San Antonio haunted house, Failed Experiments, The Nikolas Romano Halloween Adventure, offers scares and funds scholarships for college students.
Melanie Love Salazar/MySA
Haunted house season is in full swing. San Antonio residents on the hunt for a good scare shouldn’t miss the gem tucked into a Helotes neighborhood.
Failed Experiments, the Nikolas Romano Halloween Adventure, is an immersive journey built from the ground up. Visitors explore 13 areas, including The Bone Temple, a creepy carnival, eerie catacombs, a Doll Forest and other tropes.
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Located at 9319 Trailing Fern, it features meticulous design and handmade animatronics, making it unlike anywhere you have visited. It’s a labor of love from founders Rick and Julianne Romano.
The couple, who have celebrated Halloween for decades, began hosting the experience for the public in 2011. After moving to Texas from Pennsylvania, they discovered the weather was ideal for an outdoor scare area. It started small, with just a few moving machines in their front yard popping out at their neighbors.
Today, it extends past the front of two homes, one of which is their own, and features wooden fence walls, enclosures, and a trembling bridge. Nearby residents hype it up on Nextdoor, with one calling it the “crown jewel” of their neighborhood. Getting groceries to the front door has become more complicated. But seeing guests who first attended as kids return as teens is part of what’s made it worth it.
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“All of this is built in about three weeks,” Rick tells MySA. “We never imagined that it would be where it’s gotten to … We sit here, and we look and are like, ‘Oh my gosh, how did this happen?”
The haunt is somewhat structured like a maze. Dark corners leave you unsure what horror genre is coming next. Don’t mistake the Romanos for thrill-seekers, though. You won’t often catch them watching a scary movie. And you definitely won’t find them getting jump-scared inside a haunted house. Their son, Nikolas (abbreviated Nik), was different. During his 24 years of life, he visited several San Antonio haunted houses and enjoyed dressing up for Halloween.
“One of his last costumes was a hobo with a big red nose,” Julianne tells MySA. “And there are many kids that we still see that tell us that as they’ve come through here all the years, Nik would be a part of it, and would surprise them in the haunt.”
Nik passed away in September 2023. Impossible to fully describe, his family depicts him as someone who lived life on his own terms, considerate of strangers and friends, intelligent and quietly confident. Nik’s involvement and playful nature are commemorated during the walk-through. Toward the end, guests pass a flyer design used during his run for class president at the city’s Communications Arts High School. The Doll Forest, a concept he pitched as an excellent spooky concept for the future, is now fully operational near the entrance.
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“One of Nik’s favorite things was to find a little corner to hide in. And he didn’t jump out at people because we didn’t do that. There are a lot of people who don’t like that, and we want them to feel safe here … However, he would sit in a corner and bang on walls, and there were a couple of times that people came back scared and punched him. And he came up to us and said, “Eh, you know what? I kinda deserved it. It was worth it.”
The attraction is free to experience, though donations, which benefit Alamo Colleges and UT San Antonio students, are highly encouraged.
“After Nik’s accident, what used to be just our gift to the community, we transitioned it to a nonprofit,” Rick says. “So we help students achieve their goals in Nik’s name, and that’s what keeps us motivated … So far, we’ve raised about $300,000 for the scholarships, and that’s what keeps us going, is the goal is to keep Nik’s name alive. And so that’s why we do it.
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Readers can learn more about the Romanos and their nonprofit by visiting TheFailedExperiments.com. The event runs Fridays and Saturdays from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. On Halloween night, it continues until the last person in line has entered.