Stepping through the doorway cautiously, guests find themselves in a room with eight towering walls. Sixteen gargoyles are perched on a ledge above guests' heads, each one holding in it's hands two candles which barley illuminate the portraits, and each one leering down at the mortals below with hideous grinning faces.

 Above the ledge hang four portraits on a backdrop of striped wallpaper. The ceiling is a plaster relief, recessed in the center.

 Gazing at the portraits, they seem fairly plain and non-descript. We can see a young woman in her summer dress holding a parasol, an older gentleman placing a document in the breast pocket of his stately tuxedo, a young man smiling with his arms folded, and an old woman holding a rose.

The maid from the foyer enters the room too, and the door slides shut.

 The voice from the foyer echoes through the room, traveling from wall to wall, almost mocking the guests with humorous wit.

Click on any portrait to see it stretch

 VOICE: "Welcome, foolish mortals, to The Haunted Mansion. I am your host. Your *ghost* host (chuckle). Our tour begins here, in this gallery, here where you see paintings of some of our guests as they appeared in their corruptable, mortal state. Kindly step all the way in, please, and make room for everyone. There's no turning back now."

 The servant instructs guests to "Drag your wretched bodies to the DEAD center of the room".

 There is a slight pause, and suddenly, a strange change begins to take place before your very eyes: the room begins to slowly expand, and the paintings are slowly revealed to be not quite what they seemed at first glance.

 The young woman is standing on a fraying tightrope over a river, with a hungry crocodile waiting patiently below with open jaws.

The room in the process of expanding...

 The gentleman is actually wearing only boxer shorts, slacks, and shoes from the waist down..... And standing on a barrel of Dynamite with a lit fuse.

 The young man is actually sitting on the shoulders of another man, who is in turn sitting on the shoulders of another man, who is the only one aware that all three are doomed.... For he is waist deep in quicksand.

 The old lady is sitting on her husband's gravestone, and we can see a bust of her husband at the base of the Grave... with his head split by an axe.

 GHOST HOST: "Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding... almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis... is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination, Hmmm?"

 Yet, as horrifying as this change is, guests slowly begin to realize another, more troublesome change....

 GHOST HOST: "And consider this dismaying observation... this chamber has no windows and no doors. Which offers you this chilling challenge: To find... a way OUT!  Of course, there's always my way..."

 The lights in the room are quickly blown out by some unfelt wind, and guests can see hanging directly above them the rotting corpse of the Ghost Host... hung by his neck in the previously invisible attic. Thunder and lightning illuminate this scene through broken windows.

 Before too much time has passed, the lightning stops and we hear a woman commit suicide by falling down the room. We hear her scream as she falls, and finally hits the ground with a crash.

The candles in the room are relit. Looking around, guests can see no sign of the corpse, and the ceiling is once again in place. A door slides open, revealing a dank hallway.

 GHOST HOST: "Ohh.. I didn't mean to frighten you... prematurely, hmm hm hmmm.... The REAL chills come later. Now, as they say, look alive and we'll continue our little tour. And let's all stay together, please."