Photos: See creatures from one of world's scariest haunted houses

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Photos: See creatures from one of world's scariest haunted houses

Netherworld Haunted House in Norcross, Ga., returns for its 18th season this year.

Haunt World ranks it as having the best actors of any haunted attraction in the country. Yahoo Travel said it's the second most terrifying haunted house in the United States. Buzzfeed names it as one of the most insane haunted houses you should visit before you die.

Netherworld Haunted House returns for its 18th season this year. And 2014 welcomes two new haunts to the Netherworld, Season of the Witch and Spliced.

But before we go into Season of the Witch and Spliced, check out these photos from behind the scenes at the Netherworld.

It takes hundreds of actors and nearly a dozen makeup artists to put together the Netherworld on a nightly basis.

As for this year's haunts, let's just say there are a lot of these noses.

"(Season of the Witch) is a gothic horror show," co-owner Ben Armstrong told wsbtv.com's Nelson Hicks.."There are witches coming at you from every direction."

"Downstairs, we have Spliced," Armstrong continued. "It's a weird science fiction clone experiment. It is very scary. People are terrified in Spliced. It also features a room of white fog that's blowing people's minds."

Co-owners Armstrong and Billy Messina recently pulled back the curtain on the Netherworld and showed local media the ins and outs of the action-packed haunt. In October, Netherworld employs over 340 people, 125-150 of whom are working on any given night. At last count, Netherworld had over 3,000 costumes, many of them one-of-a-kind. Every day at Netherworld starts with the laundry. They have to wash nearly every costume every day.

"When we began Netherworld, we wanted it to be different," Armstrong said. "We didn't do things found in movies. We were more based on mythology and literary sources, just weirdness out of our own brains. We love to bring something different. We've got to give you what you want in a haunted house, but we want to give you what we want, something you haven't seen, but we're going to have chainsaws, too, so you're happy."

And that desire to be different has led Armstrong and Messina down some strange paths.

"We get pieces from everywhere," Messina said. "Some of us on staff used to work in the film industry, so we have a lot of stuff that has come from our archives. We've built a lot of it custom, but a lot of it comes from weird places. We've bought out museums of natural history, so really odd stuff that, why is that in a haunted house, it belongs here, if it belongs anywhere, it belongs here. We go to auctions. Anywhere, on the side of the road, there's cool stuff everywhere."

While the name remains the Netherworld year after year, Messina emphasizes the haunts are totally different from the past. There are new themes, new sets, new props, a new path, but many of the fan favorites remain year-to-year.

And is it turns out, Netherworld might actually really be haunted.

“We recently hosted Roswell Georgia Paranormal Investigations and they concluded after a multi-hour investigation that there is actual paranormal activity happening at the haunt,” Messina said. “It brings new meaning to the tag haunted house, don’t you think? When you set foot in this year’s haunt, you will experience an unparalleled surge of adrenaline knowing this really is one of the spookiest places on earth.”

And Armstrong and Messina suggest to bring a friend on a visit to the Netherworld. Sure, the monsters could eat your friend rather than you and that's always a plus, but there's something about traveling to the Season of the Witch and Spliced with friends.

"Haunted houses are, it's a group thing," Messina said. "It's a bonding experience. You go with your friends. You laugh. One person in the group is always going to get scared. One person is always going to be like this and say, 'I'm never going to get scared.' Invariably, we hope to scare that one person, but everybody feeds up each other and you have a great time."

Netherworld is open every night through Nov. 2 and then Nov. 7 & 8.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

Here are some more photos from Netherworld in Norcross.

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Haunt World ranks it as having the best actors of any haunted attraction in the country. Yahoo Travel said it's the second most terrifying haunted house in the United States. Buzzfeed names it as one of the most insane haunted houses you should visit before you die.

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