INTERVIEW: ‘Destination Fear’ team on the horrors of returning to Cresson Sanatorium
Photo: From left, Alex Schroeder, Tanner Wiseman, Dakota Laden and Chelsea Laden explore the Cresson Sanatorium and Prison on Travel Channel’s Destination Fear. Photo courtesy of Travel Channel / Provided by press rep with permission.
In increasing numbers, paranormal enthusiasts are taking to the roadways of the United States to seek out stories of the unexplained. Many abandoned prisons, sanatoriums and houses are no longer abandoned; instead they cater to “paranormal investigations” at night, with some of them even providing ghost-hunting equipment to paying customers. Accompanying this growing hobby is the continued dominance of paranormal-centered reality television, and one of the leaders in this niche TV market is Destination Fear, a Travel Channel mainstay that airs Fridays at 9 p.m.
On the reality series, paranormal explorers Dakota Laden, Chelsea Laden, Tanner Wiseman and Alex Schroeder head across the United States looking for places that will keep them scared during an overnight stay. They are less about capturing definitive evidence (like the other paranormal shows on TV) and more about testing the limits of their own tolerance for fear.
The new season of Destination Fear began over Thanksgiving weekend with an exploration of the Cresson Sanatorium and Prison in rural Pennsylvania, and the group had such a “spirited” time that they are returning to the same exact facility for episode two, set for Friday, Dec. 2 at 9 p.m. Other locations this season include Defiance Jr. High School in Ohio, Harriman Hospital in Tennessee, the infamous Winchester House in California, the Ashmore Estates in Illinois, the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in New York and Norwich State Hospital in Connecticut.
This time around, the team stuck to the United States for their explorations. Last season they ventured to Europe, but they are back on their home turf for some American hauntings. “We still have so many places we want to see here,” Dakota said in a recent phone interview. “This new season we were able to uncover more locations that really have never seen the light of day, and they’ve never been featured on TV. That was awesome.”
Schroeder echoed Dakota’s sentiments, saying that these American locations are places that the team members have been reading about for quite some time. In their estimation, they are urban legends that demand to be explored (with permission, of course).
“There are so many places that we haven’t been able to explore and experience for ourselves,” Schroeder said. “A lot of them are childhood memories for us of learning about these locations, learning about these ghost stories, and for us it’s really incredible that we have this opportunity to go around this country that we live in to get to experience those for ourselves.”
Wiseman said there are four locations this season that have never been seen on TV before, which is impressive given the glut of paranormal investigation shows in the reality TV sphere. One would think that every abandoned structure has already been given the once-over by ghost-hunting teams, but the Destination Fear crew found some remote spots where the things that go bump in the night were waiting to be explored.
“That’s going to be fun to introduce new locations and new stories to the world,” Wiseman said. “Some people only know about locations due to shows like this. We have that opportunity to travel America with best friends, and it’s something we always just look at ourselves and go, ‘Wow, we’re so lucky.’ What an opportunity to go to all these different states and see the true America, not just the touristy spots, but actually go see small towns and do what we love, and that’s exploring creepy, abandoned buildings.”
The Cresson Sanatorium and Prison is a particularly interesting location. Travel Channel bills this complex of buildings as a “trifecta of terror” with a ghostly mimic and child spirits, plus an overnight stay in a prison cell that once housed a serial killer.
“For the first time ever, we spent two full nights at this haunted location,” Dakota said. “Prisons and sanatoriums, those have always scared us the most, and this is a location that was both. This was both a prison and a sanatorium. It housed the sick. It housed some of the worst killers in the country, and it had a tunnel system connecting all the buildings. It was really the trifecta. It had everything you’d want in a terrifying haunt, and it really hasn’t been explored much. So for us to go there was such a bucket list deal for us.”
Chelsea said the chance to explore the property over the course of two nights was unique for the Destination Fear team. They normally stay for one terrifying not, not two.
“There’s also a very new component to going back to back nights at one location,” Chelsea said. “It’s something we’ve never done before, and psychologically it was challenging for us, too. At the end of any overnight, in the morning … when you get up and you realize it’s time to go, you kind of check that one off your list. There’s really no looking back. You made it, you did it, and you’re on to the next location. So this location psychologically was challenging because we found out after we thought we checked this one off that we were going right back to the same location again.”
Wiseman said that after one night in a location, there’s a false sense of security that has been achieved. Weird things have happened in the overnight hours, and some “spirits” have been stirred up. But the sun rises, and there’s a feeling of safety with the warmth of a new day.
“Whatever happened is behind you now,” Wiseman said. “But now with this two-parter where we go back the next night … we kind of stirred it up a little bit. We were getting a lot of things happening that are unexplainable, and now we have to go back in there and face it again. That was the tough part for all of us is that now whatever we did to cause this building to react the way it did last time, now we have to go face it again.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Destination Fear continues on Travel Channel Fridays at 9 p.m. Click here for more information. Note to readers: The Destination Fear team has permission to explore these locations.
