Whoever had initially proposed the ideal of this attraction was ludicrous. Seriously, Gerbert Gerbil & the Cosmic Crew? Who actually remembered that franchise? Let alone, for those that did know of it and knew the lore about the tragedies that lead to its downfall, who would want to remember it? Missing children, unsolved crimes, plenty of urban legends surrounded that moniker. That dead bodies were stuffed into suits, the pizzas were made with real human meat, a malevolent computer virus had locked down the whole facility. Dead at night, just when you thought you were alone, you saw the glow of the old restaurant's neon in the distance and heard the alien music.
Poppycock and conspiracies that drove a set of hard core fans to mull over the mysteries that went nowhere, of puzzling reactions to the former Cosmic Crew Entertainment's real agenda. A niche market at best.
And then the rebuttal. It was so obscure, the stories about what really went wrong at Gerbert's so myriad and divorced of the franchise (even morphing into other, similar scary stories) made it perfect for a horror attraction. Animatronics? Scary as hell, just with how off they looked. A restaurant theme? Well, unnerving people with food was easy to do and a Halloween staple. Heck, even if that fright fell through people could still be charged for pizza slices and hot dogs, so that was a plus. A space themed ex-children's party center? Well, the rest of the ideas for the attraction just about wrote itself.
Thus became Gerbert's Scarefest, meant to launch new ownership of the character copyrights into fright flinging superstardom. That is, if the start up company wasn't way over budget on trying to scrape this haunted experience together.
The other main problem was that the original Gerbert's had been demolished. You didn't find anything associated with it around anymore. Maybe if you were lucky, some novelty cups and a stuffed toy prize left rarely used in the back of a closet. To say nothing of anything that was proven to belong to the restaurant, such as a particular video game cabinet, uniform, or the holy grail of subverted nostalgia itself, a complete animatronic frame.
All this and more plagued Gerbert's Scarefest from the beginning. It takes a consistent level of followthrough, or rather insanity, to see such a project from start to finish. Luckily, bigger things had been done before with even smaller budgets. Some other unassociated unused building was used to house the attraction. A mock layout of the original restaurant was built into a maze. Simple creepy sights and scare zones were eked out with sweat and elbow grease. To complete the tour outside the exit was going to be the concessions, which snared any newcomers towards the ticket both.
Gerbert's Scarefest was a rush build. It turned out most of the props had been collected or salvaged before hand, which made the installation easier. Still, no true building contractor had touched the horror attraction. If the haunted house was meant to scare people working there would be a nightmare.
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