2018: MUCH better this year! Last year I was very disappointed (for details see the bottom of this post) but this year, I enjoyed myself through almost every step of this place.
I'm a hard person to scare and they got me twice. The makeup was well done and a lot of effort was put into the interactive skits. They have well functioning and effectively placed/used animatronics. The sets were far more congruous this year but that could still use a little work. Don't read any further if you don't want spoilers.
I was very impressed by all of the actors! But I felt the hotel owner/murder, grave digger and scientist did particularly well. I liked that almost all the skits were either scary or funny (loved the science lab one the most. Very well done). The animatronics that popped out of the pond and the one that hung down from above from the bed were very awesome. And kudos to the hag with the baby and the floating head person at the end of the first building- You two made me jump!
I do have a bit of advice for improvement... the congruency fell apart after the lab. We walked from a lab to a doll room to a tiki room to a cornfield in rapid succession. I feel like it'd be a more put-together experience if this was fixed...maybe the doll room could have been worked into the motel as the owners daughter or something for example. Or maybe a relative of the scientist. I would also love to see the lab theme extended since the premise was good.
I would have happily paid $20 this year but only had to pay $10 because I bought early discount tickets. I feel the usual $25-$28 they charge is a tad high for the length but not unreasonable. I'm likely to come again next year, especially if I can snag discount tickets again.
2017:
One star. I had high expectations....I really wanted to love this place. Maybe in the past they've done great things, judging by old reviews, but this year...it's very, very dissappointing and overpriced.
The interactive skit thing is a good idea, but campy, lame lines and vague boring story...not so much. The characters didn't match the set. The makeup was poor quality. The props had potential that was largely wasted. My front yard has more working animatronics than this place!
Keep in mind I'm a haunted house connoisseur and don't get scared or impressed by people jumping out and yelling- if that's your thing, there's plenty of it. What impresses me is detailed sets, great costumes with in-character actors, creepy, twisted storylines and functional disturbing or shocking animatronics. You'll find almost none of that here.
It's waaaay over advertised and overpriced at $28. Took barely over 30 mins to walk through and that's with them halting you to listen to lame skits in a few of the rooms. The one item of decor I liked was the working animatronic burger-flipping skeleton (not scary, but impressive tech skills were required to bring that to life) and the story in the mask room which almost would have been creepy and disturbing if it had been executed better. So much wasted potential....
Let me tell you what I hope they do in the future to improve. They could get better costumes and actual scary storylines which fill you with dread and make you fear impending, unavoidable doom rather than plop your chin into your hand and roll your eyes till it's over. They could add more animatronics and detail to the scenes and actually make the story and characters fit the environment. They could use the old empty buildings we walked by, and make the trail much, much longer (it's a joke they even advertised a trail. It was literally a path between buildings that lasted under a minute).
I could tell the actors were trying. And I give them due credit for that....but they need to make a lot of improvements or take the price way down to a more fair $10-15 if they want me coming back. read more
