing: Area 666, which involves guests going underground into a secret government Area 51-like compound where they will encounter all manner of unsettling extraterrestrial creatures, with the only thing lighting their way being the flashlight mounted on the non-firing "gun" that they will be supplied with, making the experience more immersive and interactive…and frightening!
And last, but not least, is an incredibly original and unique experience that represented a huge undertaking when it came to its design: Depths of Fear, which transports guests to a "flooding" underwater complex inhabited by various hostile sea creatures including octopuses, squid, and anglerfish, making for a wild and one-of-a-kind adventure.
Of course, Gotham itself offers numerous companion experiences to supplement the horrors of Chambers of Hell; for example, for those who are not faint of heart when it comes to their cuisine, there is The Feast of Spirits, which takes the form of pulse-pounding dinner theater where guests are led into a room, blindfolded, and are served dishes crafted by a cannibal. A six-course meal will commence that guests must eat with their hands, with their deranged host informing them of the "special ingredients" he utilized when preparing their dinners. But fear not! In reality, it’s all perfectly normal food served in good fun.
And yet another ongoing event is Exploring Dread, a free-roaming haunt where you will encounter four serial killers – whose backstories they are exposed to before entering – as well as their four respective victims and even a ghost! Guests are able to interact with anyone that they want; will you help one of the killers dispose of a body or sharpen their knife? Will you help a victim escape from their villainous captor? The guests themselves can dictate the story and its outcome, and if you come 12 different times, you could experience 12 completely separate outcomes!
These ghastly affairs are accompanied by yet more twisted and exciting events and activities, some of which you can read about in our previous write-up of Gotham by clicking here.
Matt takes a tremendous amount of pride in having created an adult playground unlike any other on Long Island, providing a plethora of varied entertainment options for those who like to have fun outside of the norm, allowing him to exercise his creativity – and some would argue, depravity – like never before.
“We're really trying to push the envelope here and to make Gotham and Chambers of Hell a year-round experience,” he said. “It's really fulfilling and I'm very proud of what we have going on here. We're trying to change the game and create an immersive experience while giving people the most for their money, and so far, I'm very pleased with how it's going.”
To find out more about Chambers of Hell, visit their website at https://www.chambersofhell.com. To find out more about Gotham, please visit https://www.gothamli.com.
To read our previous article on Gotham, please click here.