INTERVIEW: Be afraid, be very afraid on ‘Destination Fear’
Photo: In the season premiere, the Destination Fear team tackles the infamous Waverly Hills Sanatorium, which looms in the background. From left to right: Alex Schroeder, Tanner Wiseman, Dakota Laden and Chelsea Laden. Photo courtesy of Travel Channel / Provided by press rep with permission.
There are many reality series out there that follow paranormal investigators as they try to capture evidence of ghostly spirits from the beyond. The cast members of Destination Fear, which has returned for its third season, are less about investigating and more about experiencing. They want to hang out and sleep over in the scariest places in the United States — the homes away from home, in sanatoriums, asylums, prisons and manors.
New episodes air on Travel Channel and discovery+, the streaming service that covers all of the Discovery networks. The first episode premiered Saturday, July 24 and followed Dakota Laden, Chelsea Laden, Tanner Wiseman and Alex Schroeder to the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky, purportedly one of the most haunted places in the United States. This Saturday, July 31, at 9 p.m., audience members can check out their episode on the Missouri State Penitentiary. Future adventures take them to Fort Knox, Ohio State Reformatory, Green County Almshouse, Odd Fellows Home, Edinburgh Manor, Villisca Axe Murder House and Malvern Manor.
Cue the moo-ha-ha and creepy music.
“I’m super-excited,” Dakota said in a recent interview. “I’m definitely very biased because I edit the show, and I get to see it all. But I personally feel like this is my favorite season [with] my favorite types of hauntings and locations we went to. … I feel like we got to venture out a little bit more on the road trip and do things that were just absolutely wild.”
Alex said he believes this season is unique because many of the locations they explore have been on his personal bucket list for a long time. In particular, he was quite excited to check out the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. “That has been on my bucket list for a long time, and I never thought I would get the chance to go in,” Schroeder said. “It was such a fun road trip — scary, but very fun.”
Even before Destination Fear became a reality series, the team members have been interested in scoping out these abandoned buildings and “haunted” places for years, especially when they were young. Back then, when they were mere children with a dream of things that go bump in the night, they thought about Waverly Hills and what they would do once inside.
“If you do a Google search of ‘haunted places in America,’ Waverly Hills is always on that top five list,” Dakota said. “It’s just a location that has always excited us. From when we were probably 14 years old, we’ve wanted to go there. To get the opportunity was unreal, but the thing to me that makes it so scary is its history is very terrifying. Sanatoriums are just very scary places, and you definitely didn’t want to be there. … This place has it all. This place has dark hauntings, malevolent stuff, happy stuff. It was a location I felt that would really challenge us. Normally we separate, and we sleep alone at every single location. And Waverly is not small. This is a 150,000-square-foot structure, and when it came to sleeping alone, that also was a big draw. We are going to be very far apart.”
The cast members of Destination Fear have known one another for a long time. Dakota and Chelsea are brother and sister, and Alex and Tanner have known the siblings since they were children. In fact, Tanner was even at the hospital when Chelsea was born.
“So we’ve created this lifelong bond and friendship throughout the years, and doing something like this on the road where you live together in a RV, you really have to trust each other and known each other,” Alex said. “I think that is what separates us from a lot of other teams is just the years and years of friendship.”
Dakota added: “It’s so important on this type of a road trip to have that type of relationship because at every location at least one of us gets pretty affected or at least upset in some way. Or even just the idea of being on the road so long, it gets very, very tiring and intense. I couldn’t tell you how many times even on this road trip alone where I personally was feeling down or that I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t know how we were going to finish, and just having these conversations with everyone and being able to sit and talk with everyone, really boost each other, I could not imagine doing this with anyone else. I don’t even know if it was possible.”
Besides the paranormal scares, the team also had to deal with the very real scares of COVID-19; however, their show was uniquely prepared to take on the pandemic. For starters, they don’t explore places with a ton of people occupying the building. Destination Fear, at its heart, is a show that takes a deep dive into abandoned buildings, which is a perfect place to be when a virus is wreaking havoc on the world.
“We took it very seriously,” Dakota said. “We were tested constantly. … We’re lucky because the majority of our show revolves around us visiting abandoned buildings, which is one of the only places we could go during this pandemic. The only thing it really did cut short for us was some of the adventures and things. Normally you’d find us in a public setting with lots of people there, going skiing or tubing, and we just couldn’t do that this time around. We played it very safe, and all the adventures and things we did on the side were things that just involved us and us only. Lots of precautions. Every day we wore masks whenever the cameras weren’t on. Honestly, very big props to our whole production company and Travel Channel. They took it so seriously, and in turn we were so lucky and felt blessed to work this whole year. Definitely have them to thank.”
When Dakota and Alex offer their thoughts on the success of Destination Fear, it becomes obvious that they are living their ghostly dreams (or are they nightmares?). They have a hit reality show that pays them to travel around the United States and scope out cool, creepy locations, all for the entertainment and education of an interested public. What could be better?
“Growing up we were all fascinated with the paranormal, and we would go and urban explore these big abandoned buildings,” Dakota said. “Sanatoriums, asylums and prisons scare us the most. This is where a lot of death happened.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Destination Fear continues with new episodes Saturdays at 9 p.m. on Travel Channel. The series is also streaming on discovery+. Click here for more information.
