Krampus Invades Denver’s 13th Floor for the Holidays

Denver, Colorado is the site of another one of 13th Floor’s various locations, and as such, received a holiday overhaul this year with Krampus: A Haunted Christmas. While eight different cities and locations share the same name and theme, it’s important to note that they’re all still their own bespoke haunts, with their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. To that end, Denver’s 13th Floor isn’t just the best Christmas haunt around, it could build a strong case for being one of the best walkthroughs in the country during any season.

(Photo: Tyler Davidson)

The 13th Floor’s Krampus variant boasts many of the same aesthetic choices as any other holiday haunt when looking on from the outside. There are Christmas lights abound, decorated trees dotting the queue, and warped holiday standards populating the soundtrack. Cookies even line a table inside the front of the haunt, with all of these elements coming together to set a proper festive atmosphere.

Once inside, however, the sheer scope of the 13th Floor is nearly unparalleled. Guests wade through waist-high inflatable walls in the very first room, a flat plane of laser lights creating a false surface, as demented snowmen reach their twig arms out to snatch them up. Effects like these are used at various points in the haunt to create wonderfully disorienting sensations; another room is designed to look like the cargo hold of a ship, with steeply angled floors and a tremendously talented actor creating the illusion of a swaying vessel.

(Photo: Tyler Davidson)

It’s easy for many holiday-themed haunts to fall victim to the same pitfalls, namely that there’s simply not enough to separate it from its normal Halloween fare. This is thankfully far from the case with the 13th Floor, as the sets and costumes are so elaborately decorated, it seems as though it was built specifically for just a few weekends in December. One snow-covered street looks for all the world like it’s meant to evoke Victorian England at Christmas time, while enormous animatronic Krampuses punctuate some of the bigger rooms.

The size and scope of the 13th Floor also means that many more scareactors, which contributes to the overwhelming feeling that safety from the scares is simply out of the question. From bungee-jumping elves to the ghosts that visited Ebenezer Scrooge, right on down (or up) to a demonic elf on a shelf, the cast never once lets up in either their numbers or their intensity.

(Photo courtesy of Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group)

The 13th Floor is part of a haunt franchise, one of numerous locations across the country, but this location in particular deserves to be spoken of all on its own. Inside one of the biggest and most elaborate walkthrough haunts in the country, the scares descend without a second’s hesitation and don’t let up until guests are well past the “Exit” sign. If Denver, Colorado wasn’t necessarily considered an epicenter for unimaginable fear before, the 13th Floor may just change that before too long.

For more information on 13th Floor’s Denver location, visit www.13thfloorhauntedhouse.com

For more information on the various locations of Krampus: A Haunted Christmas, visit www.krampushauntedchristmas.com