BY CHARLES BATTERSBY | The only thing that can make a haunted house more fun is surrounding yourself with people who have a chemically induced loss of impulse control. House of Spirits is an aptly-named source of cocktails and ghost tales. The experience covers five floors of a mansion in the Wall Street district, and each floor of the building holds increasingly scary experiences, for the increasingly drunk audience.

Attendees will get back what they put into this experience. There is a story to the (fictionally) haunted manor. On the lower levels of the house, the cast of spooks will interact with the audience, and even take people aside to privately provide riddles and stories that explain the backstory. Because each room has a bar with a unique cocktail, many people attending could be observed to blow right past the cast without bothering to learn the story, in their quest for the next beverage.

People can explore the rooms at their leisure; it takes about an hour to blast through all five levels, but attendees can spend up to two hours exploring. This is handy for people who want to pace themselves in terms of alcohol consumption, or to stop and enjoy the traditional cabaret style performances in the lower rooms.

It culminates with an escape-room style haunted house on the top floor, where each room is inhabited by a monster who can only be appeased by solving a puzzle within the room. Those who interact with the cast along the way up will recognize some of the beasties on the top floor from the hints given along the way.

COVID precautions currently require attendees to have proof of vaccination, and to wear a mask when entering. Masks can be removed minutes later as soon as the first drink is served.

The price of admission includes four drinks, with a VIP pass that adds a fifth. While it is possible to enjoy the event sober, as a regular haunted house, the upper floors are best enjoyed with a boisterous crowd of tipsy monster hunters. For people looking for “Grammable” adventures, this has a quite few places to snap pics, but some of the monsters are a little camera shy. Click here for tickets and info.

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