Doc Wilkes House of Horrors: Serving up 20 years of Halloween frights

Published 5:20 am Thursday, October 13, 2022

Doc Wilkes House of Horrors in Longview has been scaring up frights for 20 years. The haunted attraction is open each weekend in October through Halloween.

If you dare enter the house, you’ll likely find yourself face to face with Shrimp the Doll Face, The Butcher, Thirsty, Sack Head, Crisco the Clown, Doc Wilkes or any other characters who might be roaming the property.

Legend has it, in the early 1980s, Doc Wilkes performed white noise torture on his victims. He was eventually arrested and later moved to an insane asylum. After nearly a decade in the asylum, the mad doctor was being moved to another asylum, but along the way, the bus crashed and caught fire.

The doctor was believed to have died in the crash, but in reality, he might have taken up residence in some abandoned trailers on Market Street in Longview, and that is where he later died. But his body was never found, and now Doc Wilkes and his victims haunt the land.

Jacob Wilkes said his father, Eugene Wilkes, has been doing haunted attractions for more than 30 years in the East Texas area.

“My dad is a magician and he was an escape artist,” Wilkes said. “He used to decorate night clubs in the ‘70s and ‘80s and from there he did makeup and special effects for movies. He was a gunfighter at Six Flags over Texas and had a traveling gunfighting crew as well. So, he’s always been in entertainment.”

Before opening Doc Wilkes House of Horrors, Wilkes said his father had a haunted house in Jefferson called Haywood House of Horrors in the early 1990s.

“That was actually the first haunted house. And from there he would rent buildings that had been vacant for 20, 30, 40-plus years,” Wilkes said. “In 2002, he ended up buying the property we’re on right now. So, permanent location wise … is kind of where we made a home for Doc Wilkes.”

Wilkes said Doc’s House of Horrors has grown over the years and now includes four attractions.

“We have Doc’s House and we’ve got Mine of Mystery, which is a maze out back, and we’ve got Fright Show Museum, which is … a photo op with movie style characters … my dad has collected over the years,” he said. “And then this year, we added an outdoor theater out back where we show movies. My dad will actually be doing a magic show the last three weekends of October on the stage out back.”

Among the different attractions, Wilkes said the house is the most popular.

“We work on people’s basic fears like the dark, spiders, snakes, clowns and stuff like that. The house is built out of 18-wheeler trailers so it’s got that claustrophobia vibe to it and there are lots of trap doors,” he said. “People walk into a room and wonder, ‘how do I get out of this room?’ They’ve got to figure it out. So, it’s not like other attractions that herd you through like cattle, we actually have a storyline.”

Wilkes started working with Doc Wilkes when he was just 8 years old.

“And I’ll be 40 in December,” he said. “In 2001, we did a haunt in Lakeport and it was Doc Wilkes House of Horrors out there. I played soccer for Pine Tree and it benefited my soccer team.”

Wilkes recently has taken over running the attraction following his father’s health concerns.

“He’s not able to do as much, so I’ve pretty much taken over,” he said. “We go to conventions every year and get more ideas and we sit around the table and talk about what we want to do. Sometimes the ideas seem far-fetched, but we make it happen.”

Wilkes said the attraction was able to fully open to the public — with mask requirements and temperature checks — during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

“That actually put us on the map — not just in East Texas but in Texas,” he said. “And we had people driving from Florida to come see our haunt; and every year we have people driving from Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana to come see us.”

What: Doc Wilkes House of Horrors

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 20-22 and Oct. 27-31

Where: 1228 Market St., Longview

Admission: $20 general admission, $25 VIP

Information: http://www.docwilkeshaunt.com/

What: Graystone Haunted Manor

When: 7 p.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, Oct. 21-22 and 28-29

Where: 13481 FM 986 W., Longview

Tickets: $25 general admission, $35 VIP, $5 midway

Information: https://graystonehaunt.com/

What: World of Khaos

When: 7 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Oct. 21-23 and 27-31

Where: 816 E. Oakwood St., Tyler

Tickets: $20 general admission, $30 VIP fast pass

Information: http://worldofkhaos.com/