Miles McCabe (center) sits with his parents, Rachel and Jesse, on the porch of a 5 Points Haunted House scene. Miles opened the West Chicago haunted house after the McCabes’ home drew 5,000 visitors last Halloween. (Photos by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)
For a kid who at 5 years old was afraid of Halloween, Miles McCabe has come a long way.
The 18-year-old West Chicago resident is now the driving force behind 5 Points Haunted House, a 15,000-square-foot, year-round haunt in his hometown.
“If you told me when he was 5 years old that in 14 years he would be building up a whole Halloween enterprise, I would have said, ‘There’s no way. This kid’s too scared,’” said his dad, Jesse.
Miles admits that pretty much everything about Halloween scared him in his youth.
“Until I knew how the animatronics were made and how they worked, I was scared of them,” he said.
Once that switch flipped, however, Miles was all in.
At age 9, Miles got his first Halloween animatronic, a witch.
“I got it for $60 online. I wanted it the whole season before Halloween, but it was too much for me to afford,” Miles said. “We waited and got it for half off.”
After that, for every birthday and Christmas, he asked for animatronics.
“He doesn’t buy cars. He doesn’t buy anything else,” his dad, Jesse, said. “He puts all his money back into animatronics.”
Miles and his family turned their West Chicago home into a Halloween attraction, beginning in 2014.
Their creation, Lehman Manor, had more than 150 animatronics, drew 5,000 visitors last year and captured the top prize on ABC’s “The Great Halloween Fright Fight.”
“It just outgrew the house. There was so much,” Miles said during an interview inside 5 Points Haunted House. “We actually decorated our front yard. We had a whole garage walk-through. It went around the entire backyard of the house. It just took over. So after that, we moved it here. This
definitely gives us more space.”
Most, but not all, of the McCabes’ neighbors were fans of the family’s work.
Miles McCabe stands in front of the graveyard scene in 5 Points Haunted House.
“I’d say 80 percent of our neighbors loved it and then there was that 20 percent who were like ‘This is getting a little ridiculous,’ which it was,” Miles’ mom, Rachel, said. “The traffic was nuts, so we do understand.”
What awaits
Guests at 5 Points Haunted House can experience 50 animatronic figures in 20 scenes, including the 20-foot-tall Demon Slayer, Colossus, and Ghost Flier, as well as 30 actors.
“This is a very unique experience,” said Miles, a graduate of St. Charles East High School. “A lot of haunted houses focus on disturbing people. There’s a lot of blood and guts. It’s all murder and stuff like that; and someone will jump around the corner and do a jump scare.
“A lot of what we do is no-blood. There’s hardly any, actually. We kind of focus on the psychological side. In one room, which I love — the hotel — we kind of play on people’s minds. We bring their energy down and their guard down, just to bring it right back up and make a weird, intense range of emotions that they feel. That’s what really gets people scared. We’ve had some people say that we have some very, very intense scares.”
The haunted house is located on Roosevelt Road in the former Club 38 and Synergy nightclubs, part of the 45,000-square-foot Bowling Green complex, which has been vacant since 2017.
The 20-foot-tall Demon Slayer towers over a 5 Points scene.
The building has long been a local landmark. Originally part of a prosperous farm, the barn on the property has stood for more than a century and is said to have survived a 1912 fire that claimed the lives of the farm’s owners. During Prohibition, it was rumored to be a speakeasy, and throughout the decades, mysterious occurrences were reported at the site, from ghostly figures appearing to unexplained disappearances.
“The basement is creepy and old, and it’s a 100-year-old building,” Miles said. “People love that part of it.”
Known online as Brick Thunder, Miles has garnered more than 80,000 subscribers on YouTube and nearly 30 million views on his videos. He noted that money generated from his YouTube videos have financed the expansion of his animatronics collection.
Parental pride
Jesse and Rachel said they are proud of what their son has accomplished in creating the haunt.
An arm reaches out from behind a wall in The Hotel at the West Chicago haunted house.
“How often do you get your kid’s dream to come to reality?” Jesse asked. “It’s pretty cool. It’s what he’s wanted to do for close to a decade. He gets to do it at such an early age. To start in the industry with the kind of reputation he already has is great. We’re very proud of him.”
Jesse, who has owned his own business for 18 years, said he is happy to lend his son a hand with operating the haunted house.
“I know some of things that need to be done so that at the end of the day it is a profitable, healthy, growing business,” he said. “He has other plans he wants to do beyond this.”
Miles said the West Chicago haunt is part of a plan he wants to bring to fruition in five to 10 years.
Tyler Gee of Raritan, New Jersey is living with the McCabes, working on and in the haunted house. He and Miles have been friends for more than three years.
“We met online and we share this crazy passion,” Gee said. “I was just going to come down for the opening weekend, but I wanted to come down for two weeks. Now, I am here until Nov. 4.”
“I am happy to help,” said Gee, who works as an actor in the haunted house most days. “It is such a blast. They created something amazing.”
Gee had been doing a home haunt in New Jersey, similar to the McCabes’ effort, but ran into issues with neighbors. When he wasn’t doing a haunt this year, the college student said he figured out a way
to take his classes online and help out his friend.
“It’s fun. We love it. We’re crazy,” he said of the friends’ shared passion for Halloween.
Tyler Gee and McCabe check on a roasted leg of human in an outside scene.
Help has come in the form of set production and actors from Texas and Arkansas, as well as local friends and family.
“We’re surrounded by extremely talented youth,” Rachel McCabe said.
Miles McCabe’s 5 Points Haunted House is at 241 W. Roosevelt Road, West Chicago. Ticket options are general admission for $25, RIP (Really Important Person) for $40, no-scare for $10, General season ticket for $50, and RIP season ticket for $80. For information and to purchase tickets, visit 5pointshaunt.com.
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