horror amusements: ghost train stunts
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Even if you aren’t into horror amusements, as a horror fan, once you know one type that clicks with you, you are probably going to become enthusiastic, instead of taking them just as a passing amusement only.

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It is natural for horror fans to cherish horror amusements.

For many fans of the horror genre, every day is Halloween. But for a certain niche of the horror fandom crowd, to live in an environment of Halloween every day is not enough.

That’s because some horror fans have different needs, one of them being live horror amusements. Try as you might, every day can’t be go-to-the -amusement-park day unless you work in one.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t focus on these things and incorporate live horror amusements as a fixture in your daily, weekly, or monthly rest, relaxation, and recreation time.

Horror Amusements and You… Win-Win?

horror amusements: portable ghost train
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I remember the long summer months of my childhood, waiting to go to the amusement park, and then when the long-awaited day came, finding that the ephemeral quality of the dark rides and horror amusements coupled with the limited time to spend in the park were never enough to satisfy my longing for an existence that included the wonderful, exciting and especially eerie sensation I got from amusement parks in general and dark rides in particular.

Example: Theme Park Horror Amusements

outside ghost train
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If you are a horror fan, I bet that horror theme park rides, especially the ghost train and similar amusements with a horror theme, were always among your favorite amusements. They were mine, with the penny arcade creepy amusements at the park a second best.

Still, the ghost train, the funhouse, and walk-in dark rides weren’t the only things that caught my attention in my childhood’s visits to amusement parks. I voraciously devoured with my eyes everything that came into my path while having fun at theme parks. After some time, I realized that there always was a common thread between the most artistic rides, one leading example of them being horror amusements, and other overlooked and underappreciated corners of the theme park.

Amusement parks are there to amuse you, after all, so I found a handful of pleasurable things unrelated directly to horror in amusement parks, but that I still think are interesting or desirable for horror fans. I’m talking about small details, like the kinds of coin-op astrology, graphology, numerology, and fortune machines, the motifs in the coin-op shooting gallery, or the aesthetics of the props used in the skill games in the concession stands.

Now, a lifetime after those treasured moments, I realized that maybe, the greater part of the excitement I felt when experiencing theme parks, in general, was an attentive, alert longing for the discovery of new horror-themed, or otherwise artistically excellent rides.

I couldn’t put into words back then what in particular, not taking on account horror-theme rides, was that something that excited me of theme parks, and that I enjoyed along with the horror sights inside and outside dark rides. It’s still difficult to define, but I would say other than horror, several of the theme parks I visited had bizarre, ecstatic, and wild artistic edges/details that I guess most people overlook but I took in back then, and that I still remember.

To have thought, for ages, about the compound effect that theme parks produced on me, the wild, rough edges, and (what for me was the capstone of amusement parks) the horror games and dark rides, made me think a lot of things.

It also generated niche needs, like for instance, to know more about amusement parks in general and dark rides in particular, to play business simulation video games about theme parks, or to become interested in the homage given by fans to dark rides that one can find in the metaverses.

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All Kind of Horror Amusements Welcome

horror amusements / Profondo Rosso Store by Shadowgate https://flickr.com/photos/shadowgate/25935837212
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The horror amusements I named in the last paragraph of the previous section of this article aren’t everything.

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the horror amusements industry has evolved a great deal and its flourishing has demonstrated that there is a big, big demand for all kinds of horror amusement.

Seasonally, things explode around Halloween, as it should be, and that’s the best time of the year to get an idea of who is at the forefront of the horror amusements industry and movements.

I separated the horror amusements industry from movements because it’s not cool to just cover commercial attractions and leave out small-scale, cottage-grade, and amateur efforts in the horror amusements department.

I’m still yet to find a site that works as a directory for both classic and innovative horror amusements, what to say of a site that offers and advertising venue functionality for free like this site?

Free Promote Your Horror Amusement

horror amusements / Profondo Rosso Store by Shadowgate https://flickr.com/photos/shadowgate/25935817682/
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If you want to promote a product or service in the niche of horror amusements you can submit your promotions to this section of Shock Depot.

You can create a page offline with your promotion and your brand styling, and then paste it in the editor, using the code tab in the editor.

Since it is your content, you should be able to style it any way you want to, and not be tied to dress your promotion on Shock Depot’s style. That would make each contribution too generic and probably unattractive.

If you want, you can leave the original style, in that case, your contribution will look more like a part of the website and not as derivative.

You can upload images and photos, but if you are going to enrich your content with videos, please embed them from somewhere else.

You also can source media for your content from the Creative Commons photos and images available on this site.

Some Horror Amusement Articles on Shock Depot

© Bholenath Valsan 2021 — Horror Amusements