Hells Gate review 2021

Halloween Blast went to Hells Gate. When visiting Hells Gate, make sure you park at 301 West 2nd Street, Lockport IL. 60441. This haunt actually has you park at the train station and a bus will take you to the haunted forest,where you can walk up and then enter the haunt.

Tickets are $35 for General Admission, $50 VIP and $65 Instant Entry. There also is a $125 package called a Hell Pass and they will mark one of your friends or family members for the entire tour and just mess with them. That sounds like a ton of fun! Lastly they have a $150 All Access Pass that includes a tour, photo with your favorite character, a t-shirt and lots more! Check out their website to see more details!

As we arrived at Hells Gate, we had to wait in line to buy tickets. Now Hells Gate has a waiting line timer, where it tells you how long the wait time is for General and VIP. I wish more haunts had this, because this is a great addition. As you wait in line, you may not want to wait 90 minutes in general admission. So, you can buy a VIP which could be like 30 minutes. That’s alot better than waiting for 90 mins. It reminds me of Disney World or Six Flags where it tells you how long the wait time is for that ride, but instead it is for a haunted house. Great feature!!

We didn’t see that many line actors because we went on a night they were super busy. They did have line actors just to be clear, but they were in this huge crowd that was under the tent and we just didn’t run into them unfortunately. BUT WE DID RUN INTO MADAME BUNA!!!!!!!! She is the theiving, gypsy woman you will often see lurking around the manor and popping up in the strangest of places. It is always a great time seeing her. We also met her ex-husband at the gates of hell. She said he was ok, and she is still able to work with him…her eyes just wandered too much, so she left him. We love Buna so much, it is always a great time when she is around!!

So it was time to go into the haunted forest. As we walked through the forest, we realize they had made a lot of changes to the forest. They added old school fire lanterns that guide you to the house, which I thought was a nice touch. They also added new props in the forest, like pumpkins and other fall/halloween bits and bobs. While we were looking at all the new stuff they added, a gargoyle scared the living daylights out of Karen!! She screamed so loud, she probably woke up every single creature in the haunted forest. We have no idea where he came from or where he was hiding. This is not the only time they got us. As we were walking into the casket crafting area, the coffin maker scraped his shovel across the floor, making the owner of Halloween Blast jump and curse. Karen almost died laughing seeing David get scared half to death!! It is very hard to scare reviewers because they have been to multiple haunts a year, so for both of them to get scared half to death is like winning a huge award. Great job to those two actors!! After walking through the haunted forest we finally got to the house itself, Hells Gate!!!!!!

As we entered the house, the lights turned off and we were introduced to the twins. Over on the stairs they had their mother watching over us, which was creepy…telling us that the darkness was coming, about a portal that was turning everything inside evil. Luckily, we were escorted out, but we were not safe yet. We had to find our way out of the house through secret passages. We had to make our way through the butcher room, where butcher pigs were chopping up their victims and trying to come after us. What was cool to see is that one or both twins would pop up in random spots in the house as if they were hunting you down. Another room that stood out was the doll room, where dolls were all over the place!! A nice touch is that they had a small doll house that was a  replica of the house we are trying to escape out of!! Once again we ran into the twins, and their mother was with them. Ok…we are now being chased. We made it up to the top floor of the house and had to slide down a slide into the basement. Yes, Hells Gate has a slide which is so much fun except the landing which is kinda rough. We then had to make our way through the mad science lab, afterwhich, you will be instructed to look for a key and you will be given a limited time to find it. If you find this key, your ticket is free!!! No, it is not easy to find this key, you have to search high and low for it. Even in secret spots. This is always fun to do and just to be clear, THERE IS A KEY BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE FOUND IT!!! Alot of people have told us it is fake and there is no key. We just want to let everyone know that yes, there are indeed a couple of keys in that area…you just didnt seach hard enough. Our review team has yet to find one ourselves. Next, we went to the DRAGON ROOM! Karen’s all time favorite! We met the Dragon Queen. She popped out of nowhere and scared everyone! The dragons really get close to you here! It was pretty neat to experience! Karen was too short, but you can almost pet the dragons! We finally made it out of Hells Gate and survived.

Hells Gate is an adventure. As soon as you enter the haunted forest, you are already on an adventure to find the house known as Hells Gate. Once you enter the house, now you have to escape. This is fun and terrifying at the same time. If you don’t get scared, then I’ll guarantee you will have a blast walking though. Like I said earlier, we are reviewers and they even scared us a couple of times which is hard to do!! The design of the house is such a beauty to stare at. Also, this is run by Zombie Army, so you KNOW that the acting is great as well. They keep adding every year, and they even built a midway which has food, alcohol, games and even photo ops for you and your group to enjoy. Hells Gate was closed last year for covid, so they had 2 years to add new features to Hells Gate and will keep adding new stuff to Hells Gate. Who knows what will be next to come out of that portal of darkness? This is an amazing experience. As the great mastermind John Laflamboy said, “Take the advantage! Come find Hells Gate!”