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Post by Joanna on Mar 25, 2018 20:34:36 GMT -5
The Haunted Museum in Las VegasThe Haunted Museum at 600 E. Charleston Blvd. in Las Vegas opened in October and is described as “a mecca of the macabre,” according to the news release. It sprang from the mind of Zak Bagans, host of Ghost Adventures.
“This is a year-round museum,” Bagans said of the 11,000-square-foot house just off Las Vegas Boulevard that he has stocked full of creepy stuff.
He unearthed much of his collection while filming episodes of the Travel Channel show. “While doing the show, we’ve come into contact with so many different objects that were the focal point of hauntings and triggers for activity,” he added. “These objects carry a lot of energy with them and really intrigued me to learn about objects that are cursed.”
Among the items on display are:
• The Volkswagen van (below) belonging to Dr. Jack Kevorkian, who assisted terminally ill individuals in ending their lives.
• The staircase from the “Demon House” in Gary, Indiana.
• The Dibbuk Box, a reportedly possessed wine cabinet.
• A mirror, purportedly with evil powers, from the Hollywood Hills house that once belonged to actor Bela Lugosi, who starred in the 1931 Dracula film.
“I’ve put some of the most haunted objects in the world inside this already-haunted building,” Bagans continued. “Since the mirror’s been at the museum, I’ve seen skeptics. I’ve seen people that are not familiar with the story,” he said. “I’ve seen a guy look into the mirror and provoke it and then literally drop and pass out on the wooden floor.”
The museum owner assures would-be visitors that, unlike haunted houses full of costumed characters and an overabundance of fake blood, the stories behind each of his artifacts are well-documented. “As a serious collector, I need to investigate an object before I obtain it and showcase it,” he explained. “I will personally fly in the people who have been affected by these objects and meet with them. I’ve interviewed thousands of people over the years.”
According to Bagans, the experience can be so terrifying that visitors are required to sign a release before entering. “I want them to sign that they understand that these objects can cause harm,” he said.
Admission is $34 and no one under 16 is admitted.
Source: Jay Jones, The Los Angeles Times, October 30, 2017.
See also Zak Bagans Displays Painting Created from Charles Manson's Ashes and Zak Bagans Pays $50K for Ted Bundy's Glasses.
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Post by pat on Mar 26, 2018 9:12:45 GMT -5
Ed and Lorraine Warren used to have a haunted museum wherever they lived up in New England and I heard that it was cheesy. I'll bet this one is the same.
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Post by aprillynn93 on Mar 27, 2018 16:39:01 GMT -5
Ed and Lorraine Warren used to have a haunted museum wherever they lived up in New England and I heard that it was cheesy. I'll bet this one is the same. Zak Bagans is kind of trying to set himself up to be the new Ed and Lorraine Warren in a lot of ways. |
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Post by steve on Mar 27, 2018 18:23:57 GMT -5
Zak Bagans is kind of trying to set himself up to be the new Ed and Lorraine Warren in a lot of ways. Didn't the Warrens have a nephew who was supposed to take over after they died? |
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Post by Sam on Mar 27, 2018 22:37:22 GMT -5
Why would Dr. Kervokian's van be haunted?
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Post by aprillynn93 on Mar 28, 2018 18:31:07 GMT -5
Zak Bagans is kind of trying to set himself up to be the new Ed and Lorraine Warren in a lot of ways. Didn't the Warrens have a nephew who was supposed to take over after they died? Yes, his name is John Zaffis, and he did take over their collection of haunted objects. He had a show for a little while called Haunted Collector. |
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Post by aprillynn93 on Mar 28, 2018 18:45:26 GMT -5
Why would Dr. Kervokian's van be haunted? Zak thinks that because he used it to conduct assisted suicides, it has some kind of "energy" attached to it. |
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Post by kitty on Mar 28, 2018 22:45:43 GMT -5
Zak thinks that because he used it to conduct assisted suicides, it has some kind of "energy" attached to it. |
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Post by aprillynn93 on Mar 29, 2018 20:54:10 GMT -5
Zak thinks that because he used it to conduct assisted suicides, it has some kind of "energy" attached to it. I agree. It doesn't make sense that they would hang around Dr K's van just because they died in there. I would think that if anything, they would be happy to be dead and free of their suffering, and go back to where they were happy in life. |
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Post by JoannaL on Jun 4, 2019 20:20:52 GMT -5
A Visit to Zak Bagans' Haunted MuseumLAS VEGAS – Unbeknownst to many visitors, a few miles off the Las Vegas Strip is a haunted and historical artifact museum operated by Zak Bagans of Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures. The building housing the museum has supposedly been haunted for years. It was built in 1938 and owned by businessman Cyril S. Wengert and rumor has it that back in the 1970s, dark rituals took place in the basement. According to the tour guide stationed outside the front door, the mansion at one point was turned into a law firm, where strange occurrences continued. Then it was purchased by Bagans and converted into The Haunted Museum.
