Mike Skodacek, co-owner of the Asylum Xperiment, has had a love for haunts since he was 10 years old when he used to build yard haunts with his dad in the front yard. He continued to have a passion for haunts and when he turned 15 he worked at his first haunted house in the Dupage County Fairgrounds. As the years went on he continued to work as an actor at several haunted houses including Dream Reapers, Eleventh Hour, and Scream Fest.

In 2010 Skodacek, along with co-owner Dave Link, created the Asylum Xperiment. This is their third year at their current location in Villa Park, but they prepared by gathering props 5 years prior to actually building it.

This year they have expanded the haunted house from 30,000 feet to 45,000 feet making it the largest haunt in the Chicagoland area.

“My favorite part of the haunted house is that we expanded Armageddon and made it a full haunted house,” Skodacek remarked.

Armageddon gives you a sneak peak of a dilapidated town as the world is coming to an end. The chaos includes infected civilians, destroyed businesses, destroyed cars, sirens going off, and even a toxic spill.

The Asylum Xperiment is like no other haunt as Skodacek and Link put great pride in the details.

“We have actually had producers come and say that they could come filming now in many of our rooms for movies, TV shows, music videos, etc,” Skodacek remarked.

He adds that while other haunts simply want to scare you, the Asylum Xperinment creators want to scare their customers and if they can’t scare customers, they want to be able to entertain customers.

Voted the number two haunt in Illinois last year by HauntedIllinois.com, Skodacek hopes that the Asylum Xperiment will take first place this year. Along with expanding the haunt, they have added scents this year giving you an experience like no other.

“ As you walk through the different rooms you get different scents. Like when you walk through an alley it smells like a dumpster, or if you are walking through a cooler you get a rotten meat smell,” Skodacek said.

The haunt messes with all your senses the second you step foot in Blackout. You have objects and actors surrounding you from all different areas giving you almost a four dimensional feel as you walk up and down ramps.

One of the most famous characters is Giggles the Clown. His costume takes anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to complete.

The Asylum Xperiment combines the best of both worlds, from Link’s classic haunt style to Skodacek’s targeting your inner fears tactics. A lot of hard work and long hours are put into making the Asylum Xperience what it is. Preparing the haunt includes 16 hour days, 150 people working backstage from makeup artists all the way to engineers, and 100 actors that make up the haunt.

So has Skodacek’s dreams of creating the best haunt been realized?

“Until I hit number 1 and stay on top for years my dream will then come true,” Skodacek said.