Monsters & Mayhem
30 years after opening its doors, Netherworld has evolved from a seasonal scare to year-round creative universe of terrifying actors, escape rooms, and cinematic spectacle.
On a typical Thursday afternoon, Ben Armstrong is collecting and loading body bags into his car. But it’s not what you may think. These bags hold the body parts and heads of monsters. For Armstrong, days like this are simply part of the job. He and his longtime friend, Billy Messina, are the co-owners and creative brains behind Netherworld, Gwinnett’s legendary horror playground in Stone Mountain. And this year, their hands-on world of monsters and mayhem reaches a milestone: It’s celebrating its 30th anniversary. The once seasonal haunted house has evolved into a full-scale horror campus made up of two haunted houses, escape rooms, and a museum dedicated to the macabre. Today, visitors travel from well beyond Gwinnett County to step inside the world the two men have built.
It’s an impressive legacy for Armstrong and Messina, a couple of horror fans who started with a simple idea: to build something original that fellow fright followers would love. “Our goal was always to entertain people,” Messina explains. And that mission still guides everything they build. Open from late September to early November each year for Halloween, Netherworld’s best-known attraction is the walk-through haunted houses, which send guests through dark corridors filled with live actors, towering monsters, and cinematic special effects.
The newly added Escape the Netherworld rooms operate separately all year long, with immersive, story-driven adventure games that draw birthday parties, bachelor and bachelorette groups, competitive puzzle lovers, and friends looking for a shared adrenaline rush. The House of Creeps Monster Museum features rare film props, creature displays, and decades of Netherworld memorabilia, completing a fully realized playground of thrills and spectacle. Before cofounding Netherworld, Armstrong worked in television, hosting a late-night horror show, while Messina built a career in film, focusing on special effects, props, and model making. One day, in the late ’90s, they had an idea. Instead of creating monsters for other productions, they would build a world of their own.
While others in the industry relied on familiar horror icons and recycled storylines, Armstrong and Messina dreamed up original monsters, invented their own lore, and layered in backstories that unfold year after year across the entire experience. The result is an immersive universe that feels like the latest chapter in an ongoing saga, with each season building on the last. “Every year is like a sequel to a movie,” Armstrong explains. “I think that’s what has helped us grow how we’ve grown.” In its early years, Netherworld occupied roughly 20,000 square feet across multiple spaces in Norcross, with a few hundred visitors passing through the haunted house on any given night. Today, the Stone Mountain complex spans about 10 acres with close to 70,000 square feet under one roof, welcoming more than 75,000 guests during a typical season. National attention followed. Netherworld has been featured by the Travel Channel on its top Halloween attractions lists and has been ranked among USA Today’s “10 Best Haunted House/Attractions” in the country year over year.
But the appeal now stretches far beyond spooky season. The year-round escape rooms have become their own destination, giving visitors a different way to step inside the Netherworld universe. In Escape theNetherworld, guests choose from five challenges: evade the grip of a mighty Sasquatch; survive ravenous sharks on Tiki Island; thwart a vampire in Nosferatu; confront a supernatural presence in Haunted; or explore sci-fi horror in Alien Terror. Teams of two to seven players have one hour to solve puzzles, uncover clues, and escape elaborately themed, story-driven rooms before time runs out. “Our games are highly regarded,” says Armstrong. The cinematic quality fans expect from Netherworld carries into every detail across the property, from the haunted houses to the escape rooms and the museum exhibits. That influence is no accident. Atlanta’s booming film industry has long intersected with the attraction. The House of Creeps Monster Museum showcases many film treasures, including a mummy from the 1989 film The Mummy, the giant corpse of an animatronic squid from the 1996 movie The Beast (later featured on the reality show American Pickerson the History Channel), and plenty of original creations built by the Netherworld team. But the monsters do not stay behind the glass. Creative talent runs deep on-site as well. Each season, Netherworld staffs around 500 employees, with roughly 125 actors performing on a typical night. In fact, over the years, many Atlantans have gotten their start performing here before moving into film and television. After three decades, Netherworld shows no signs of slowing down. The monsters change, the sets are rebuilt, the stories evolve, the body bags are gathered—but the original goal behind it all remains the same. We want people to walk away from Netherworld with a fun and fulfilling experience,” Messina says.
Written for the 2026 Explore Gwinnett Magazine by Catherine Jones
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