Ahead of the wrap party for his multi-part expose on McKamey Manor, YouTuber Reckless Ben announced last night that he plans to hold a one-night haunt called Ben’s Basement for fans and supporters. He’s asking ten people to come compete for a “big prize” — they’re hoping to match the $20,000 that McKamey Manor offers — and inviting many more people to come to an afterparty where they can try out the haunt’s stunts, and party with Reckless Ben and his crew. The idea, he says, is to actually offer some of the scares that McKamey Manor claims it has in store.
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The ten contestants will be determined by Schneider and his team, based on two-minute video entries that fans can submit starting last night. There are only three days to sign up, and the event takes place on December 9.
Reckless Ben, real name Ben Schneider, calls himself a “professional infiltrator,” and before his McKamey Manor series, he had made videos in which he infiltrated a cult, a restaurant owned by a hate group, and more. During his McKamey manor videos, he has visited the fabled haunt, and came away with the conclusion that there isn’t really anything to see.
“I feel like it’s the biggest middle finger to McKamey Manor if we just do everything that they’re claiming to be,” Schneider says in the video.
You can see his announcement below.
Russ McKamey, who owns the property on which McKamey Manor is located, has claimed there are thousands of people on his waiting list, that he has hundreds of rats and a two-mile-long zipline. But when Schneider and a number of his collaborators applied to go to the haunted house, they all apparently skipped the line, because they were accepted almost immediately. Once there, they underwent some physical challenges and were berated and humiliated by McKamey…but nobody reached the haunted house itself. Not necessarily because they tapped out, though; in one case, McKamey claimed his camera ran out of batteries, and in another case, he threw someone out for asking too many questions.
Schneider used a number of creative tricks to take the wind out of McKamey’s sails, including altering the contract McKamey makes contestants sign to allow him to share his footage online. He also started an LLC called McKamey Manor after a representative for McKamey manor threatened legal action against Schneider for using the company’s name in his videos. One of Schneider’s videos has been taken down by YouTube, apparently because McKamey reported it for revealing the location of McKamey’s home (where the Manor is).
Reckless Ben’s series on McKamey would give viewers a pretty clear opinion of the Manor: there’s almost nothing there, certainly nothing remotely like what is being advertised, and it seems to exist primarily so that Russ McKamey can subject people to degrading and painful experiences without consequences.
Schneider invites McKamey to Ben’s Basement in the video, telling his audience to leave the man alone if he shows up to have fun at the event. He doesn’t expect his nemesis to actually attend the party, though.
The video claims that the filmmakers behind Hulu’s Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House have already done a walkthrough of Ben’s Basement, as well as “The Wolf,” one of McKamey Manor’s most vocal online critics.
Recently, the Tennessee attorney general announced that they were investigating claims of abuse by McKamey — charges that have come to light following the Hulu documentary and Reckless Ben’s videos, both of which encouraged people to come forward in spite of their fears that McKamey would retaliate against them legally.
