The Nest Haunted House

When I went, it was still in Queen Creek, but I definitely wasn’t impressed. Wasn’t the least bit scary. Plus, the pricing was ridiculous, way too overpriced.

As a place to go to w/​your friends and laugh about the ridiculousness of it all, great.
As a haunted house, sub par.
I expected so much more from «one of the scariest haunts in America». I found my way thru the dark portion by feeling along the walls the entire way, why wasnt there anything gross feeling to freak people out? And the train horn… Listen. It is NOT scary to walk by a wall and suddenly be deafened by a loud horn (we heard it over and over from the line). The 2^nd maze seemed like just filler. The hall of mirrors, meh. And Jakob Kells actual house, even more meh.
I know, I know Im totally negative Nancy right now. IMO there were 3, no 4 cool things. 1) The 3^rd maze was admittedly very cool. It reminded me of one I used to go to when I was a kid back east. 2) The bedrrom in Jakob Kells house w/​the contorted girl– awesome. Very Exorcist-​y. 3) The badges that linked to Facebook. Awesome. Im just sad that my zombied out engagement photo that appeared in the house wasnt transfered to my page. 4) Nothing is creepier in scary movies than children. So while the mirror maze was meh, the kids that were in there along w/​the «La la la la la la» music was creepy as hell.
I really expected more «scare» moments.

Not a huge haunted house fan, but I liked this one. They seem to really try to do something new. For example, they use your facebook (if you give it to them) to project pics on the wall of your friends and family on the wall in the house. Scary!

My husband and I, and about 7 of our friends checked this place out a couple of weeks ago. It was a BLAST! We had a great time and we’re actually heading back tomorrow with some family to check it out again. What we did that helped:
1) We bought VIP passes online, and were there so late that their weren’t any lines when we arrived to Rawhide (10:15pm) and no lines when we checked into the Nest (11:20pm) so it probably wasn’t necessary, but I’d recommend buying them online anyways just in case (it’s only a couple of dollars more… well worth saving yourself a headache at the door).
2) We hit up the Margarita stands at least a few times before heading in… that probably helped enhance the experience! (Again, as others have said, it is what you make of it… and a few drinks and a great group of friends can make all of the difference in the world).
Having read others’ reviews, it looks like going later is key. We were probably among the last groups to arrive, so our group was able to stay together and not be herded like cattle. The actors were fantastic considering it was probably the end of a very long day for them. The special effects were great, the rooms were creepy… it was very fun and well worth the money.
If you’re a thrill seeker or just like fun group activities this is the place to go. Not to mention Rawhide itself is a trip, and so fun. Lots of great photo opportunities to bring your cameras (no photos allowed in Nest though) and bring some cash for tasty margaritas and some cool street shopping.

I can’t believe how much fun I had here! This was our second haunt of the night for a friend’s birthday. I love scary things so I led the way in my group and must say I got scared a few times! I loved the costumes, the rooms, the special effects! Some of the rooms get really hot so prepare yourself for that! We went late (11:30p) so there wasn’t much of a line. Well worth the $ 25, wonderful job on this! :-D

I haven’t been to a haunted house since I was in high school (over 12 years ago), but a friend mentioned a group outing and I was all in! I had to leave my girlfriend behind, as she doesn’t like scares — but being a person who appreciates a good horror movie, I was looking forward to jumping a few times. I’ll admit, the folks who work at The Nest — they got me a few times!
First of all, I like the location at Rawhide. If you haven’t ever been, it’s an old west town, used for corporate events and the like — but it’s a great venue for this type of thing. There’s a restaurant /​saloon at the front, so you can have a drink if you’re a bit nervous before the scares (we did exactly that), and there are a few shops and various photo opps throughout, before you get to The Nest.
When you get your ticket, you also get a lanyard with an RFID tag and a card that directs you to register and link up your Facebook account. Don’t miss out on this part! You’ll see some interactive things during the haunted house itself with your name on it, and you’ll get some pics posted to your FB profile (infrared shots of you screaming, if you’re lucky).
I won’t go into much detail on the house itself, as that would be rather spoilery (and nobody should like spoilers). It’s divided into sections, i.e. the dark house, the mirror house, the 3D house (yes, really) among others.
My greatest advice for haunted houses based on my limited experience — make sure you’re going with folks who will have fun with it — it is what you make it. If your friends are there to roll their eyes at everything, then you’re not going to have fun. Just go with the flow and let yourself get scared by that guy around the corner with his eye falling out!

