Six Flags

My Cart [0]

Six Flags Great Adventure

Six Flags Great Adventure & Safari

Jackson, New Jersey

Houdini’s Great Escape

All Rides Ride Height List

Would You Like a Side of Chills With Your Thrills?

Enter a world of magic and mystery inside the haunted estate of the most famous magician of all time, Harry Houdini.

You’ll wander through the old magician’s musty-old mansion, where creepy candelabras and stone gargoyles seem to have a life of their own. Or is that just the ghost of old Houdini playing tricks on your eyes?

Step into the parlor and participate in the ultimate séance—can you help bring Houdini back from the great beyond? Or is this all just an elaborate magic hoax?

The walls themselves seem to shift and sway, as the whole room rotates around you, spinning in near darkness with only the spirits to keep you company. Your screams won’t help you now, so hold on tight as the entire house seems to flip in 360s around you. It’ll be pretty hard to stay skeptical because you’ve just met old Harry himself!

For your safety, no loose articles including cell phones are permitted on Houdini's Great Escape. All loose articles must be secured in a button or zipped pocket, locker or with a non-rider.

In the mid-1900s, an imposing mansion was built in Jackson by a successful local magician named Roger Manville Strycher.
He was a master of sleight of hand, or prestidigitation, and children loved to see Strycher make coins disappear right before their eyes, only to have them reappear inside their coat pockets.

Approximately 50 years earlier, another magician had gained acclaim – a Hungarian-born illusionist named Harry Houdini. Houdini was best known for his sensational escape acts, finding his way out of chains, shackles, ropes, handcuffs and straitjackets right before people’s eyes. Strycher, believing he was indeed the greatest magician on Earth, vowed to outperform Houdini in anything he tried. In his library, he gathered and studied some of Houdini’s old props and illusions and practiced day and night for what he called the “world’s greatest feat.” If Houdini could make an elephant disappear, Strycher vowed to make it look like child’s play – he was going to levitate and rotate his mansion.

While no one knows exactly what Strycher was doing in the mansion, the townspeople reported hearing loud noises and wailing from inside. Strycher, now obsessed and despondent, canceled his European tour of 1952, instead toiling day and night on his illusion. One stormy night in October of 1956, 20 years after Houdini’s death, Jackson residents heard an unbelievably loud thunder crash followed by what sounded like a crashing freight train. The night had turned so stormy that no one dared venture outside for fear of being swept away by a possible tornado.

In the morning, they emerged from their homes and what they saw left them in utter disbelief. While the entire block looked untouched, exactly as the day before, Strycher’s house was completely upside down. His neighbors frantically looked for him and thought he might be crushed in the rubble somewhere, but his body was never found. The only items seemingly undisturbed were Houdini’s old illusions. The townspeople believed that it was Houdini’s spirit – not Strycher – who made the impossible happen. They whispered that Strycher had attempted to trap and contain Houdini’s spirit; but in death as was in life, nothing could hold him and Houdini made a great escape.

Minimum height requirement: 48″ to ride