Fear Overload Scream Park — Attraction in Newark

The actors were really great. But it was way too dark so you couldn't see their costumes to feel too terribly scared. It's also so dark you are fumbling around to find your way which is annoying because you get so focused on that you can't enjoy or see the actors and decor really. They should have a glow in the dark path on the floor which would be very helpful. Also they could have done more with the decor. I've seen better decor in haunts that were $25. General admission was 38.99 for Saturday and $56.99 for fast past and $71.99 for immediate. Took about 20 minutes to walk through both haunts. They had a lot of actors so I guess that's why the high price plus no other haunts in close proximity to south Bay, but if you are charging that much the decor should be on point. The attraction is nothing like what is posted on tik tok or YouTube where it appears it has a black lighted creepy ambience. The actors may have been wearing cool costumes like those posted on YouTube but you can't tell because it's so dark. You walk through completely blind and have actors jump out but you can't really see what their costumes are so it takes away from it being really scary. I hope the dead zone comes back. I found their haunt a lot more fun. It had decor you could take pictures with, lots of sets, and enough actors to make it fun. They also had an area for kid stuff and they only charged $25 the last time we went in 2019. I really miss the Swank Farms haunted houses too, they were super fun, especially the year they did the alien theme and had people on stilts walking through the corn maze, alas, it looks like those days are over for now. Also beware purchasing shirt merch for fear overload. The site said they had sm to xxl merch . You can't pre order the size but they assure you they have all sizes that you can get onsite. So when we walked in I asked where we got our shirts and they told us at the end of the haunt. When I got to the end I didn't see a booth for shirts so we ended up walking all the way out and had to ask security where the shirts were. They made us walk all the back to the exit and then a staff member came out and said they only had a few sizes left which weren't the sizes I wanted, so now I have the hassle of trying to contact someone to return my purchase. They had no booth with the shirts anywhere so I found that weird. A staff person went running off to a back room, I'm guessing, and brought a few out to show me what sizes they had. They definitely need a better system for selling merch. Overall it was nice to be back at a haunted house attraction after covid lockdowns. Actors are great they just need to provide a little bit better lighting and more involved horror sets along with a better merch setup and they could improve the experience tremendously. They also need a section so people can take pictures with actors or scenes. The price needs to be more affordable for what they currently provide. General admission should be no more than $25 on weekends and fast pass $36-38. And really, even that is really high for 20 minutes of entertainment. If they don't fix the lighting issue I'm not sure I'd pay to go back, unfortunately, so I hope they really fix this because I love haunted houses and we need more of them in the San...

I love Halloween haunts, and will happily spend money on them when they're good. This one was not good.

First of all, promising 2 haunts on the website and delivering 1 is not ok. I felt ripped off. The girl I asked where the other haunt was said "they're combined into one". False advertising on their website claiming there's two haunts.

The production design. I love getting to step into a world where someone has put effort into making you feel like you left the place you came from, that was not the case here. I left one part of the mall, and walked into a dark part of the mall with a sparsely dressed maze full of scare actors. Who all did a great job of scaring us, but the whole haunt I felt like I was mostly walking through sparsely dressed rooms where it was obvious that a piece of furniture or prop was placed to hide a scare actor.

The black curtains were left slightly open and I could see the actors scurrying about making it hard to lean into the illusion of this world they've constructed.

The lighting. I initially liked getting to walk around with a flashlight and appreciated the idea, but realizing that it was going to be the lighting concept through the whole maze and that it allowed you to skimp on the lighting and the atmosphere of the haunt left me disappointed.

My frame of reference for Haunts is Queen Mary's dark harbor in LA and House of Torment in Austin. Which both had great production designs and amazing lighting, atmosphere and even sound design. Which I realize sets my bar high, but fear overload was way too far below it for me not to tell you all about it.

What they did well was that there was a ton of scare actors and they all did a good job and put in a great effort to scare you which I was and made the experience worth bumping up from one star to two. Some of the actors had quite cool costumes as well.

I was so excited to see what they had put together, and ended up feeling like the 1hr drive from SF was a total waste of time, and a waste of money.

I'm sorry to leave a bad review, but I think it's important for people to know what they'll spend their money on as I felt like it was...

Overall my experience with this haunted house is so unprofessional. The entire time I was here the whole thing was very unorganized and it could have been so much better if the employees and people working it were really focused on their jobs. My cousin, her friend, my little sister and I came to go to the haunted house the Saturday before Valentine's Day. We wanted to come and have a good time and expected to only wait about 30 minutes. We got there at 8 and ended up leaving at 11 something because they were taking so long. The website clearly lied about how long we would wait since it said a 30 minute to an hour wait for the standard tickets. The line was so long and took forever to get through. The employees while checking people in with security and getting us through the line were on their phones and goofing off with each other like there wasn't a super long line in front of them. It took much longer than it had to because it was just so unprofessional. It's also a scam with how people in line could have bought express passes for an extra 40$. They barely went forward more than the people with standard tickets. If we would have actually waited as long as we should have then I would have said that it was worth the wait and money but because of the lies on the website it wasn't something that I could say it was worth it. The Haunted House itself was pretty scary only because of the suspense. In general though it could have been better since there weren't as many actors as was expected. I can get that it was covid and it couldn't have been as good but still. Total ripoff with the no-refund thing. Definitely won't be...