So much fun!
I haven’t been to a haunted house in a long time and thanks to the lovely Andrea and her UYE organizational skills, I gave The Nest a chance and was pleasantly surprised.
The Nest is located at Rawhide, which turns into «Doomstown» at sunset with haunted characters meandering around and a few side shows going on to view. I love this about the Nest because you have plenty to do while your adrenaline level calms down after you complete the haunted house. The Steakhouse & Saloon are both open until 11pm, so those of you who need some liquid courage before and/​or after the scare, hit up the bar for some shots!
We purchased VIP passes ($ 31 online its more at the door) which allowed us to go through twice and skip the general admission ($ 27 online) line. For those waiting in the GA line, the Nest offers a small «freak show» which really consists of young men channeling MTV’s Jackass and opting to staple themselves, shove something through their nose and out through their mouths, and juggle knives for the sake of entertainment.
The haunted house consists of three mazes before you get to the Nest. Each maze upped the intensity level of fright which I loved cause I can be wuss. One maze is completely void of light, you really have no idea where you are going or who you might run into, so chose the bravest to lead. Another maze requires that you put on the supplied 3D glasses and navigate through a trippy clown madhouse. There is one part that requires you to cross through a tunnel, but due to the sensory overload, you can’t help but feel like you are going to fall over. Super cool. I don’t really want to get into too much detail because I want you to experience it all for yourselves, but the quality of the sets, makeup, and actors are exceptional! The have also incorporated technology that makes the experience more personal. When you check in you are given a lanyard to wear and if you register before you enter the haunted house you can check to see your name on tombstones or tv’s as you go through. The attraction also has camera’s to take pictures of you (you can’t see them, no flash used) as you go through and will post direct to your FB wall, pretty neat.
Is it the scariest haunted house in America? Probably not, but its a fantastic time with plenty of startles, screams, and sprints in hopes to get to the next room, only to be cornered by hillbilly pig and people butchers that want you to lick their armpit, haha. If you don’t get spooked easily, you will still have a great time watching the reactions of those that are scared.
Go check it out. See if you scream like a little girl (check) or how fast you can sprint (check).

If you don’t like haunted houses this review will do nothing to help you but if you do it will motivate you to go.
It’s very simple bring a group of friends, several who scare easy, add in a few shots before hand and then go have a blast.
Just make sure you get the VIP passes because the 2^nd time through can be more fun than the first.

The Nest has moved from Queen Creek to Rawhide, and it hasn’t really changed for the better. They still try to tie in the story of Killer Kell, but there’s nothing to do with Kell in the whole house. I think they need to revamp this experience.
Anyways, admission is around 25 I think, but I might be wrong. They offer a fast pass for a couple bucks more, I would recommend it unless you don’t mind waiting. There are three mazes, and they’re all housed inside this big building, which makes it kind of lame. The sets and costumes are decent, but the main problem is that there’s no solid theme throughout the mazes. The creators just pack all horror cliches in one big haunt, and it doesn’t work all the time. Expect to get through all the mazes in 15 – 20, and add time if you’re waiting in line.
All in all, three stars because the sets and costumes are pretty good quality. It’s kinda neat that the Nest is at Rawhide; it brings back memories of the best haunt in AZ I remember, which was the Rawhide haunts back in the day. Minus stars for being expensive and not offering much, and for not having a good theme.

You say dont trust people who give it 1 star because they are from other haunts, and yet you give it 5 stars? If someone gives a haunt 5 stars it is safe to say they work there. No haunt is 5 stars, And i have been to many. there is ALWAYS room for improvement.
Animatronics are cool, but that is it.
the main character is not even in the place, stupid.

With all of the hype about this place, I was sorely disappointed. The only time I got scared was when the chainsaw man was chasing me out. Other than that, meh. It looks like they spent most of their budget on the automated monster outside that would just randomly operate and do the same thing over and over. It was cool, but it would have been nicer if they would have spent the money inside.
The actors weren’t very interactive, although some of the set up rooms were cool. It would have been more amusing if I was a film student interested in horror movie sets than being scared.
Avoid this one, and go to the «Slaughterhouse» in Tucson instead, at least if you are actually interested in being scared :)

