It's all about the tantalizing tale, linked to real Charleston history, at downtown's newest haunted house in a historic brick building off Woolfe Street. The 17,000-square-foot complex that most recently housed the Woolfe Street Playhouse has a long lineage of business ventures that were once held within its walls, one such brand stamped in black lettering upon its facade. Meddin Bros.
was the meat packing company that occupied the industrial space after it originally opened in 1914 as an icehouse. At one point, it was also rumored to house a brothel. Those businesses come into play with the plot that unfolds as part of downtown Charleston's only seasonal scare factory, where costumed ladies of the night and dangling butchered bodies await unsuspecting guests.
Holy City Halloween imagines what might happen if tainted meat made its way through the city of Charleston, and not only poisoned its citizens, but potentially turned them into the undead. "The story began writing itself," event producer Lawson Roberts said of learning of the building's history. In addition to a late-night classic haunted house adventure, Holy City Halloween also offers an earlier-in-the-evening, family-friendly walkthrough for ages 10-17.
For this less-scary version from 5-7 p.m., there is a fortune teller, circus performers, friendly ghosts and a creepy maze, as well as candy apples, popcorn and cotton candy for sale.
Mutated pigs become the Three Little Pigs; the streetwalkers the witches from "Hocu.