BuzzFeed ranked this Utah haunted house No. 3 in the nation. Here’s why its founder says that it’s ‘alive’
The founder of Fear Factory, Rob Dunfield, told me on Friday night that this Salt Lake City haunted house recently experienced an earthquake. It ruptured the tower and cracked the foundation. He explained that ever since then, strange rumblings have been happening. Upon investigation, he found that the foundation was cracked open, and a huge living thing was lurking behind the wall, feeding off of fear. He said, “The factory is alive.”
Fear Factory opened in 2011 and is one of the biggest haunted houses in Utah, with six buildings and two underground passageways, and stretching six stories high. It was ranked the No. 3 best haunted house in the world by BuzzFeed and top 10 in the U.S. by USA Today.
Dunfield believes that Fear Factory’s impressive size and methodology is what sets it apart from other haunted houses.
He explained the haunted factory’s route: Customers walk all the way to the top of the tower (six floors), across the catwalk, cross the ceiling of the entire building and go back down across the main floor. It has both indoor and outdoor spaces.
Fear Factory focuses on giving each person a psychological experience by playing to phobias. As I went through the haunted house, I saw clowns, dentists, height, darkness, small spaces, references to being buried alive and hospitals. Dunfield said to expect more to be added over time. He said, “We have a little section of spidery places, but no big areas of big bugs or snakes. Maybe we’ll put some real bugs and snakes in there next year.”
Some nights bring in bigger crowds than others, making it difficult to have one consistent approach to scaring. On the weekend, the Factory depends more heavily on jump scares, while on nights with a slower crowd, costumed staff can have more dialogue with customers.
How did Rob Dunfield get into the Halloween business?
There’s no question: Dunfield is a successful businessman. The lines are long and the customers are still happy over a decade since Fear Factory opened. However, Dunfield didn’t go to school for the Halloween business. He studied exercise physiology. When he’s not expanding operations in the bug department at Fear Factory, he runs Holladay Health and Fitness.
Dunfield explained that while his holiday business seems like an unusual addition to his professional life, his passion for Halloween began at a young age. His father, Bob Dunfield, put on haunted houses during the 1970s and ’80s while Rob was growing up. Bob Dunfield was the chairman of the March of Dimes Haunted House, which operated from the early 1980s until 2015 to fundraise for women’s health and pregnancies.
The family did Halloween “for about 20 years until I went to college, and then later fast-forward about 10 or 15 years, we wanted to do haunted houses again. So we did this,” Dunfield explained.
I asked if Bob had been through Fear Factory, and Dunfield said that his father was there that night. He’s very proud and “he loves coming down,” Dunfield said. He goes a few nights a year.
Though Bob Dunfield led operations for other haunted houses for many years, these days he prefers to just come and observe.
Fear Factory is a family business
Since Rob Dunfield followed in his father’s footsteps, I asked if he thinks one of his daughters will carry on the Dunfield Halloween legacy. He laughed.
“I don’t know. I have five girls,” he said. “They love coming, and they’ve all worked here over the years in different things from acting to concessions, ticketing, and now mostly they just like coming here with boys and going through.”
His sister worked concessions that night, and a few other friends and close family members work various jobs and his wife does customer service.
Dunfield explained that his wife “learned it on the fly. She is a genius. She went and worked for Comic Con for a while and did a lot of their marketing and their promotions and a lot of their HR stuff, and it gave her a lot of background, and it’s helped us a lot.”
When Dunfield isn’t busy with administration, he enjoys dressing up and helping out the scare crew. He usually dresses up at least a couple times a year.
Fear Factory reviews: Here’s what people thought
I went through the haunted house with a father and his teenage son whom I hadn’t met before. The dad told me his son absolutely loved everything scary. At some points during the course, the dad would fall a little behind, and his son would wait behind a wall to scare him. I asked them at the end what they thought of the experience, and the dad said he gave it a 10/10 as it was and a 12/10 with his son’s jump scares.
In the selfie section by the entrance, I talked to a couple who brought their teenage boys to Fear Factory. I asked what the parents’ favorite part was, and the mom laughed and said, “We just like hearing them scream.”
Another woman told me her favorite section was toward the end of the experience walking through a small, brightly lit corridor. It was so filled with fog, you couldn’t see your hand outstretched in front of you.
My favorite part of the whole experience was the circus section. Before entering that section, a clown hands out 3D glasses. The bright neon paint jumps out at you as you wander your way through the maze.
How much are tickets and how long will Fear Factory be open?
Fear Factory will be open until Oct. 31, and opens again on Friday the 13th weekends throughout the year. Tickets can be bought on the company’s website, and general admission starts at $29.99.
