USS Nightmare 2014 Review

Ratings Legend

(1 skull) – Poor
(2 skulls) – Average
(3 skulls) – Good
(4 skulls) – Excellent
(5 skulls) – Best of the best!

USS Nightmare: Newport, KY

Hank
As a seasoned haunt enthusiast with almost 20 years of reviewing experience, I love coming back to the USS Nightmare for a truly unique thrill! With such a unique venue and location, the setting is second to none. The old boat gives you chills before you even step aboard. USS Nightmare gives you a much longer than average experience. The length of the haunt is outstanding, but they don’t sacrifice quality in being one of the longest haunts I have toured. Each section of the boat is perfectly dark, creepy, and full of scares around each turn. The professionalism of the actors, costumes, and makeup always impress me. The USS Nightmare is a perfect blend of live actors, props, and lighting. What USS Nightmare gets right where so many other haunts fail is they build you up to each scare. You have many dark areas where you can barely see, and can either hear or see outlines of someone stalking you, but you aren’t quite sure where or when they will come out. They build the suspense extremely well, and really make you experience the fear of the unknown. USS Nightmare has continued to maintain its place as one of the premiere haunted attractions, and I would definitely recommend making a stop there during the 2014 haunt season!

Frightmaster
This is one of our favorite haunts in the tristate and continues to impress with new scares each year. We visited the USS Nightmare on a dark, foggy Wednesday evening and that mixed with the spectral image of the derelict boat sitting by the edge of the riverbank gave me chills before I even approached the ramp. The rain drizzled down and the creepy music played from the boat as we interviewed Allen Rizzo, General Manager of the USS Nightmare, about changes to this season’s haunt.

Next it was time to enter the boat. Strange ghouls stalked our every move and beckoned us to “go visit the Captain” so we had no choice but to comply. Once inside the boat, we were greeted by a seemingly normal individual who spoke a little about the boat and cautioned us against touching “his things” and then surprised us with a **** (can’t spoil it!) before we moved on.

We wound our way around many, many (SO many!) different areas with both actors and animatronics meant to startle, surprise and scare us . The blend of actors and animatronics seemed to work very well this year as it added confusion as to who/what was real and what was robotic.

There were a few new areas, some additional “dark areas” that were very disorienting and creepy, and the addition of much more fog than I remember in the past.

All in all, I have to say that I think this years USS Nightmare was one of the best versions in many years, if not THE BEST! It was both scary, creepy, unexpected, long, great actors, nice interaction with the reviewers (the doctor in the one experiment scene was great!) and all around very entertaining! I can’t say it enough – if you haven’t been to the USS Nightmare yet – GO! Pick a rainy, foggy night during the week to get the total ambiance, but bring a buddy. This haunt is not to be visited alone!

Overall score: 4.50 Skulls (Excellent)

Visit their web site at www.ussnightmare.com