The guide, after we signed a waiver, warned us of the dangers that awaited inside, with guests having reported oddity after oddity. One guest, he claimed, looked into Bela Lugosi’s haunted mirror, displayed behind a black curtain, and his eyes began to bleed. At that point, the museum guides allegedly began to light sage. Upon hearing this, I turned to my friends and told them that if my eyes began to bleed, I’d like them to call a doctor before pulling out the sage.
As a whole, the museum is simply one gimmick after another. The journey begins by waiting roughly 45 minutes in line outside as an employee called “Angry Joe” makes small talk with some of the guests. He’s wearing a top hat and eerie music plays, making me feel a little bit like I was standing in line for The Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World.
Once the tour starts, the Disney-esque feel of the place doesn’t go away. In the first room, Zak Bagans has set up an animatronic version of himself behind a glass case, like the “Zoltar” machines found in arcades along many boardwalks. Once turned on, the animatronic Zak’s eyes light up green and his voice rings out, telling us of the adventure that awaits us. The guide who took us into the room then explains this is a serious museum, with seriously dangerous spirits and demons inside, and if we wish to opt out of any of the rooms, we can. Thus begins the 33-room adventure.
The gimmicks don’t stop there. Zak Bagans, it seems, has employed a number of little people throughout the museum, some in masks, and some dressed as clowns, even creating a miniature-sized door for one of them to pop in and out. The whole thing felt uncomfortable and offensive in many ways – like a callback to the classic “freak show,” in which people’s disabilities are put on display in a kitschy manner for the amusement of visitors.
Every few rooms had a different guide and for some of the rooms – those deemed the most dangerous – the guides would ask visitors if they’d like to opt out. One such room houses Peggy the Doll, who is supposedly possessed by an evil, demonic spirit. Peggy is encased in a glass box with a speaker in front of it. The guide asked Peggy innocuous questions and a few muffled sounds came from the speaker. According to the museum guides, looking into Peggy’s eyes could cause you to have a heart attack as has allegedly happened on at least one occasion. Of course, they didn’t consider the multitude of other possibilities that could have led to the heart attack: cardiac arrhythmia, high blood pressure, stress .... Peggy probably had nothing to do with it.
Truly though, the most disturbing aspect of the tour was the Celebrity Deaths room. Bagans, as he claims, has collected a number of artifacts belonging to dead celebrities, such as the chair (pictured above) in which Michael Jackson died, along with an old passport belonging to Patrick Swayze. Also in that room was a Polaroid picture acquired from one of the police officers who was present at the site of actor Chris Farley’s death. Farley died of a cocaine and morphine overdose and the photograph, in extremely poor taste, features his dead body. The image was sickening, shocking and horrifying, which I’m sure was exactly the effect Bagans was going for. But it also shows an utter lack of respect and empathy for the actor, who surely did not want his dead body on display for visitors in a gimmicky haunted artifact museum. All in all, I was completely disgusted by the tactless choice to include the image.
Before visiting the museum, I had no idea who Zak Bagans was and the friend who brought me mentioned he sometimes popped in to give a tour. Upon arriving, a museum guide said Bagans likely wouldn’t be there that day, but to our surprise, in the second to last room before the end, Bagans stood before us in a pair of thick-framed Ray Ban eyeglasses and a black, velvet flat-brimmed baseball cap. My friend had shown me his photo before our visit and if not for the signature glasses and flat-brimmed cap, I would not have recognized him. Oddly enough, Bagans-as-guide was the most lackluster part of the tour. He detailed the history of the haunted artifacts quickly in an almost monotone voice, at one point forgetting the word “cremated” and asking, “What’s it called ... incinerating the body?” My friend then had to correct him with the proper terminology. He left quickly and a few minutes later, while exploring the gift shop, we could hear the loud rev of an engine outside and someone in our tour group later said, “You just missed Zak leaving in his Lamborghini.” I wonder if Bagans himself felt the presence of the supernatural that day – which he claims resides within the rooms through which we’d just ventured – because he fled the site as though making an escape, leaving groups of tourists perplexed and, in my case, dissatisfied.Source: Deena ElGenaidi, Hyperallergic, February 28, 2019.
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Post by pat on Jun 5, 2019 16:25:31 GMT -5
I totally disagree with this author. Celebrities are always in the limelight, even at home, and everything about them gets reported, so when they live dangerously, overdosing on drugs, or whatever, they take the risk of having photos of their bodies ending up in newspapers and on the internet. That's the price of being a celebrity.
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