This is the scariest haunted house in the country? Who bribed the reviewers? If this is the best this nation can muster, I weep for Halloween.
The Nest has a truly paranormal ability to disappoint. Someone has obviously put a lot of cash and effort into promotion, but regrettably, the only truly frightening element is the cost of a ticket. I’m chalking it up to poor management.
I’m going to dissect why you should keep your cash in your pocket, but I’m leaving out the spoilers (though frankly, I doubt it would detract much from the experience).
Let me start with some positives. The settings are decent, as are the costumes. The Nest clearly has some talented folks working in the background. In particular, several sections make use of props and optical illusions in a manner that would be downright thrilling under other circumstances.
Additionally, the actors are fabulous. They obviously take pride in attempting to induce mental anguish in their patrons. Granted we caught them early in the night, but they were mighty enthusiastic set of freaks.
Their employer, however, does not live up to their standards.
First, the venue is a large agricultural warehouse. This means that the entire haunted «house» is a series of plywood-​partitioned cubicles, most with open ceilings. Ambient noise constantly leaked from adjoining rooms, giving away any kind of surprise the next room might hold. Frankly, it reminded me of the haunted houses my junior high organized in the gym every year – far from enough to suspend my disbelief.
Second, the crowds literally overwhelmed the place, and management clearly values quantity over quality. Patrons were churned through on each others’ tail, seldom giving the actors a moment to resume their positions. How shocked can you be when the same zombie has already jumped out at two different groups only a few feet ahead of you? How disturbing is a butchered corpse when a cluster of text-​messaging teenagers are blocking your path? The fright only diminishes further when you spend most of the experience shoved firmly against a portly stranger’s backside.
And, despite the pace of admissions, there was still a line. Three, to be precise: one at the entry, and two more in the middle. I’d say bring a snack for the wait… but you can’t.
Of course, you could always choke up another ten bucks for the VIP pass, but even the VIPers faced solid (albeit shorter) lines. You can waste your time, or you can waste your money – your choice.
Third, like the majority of Phoenix events, the actual product is a pathetic shadow of its promotion. The website advertises an intricate legend of a local murderer that is apparently totally unrelated to all but the last handful of rooms, and even then, the connection is tenuous. And, of course, the aggressive local advertising campaign keeps the herds flooding in.
And finally… that price tag. Yeesh. Sure, I might pay to go here. Seven or eight bucks, tops. Ten if you catch me on a payday.
But between the outrageous cost and the lingering feeling that I’ve been scammed, I won’t be going next year. Let me know if it ever improves.

Agreed with some of the posters…
This is one of the WORST haunted houses I have ever been to (and every year I go to a few).
At one point, you’re taken into a «hallway» made of chain linked fencing… then your whole party kinda walks through it… around and around… till you get to the end. Oh, no… scary.
Lots of just… walking around. The animatronix were cool… I’ll give them that.
There was this one place, near Fiesta Mall, years ago… that was amazing! Whatever happened to that place?

This was a lot of fun, but a couple of minuses almost ruined the whole experience.
We got the VIPs, so we went through twice. A lot stuff was great, but the 2^nd maze, the pitch dark one was not only bad, but dangerous and just not fun. Not scary, just hard to breathe, hard to navigate and we had a claustrophobic in our group who nearly had a panic attack.
Other than that, it seemed very inconsistent. On our second trip through, i’d say a good 20% of the scares weren’t there. just staff wasn’t there, and some other people in our group were clearly friends with a lot of the people in the mazes, and we were totally ignored.

This whole area where The Nest is located is just awesome. Its themed as a creative old cowboy ghost kinda town… (that’s Jessica lingo so if you don’t get it basically im just saying its very cool). muawhahaha i HEART haunted houses and just anything scary in general. I believe it was $ 25 a person. you could pay VIP as well to get thru the line quicker if you wish. there was a stop on the long walk to the actual Nest. On this walk i encountered a few wonderful/​interesting things. 1) margarita shack… muy bueno! 2) this attraction called The Thing. We paid a dolla to see it… i still am pondering to this day if it was real or not, but i hope my dolla gets put to good use.3) piglets! i know totally not part of the whole being scared thing i was going for but hey, im a girl who is a sucker for anything small and cute.
The Nest is a great haunted house. VERY ORGANIZED and put together very well. You can tell this attraction is something they take seriously and i can appreciate it. Totally absolutely positively recommend!

This is one of the worst haunted houses, I have ever been to. I was highly disappointed, because it got sooooooooo much hype as being scary. The only scary thing about this place was the price you had to pay to get in.
My complaints:
1. The VIP pass is a rip off… you still had to wait to get in. They need to control the amount of sales to make it worth it and they don’t.
2. all their commericals on the radio talk about this scary «Jacob Kell» they do not tie him into the theme or if they do, it’s poorly done.
3. I walked around in this pitch black rooms that were super hot. There was like 3 actors and none of them were scary, 2 of them didn’t even do anything.
4. you had to pay extra to park.
5. IT was NOT scary at ALL!!! I got semi-​spooked twice.
One positive note, they do have a kewl 3D skull room.
Good morning America rated this place one of the scariest haunts in America… they must not have been to very many.
The Nest gets 2 devil horns down from this zombie!!!

