'Tis the season to scare the shit out of people, a dictum Pantera frontman Phil Anselmo knows a little something about. For the sixth consecutive year, the burly baritone has taken residents of Jefferson, La., and journeyman thrill-seekers on a ten-minute journey inside his House of Shock, which he deems one of the scariest haunted houses in the Big Easy area. |

"Our shit's looking pretty good," he says. "It ain't the best yet, but I've seen the other competition around this town and they can't touch us." The House of Shock will officially close the doors on its sixth season of Pantera-style macabre the day after Halloween, after several weekends of exposing HOS dwellers to authentic-looking burned corpses, disemboweled swine and, as Anselmo says, "a crucified deer with his guts spilled out." Where are Paul McCartney and Adam Yauch when you need them?

Last year's House of Shock grossed out so many patrons, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries control board was brought in to check the authenticity of a mauled deer with special effects entrails. The whole thing was a fugazi, though, and this year, some still don't have the stomach -- or bowels -- to make the distinction. "One old man had to be escorted out, all shook up grabbing his heart, [like] 'Elizabeth, this is the big one,'" says Anselmo in his best Fred Sanford imitation. "And we had another grown man lose his bodily functions." And we thought only a Pantera concert could do that.

BLAIR R. FISCHER(October 28, 1998)