As I stepped out of my car and walked towards the recently opened Azra Chamber of Horrors Haunted House, a multitude of thoughts pondered in my head, as I hadn’t stepped foot inside of a haunted house in a long time.

Would my heart really be racing for the entire duration of the attraction? Would I leave with memories that would last a lifetime?

Azra Chamber of Horrors is a multi-level haunted house attraction that opened up in Madison Heights, Michigan on Sep. 28, 2018. The attraction hasn’t exactly garnered widespread acclaim from critics, as it has only been open for several weeks, but it has garnered 39 reviews on Google, all of which being five-star reviews. The general consensus that I had gathered from skimming through the reviews was that I would be in for 25 minutes of hell.

While hell isn’t exactly the most appealing thing in the world, I was desperately hoping that I would experience just that. I had spent $20 for my ticket after all, and I wasn’t with the notion of just sitting through a bunch of cheap thrills and scares.

As I approached the outdoor ticket booth in the chilly autumn air, I saw a 20 foot-tall, red demon-like creature stumbling around about 50 feet to my left.

My heart dropped.

Would I seriously be strolling through a bunch of narrow hallways for half an hour, manifested with 20-foot-tall demons?

Clearly, this place would live up to the hype.

As I pulled out my phone to show the guy at the ticket booth me and my Dad’s QR codes for our tickets, I felt somebody hug me from behind.

It was that demon that I saw earlier.

The haunted house began before I even stepped inside. Maybe it really would be the real deal.

Upon approaching the line to get into the haunted house, we discovered that they were only letting in one group every couple of minutes, which gave me the impression that each party involved would experience the horrifying haunted house that was advertised without a bunch of other random people; that was kind of cool.

When me and my Dad were finally selected to enter, it was pretty clear that we were in for a ride. Upon entering the haunted house, we were led to a tiny room with an actor hyping up the house, and then we were off.

During the first five minutes or so of the attraction,  it was genuinely worth the price of admission. The actors towards the front of the haunted house did a great job at being especially spooky and really made you feel like you were in a haunted house. I don’t want to spoil it, but both me and my Dad agreed that the beginning of  the attraction was the most worthwhile.

After that, however, it kind of fell flat. The majority of the final 15-20 minutes or so of the attraction mainly aimed to startle, which got kind of stale after a little while. After only about 10 minutes of making our way through the house, we caught up to the group ahead of us, who were slowly making their way through the house. Catching up to this group really toned down the scare factor for us, as we witnessed this group experience all of the different spooks before we experienced them.

After getting through the whole house, we found out that there was a section of the attraction where the actors were to provide you with special glasses which apparently made the special effects and such in the house more vibrant and spooky, but we were never provided with these glasses. Both me and my Dad were pretty disappointed that we never got to experience the attraction with the glasses, but we were told by the group ahead of us that they were cool, but not ground-breaking.

So, let’s get to the main point. Is the Azra House of Chambers experience truly horrifying and life changing like the Google reviews that I had read stated? Absolutely not. Sure, there were some spooky parts of the attraction, and it wasn’t a snooze fest by any means, but it didn’t qualify as a must see attraction, and other options could probably spook you better for the $20 admission.