WOW! this was one of the best haunted houses i’ve experienced in a LONG time!!! Know I understand why its ranked in the top 10 of haunted houses in the US. The only reason its 4 stars is the price. $ 25 each is a little too much. But I will give them the benefit of the doubt since you do get to walk through what looks like the real wild west (Rawhide). It looked like tombstone. There are bars too, so one for the nerves is no problem.
While your walking to the Nest characters are walking towards you intermittently, and I was caught off guard, which made me scream like a baby. One of the funniest scenes was watching a chainsaw carrying, scarred up guy chase a girl all the way towards the entrance of the park. There was a 30 minute wait in line that passed rather fast with all the commotion of the chain saw massacre. When we got into the building there was a little person rolling around with a Mohawk in a wheel chair, just rolling through the mazes of rope… kinda weird, gave us a taste of what was to come though.
There were several different types of atmospheres such as metal rooms, blacked out rooms, skwishy tube rooms that make you feel like someone just gave birth to you, chain linked mazes that make great use of the scene and the unhitched chain link. The zombies and the monsters are top notch.
One of my favorite parts was the room with the boxes, before the live buried lady in the _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​with _​_​_​_​_​_​_​. I have to give props to the props too! The use of black outs were awesome, but a little too much at one point. I would definitely recommend this place to all.

I don’t know what the 1 star reviewers are thinking. And sadly no headless horseman. But we did have the pleasure of being lead to the VIP line by a mutilated man and his CHAINSAW.
Go to be scared, go to have a good time. You’ll have a great time.
Go early too, it got crowded later, the actors were sometimes exposed before we would reach the area due to the groups crowding.
The only ding I have is for the «side» show, wasn’t feeling it… kinda lame.

This is my first review in a while and it pains me that I have to give my first 1-​star review to The Nest.
First off, I love scary things. Scary movies, haunted houses, ghost stories, you name it, I’m all over it. I actively seek out a good scare and don’t mind paying for it.
Last year me and some friends took advantage of the Sunday deal and went to the Nest when it was in Avondale. It was REALLY good, and I might say that it was the best haunted house I’d been to up until then. Since it was outdoors on a huge lot, it was a lot different than most of the inside/​maze houses you’re used to.
Tonight we drove down and I was kinda feeling the new local. The Nest is nestled in the back of Rawhide so you have to walk a little ways, but there were some photo ops/​concession stands/​games set up along the way. We saw the building and I was pretty excited to see what they would do with it this year.
*Sidenote: there’s no need to «dress up» or wear high heels to a haunted house, I promise. There were tons of girls who looked like they just came from da club*
Not to ruin anything for anyone, but rather than telling the story of Jacob Kell throughout the whole thing, there were 3 «different» sections. After going through the first two, I thought «oh that was just a warm-​up, they’re really gonna do it big at the end». Nope. I feel that it had a lot of potential but that the actors were few and far between, there wasn’t as many «cool special effects» as last year, and there wasn’t really a «wow» factor. and ******SPOILER ALERT****** no chainsaw?! what haunted house doesn’t have a chainsaw… c’mon
Anyways, we walked out and our collective thought was «that’s it?» If you’re looking for a really good scare, I’d suggest looking elsewhere

All right, instead of giving details and fucking up the entire experience of this place for anyone (like finding out that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalkers father before you watch the movie) I will keep this one short and simple and give nothing away. All I will say is before you go through the haunted house is that you are greeted by a headless horseman that kicks some serious ass (and a very, VERY well trained horse)
This place rocks.
All I will say is I went with two of my friends to this place last weekend and I had nail marks these girls dug into my arms and wrists. 3 days later and they are still there. Thanks «Jo»
I will only give advice. Get there early so the line isn’t as long unless you don’t care about waiting. If you pay extra for the VIP line, you can avoid this. I recommend paying it (if you get on their website, you can print off a 2 dollar coupon for the regular deal of 4 bucks off for the VIP. We should have gone VIP) There is a 5 dollar charge to park in the dirt which sucks, but I guess everyone is trying to get theirs.
Once you start the actual haunted house, takes about 30 – 40 minutes to get through at an easy pace. Has about 3 «parts» to it that are all awesome.
Staff here was cool, no jerks working. Seems like they really like what they are doing and if you are getting paid to scare the hell out of people, who wouldn’t.
It is cash only, so come prepared unless you want to use the Rawhide ATM which is worse than most strip clubs.
My friends were scared shitless, I thought it was awesome. Make it happen.