A haunted house in middle Tennessee is under scrutiny from the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, which is looking into its business practices.
Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti sent a letter to Russ McKamey, owner of McKamey Manor located in Summertown, which calls itself an “extremely haunted” attraction.
The attraction, according to Skrmetti’s letter, moved from San Diego to Tennessee in 2017 after public outcry over its extreme nature.
Citing a 2019 promotional video that he says depicts customers “getting dragged via heavy chains or locked into confined spaces while water pours in,” Skrmetti let the company, which was featured in a Hulu documentary earlier this year, know that it will be requesting further documentation on its business practices soon.
One of those business practices involves the company’s customer waiver, which Skrmetti’s letter says customers do not have access to before the tour begins.
“Participants do not have access to the lengthy waiver that describes the risks involved with a ‘tour’ before signing up, traveling long distances to Tennessee, or even before the tour begins,” says the letter. “Former participants describe the adrenaline and pressure they felt when reviewing the waiver at the start of the tour. One interviewee from the Hulu documentary stated, ‘I had too much excitement going through my veins at the time. If [the waiver] would have said that a man is going to come out of the woods and murder you during this event, I would’ve signed it.'”
Skrmetti also alleges that customers have no way of stopping the tour if they are too afraid to continue, and notes that McKamey himself has said “we’re known for no quitting and no safe wording.”
Finally, the business might be falsely advertising a cash prize to participants who can complete the tour, according to the letter.
“The supposed $20,000 prize offered to anyone who completes the McKamey Manor ‘challenge’ does not exist and/or is impossible to win,” Skrmetti’s letter says. “When a journalist from the Nashville Scene asked you if anyone has won the challenge, you responded by saying, ‘Of course not, and they never will! Because it’s so mentally and physically challenging. But it will be the most exciting thing you’ve ever done.'”
The haunted house attraction denied allegations of abuse after being run out of San Diego in 2019, but almost immediately after it relocated to Tennessee, a change.org petition was circulated to have the operation shut down.
“Advertised as ‘an extreme haunt’ when in fact it is NOT a haunted house,” the petition, which garnered more than 191,000 signatures, says. “It’s a torture chamber under disguise. Reportedly, they do screenings to find the weakest, most easily manipulated people to do the ‘haunt.’ It’s reported that if russ [sic] doesnt [sic] think you’re easily manipulated, you arent [sic] allowed to go.”
“[McKamey] uses loopholes to get out of being arrested,” the petition alleges. “Previously no safe word was allowed, he changed that but there’s been reports that the torture continues even when people repeat their safeword [sic] for several minutes. One man was tortured so badly he passed out multiple times, workers only stopped because they thought they had killed him.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on X / Twitter.
Photo “Mckamey Manor” by mckameymanor.
