Nightmare at 3008 — Local services in Fultondale

My wife & I are haunted house junkies. So far this season we have been to 10 haunted houses. 4 in the Atlanta area and 6 in Alabama. These include: Netherworld, Nightmar's Gate, Paranoia, Folklore, Atrox Factory, Hellbilly Hollow, Hollis Haunted Chicken House, Insanitarium, Sloss Furnace, & here. This is my review on Nightmare 3008. . Nightmare 3008 “Great Hands On, Low Budget Haunt” (7.5 out of 10) (Wednesday night) Total time on site: 46 Minutes…….Total time in Haunt(s): 16 minutes (2 sections) . To be honest we weren’t going to make the drive to Fultondale for a small haunt we had never heard of before. I grew up in the Gardendale/Fultondale area and I knew the building used to be Pine bowl that had been purchased and turned into escape games/haunted house. My first thought was that their main source of income is the escape games and the haunt is an afterthought to generate extra revenue. (These were all my assumptions based on no facts) . We arrived and there were barely any cars in the parking lot and most of the people inside were employees. Everyone was very nice and we had some casual conversation with the staff. Once we paid we were instructed to go outside and around the side of the building and to look for a big guy. So we walked around to someone who appeared to be a big guy. He walked us to the start of the haunt and then he started telling us about how the haunt got started 4 years ago a few miles away at his previous location, how he had outgrown that space and purchased this building and made a haunt out of half of it. He then told us some other things to get us in the mood of getting scared (such as this is a hands-on, very aggressive, physical haunt). We walked in and the haunt started with a tarot card reading concept. (I didn’t care for this because of the witchcraft and mystic roots). We then entered the haunt which was apparent from the beginning that it was a low budget haunt. There isn’t a lot of expensive props, animatronics, special staging or detailed scenes. However, what they lacked in expensive scenery they made up for good lighting effects, setups meant to confuse you, good timing by actors/actresses, grabbing, touching, & holding. There were several times when monsters would come from multiple directions and surround us giving us no logical path of exit except through them. We entered a room with multiple doors and an old man holding a flashing bunny. He told cheesy jokes, but it made for a good mix of scary and fun. Later we entered a white room with bright lights and full of fog. It was impossible to see where we were going for the first minute until our eyes adjusted and we then were able to feel and sorta see our way out. I won’t elaborate on the whole experience, but I will say that the actors were well placed and spaced so that we never felt like it was understaffed. We enjoyed the physical nature of the haunt and while they did touch and grab it was never inappropriate or out of line with what would be considered appropriate for a haunted house. Honestly, every haunted house would be better if this degree of touching was standard. They also offer a light up pumpkin stick that they call the “Sissy Stick” for people who prefer not to be touched. After exiting the haunt the owner asked us how we liked it and we stood there talking with him and several staff for about 15 minutes. . The overall experience at Nightmare 3008 was very good. Between the reasonable price for tickets, the backstory of the owner and the haunt, the physicalness, the layout, and the actors it was a very good haunt…despite it being a low budget setup. As the haunt grows and the owner is able to put more money into props, effects, etc it is assumed that it will only get better. I highly recommend people to check...

It was just OK for me. Parking was crazy so I just pretended to find a parking spot and parked there. Luckily nobody blocked me in. Several cars were blocked in by desperate parkers. There is one attraction. It's not like there's a haunted house and a hayride. No, it's just the one haunted house. And it seemed like they were business partners with Eastaboga Manor haunted house. There were signs up advertising the place. On the plus side, I came with cash. The cash line was much shorter than the online purchase line. Still, the line moved really slow. Once I got closer I found out why. They were letting people enter in groups and had color-coded poker chips associated with the groups. They didn't have enough for all the people.

If you come here, get here early.

A couple of creeps wandering through the crowds outside to keep things interesting. It wasn't clear whether they were admitting the previous green chip people or my green, so I went in with the first group I saw. There were a lot of people waiting around and stuff. I wasn't going to play that. Once inside, they really didn't seem to care what color my chip was. I'm in!

Some guy gives the rules way too fast to hear. I think that was part of the scare. There was a girl in our group with a short skirt on, and all the monsters were way too friendly with her. I started out in the front of the line (by accident) and it seemed like all the jump scares took place just behind me. So I worked my way to the middle of the group. It didn't improve much.

There was a lot of up and down to make the haunt longer, but I'm not sure how much it added. There was one part on the catwalk where the monster was bouncing around. That was a bit freaky. At several points you would pass by people in other groups going the other direction just on the other side of the wall. And after you get out of the warehouse portion there was a considerable amount of haunt outside. You come out near the entrance, to the left. I guess my biggest problem with the place was the number of tight mazes. They were dark, tight switchbacks where you can't really tell where you're going, but few monsters in there. They could have monstered it up a bit more. They just kept going. It was a lot like being in line for tickets all over again. Tons of dark switchback mazes made of old warehouse palettes. You just gotta feel around to know where to go.

Once I got out, the line had increased drastically. There was a new longer line before you get to the split for the cash and online purchase lines. If I had waited in the longer line for 2 hours just to find out I could have gotten in the other line all this time I would have been quite upset. Nobody blocked my car in, so I was able to drive away...

I’ve been going to other haunted houses in alabama for years and decided that I wanted to try somewhere new and I am so glad I did. Nightmare at 3008 is absolutely amazing. The staff is friendly, the prices are fair, and the actors are absolutely incredible.

I feel as though this is the longest haunted house I’ve been to in alabama, so you definitely get your moneys worth. You can tell that the actors genuinely like what they do which makes the experience so much better. This is the first haunted house I’ve been to that had sliders which was so exciting! They have both alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks and food options to enjoy while you wait. Nightmare at 3008 is officially my favorite haunted house in alabama, and I will be eagerly waiting to go again next year.

My only advice would be to do more/better advertising because I didn’t know Nightmare at 3008 even existed until I started looking for other options in alabama and no one I asked knew about Nightmare at 3008. Could easily be the most popular haunted house in alabama if more people knew about it. Wish I could rate it higher...