Final Scores – By Category:

Cast (20% of Final Score): 9.46

Costuming (10% of Final Score): 9.15

Customer Service (10% of Final Score): 10

Immersion (10% of Final Score): 7.93

Special Effects (15% of Final Score): 9.28

Scare Factor (20% of Final Score): 9.04

Entertainment & Value (15% of Final Score): 8.75

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Final Scores – By Attraction:

Attraction 1: 9.12

Avondale Haunted Barn has truly impressed us this year with their changes and improvements! They added many more scenes, scares, and props to add to the length of the haunt. They are now an indoor-outdoor attraction that is in a two-story barn.

The legend is that Jubal and Eliza Pickett once lived in this barn while their son joined the military. He died in the line of duty, and the Picketts could never retrieve their son’s body. They became hostile and angry because of what happened to their son and took it out on the town’s residents. People started to go missing, but no one ever investigated the Picketts. Time went on, and people forgot about the Picketts. But, the train track that ran through the Pickett’s land brought a carnival to town. The carnival was cursed from the moment they set foot on the Pickett’s land. To this day, people still hear carnival noises coming from that land when October comes around. All who enter Avondale Barn are doomed.

Will you escape, or will you be forced to join the cursed carnival or become a victim of the Pickett’s hostility?

There were plenty of actors within Avondale Haunted Barn. Each new scene held at least 1-3 actors that were either playing off each other or distracting us from another scare actor.

Everyone inside Avondale played their parts perfectly! They stayed in character the whole time, and even though a real emergency came up, they let the show continue to flow, after the crisis was over. We were highly impressed by the dedication and performances of every actor and actress.

Most of the actors inside Avondale were interactive with us. Many of them had creative dialogue, but some would use props or themselves to block our path. Chuckles the Clown even got us lost multiple times within the carnival tent maze. At one point, they even made us get inside a box. We especially enjoyed the performance from the first actress in the haunt, the granddaughter and keeper of the house. You definitely don’t want to get her floors dirty!

Every behavior of the characters was vastly different. They had the angry granddaughter in the beginning, the crazy pig people killing victims, the cursed dolls, different clowns, and many others. We always expect clowns to all behave the same way but not at Avondale. They had happy and excited clowns, but then there was Chuckles. His name is misleading because he is not very funny or happy.

Every costume appeared to be unique and creative. They all seemed to be complete and fit each character very well. We didn’t notice anything missing that should have been added to each character.

Many of the actors had some very unique makeup. We loved all of the clowns, especially the first female clown with the fake teeth. We didn’t catch her name, but she was awesome! The masks that were used were very realistic. Many of the actors were wearing pig masks, which were all very effective.

Each costume fit their respective scenes very well. They had pig people inside a barn scene, a ghillie monster inside a swamp, doll actresses in a little girl’s bedroom, clowns in a carnival, an evil doctor in a morgue, and many others.

The queue actors put on a great show and kept the excitement going as we waited in line. We loved the clowns in the queue-they really kept people entertained and scared. And their costumes and makeup looked amazing!

This attraction was very easy to find as it is located off a main highway and very well-lit. They have parking attendants directing you where to park and large signs showing where everything is located.

Everything about Avondale was very safe. They have police officers on site using metal detectors before entering. The parking lot has plenty of lighting. And since Avondale has two levels, there are stairs inside the barn but they are well-lit.

Avondale’s staff were very friendly and helpful. The ticket booth attendant was very easy to talk to and made us and everyone else coming through feel welcome. Each staff member was wearing Avondale apparel so they are easy to recognize as staff.

Avondale Haunted Barn has an easy-to-navigate website. We took a look at it before arriving and noticed they have all the information you need before arriving. It is important to note that Avondale is not ADA accessible because they do have stairs. But, you can check out their website and read more about the storyline of the haunt, access hours and prices, rainout information, and more.

The pre-haunt areas are fairly spooky. They have scare actors roaming the lines ready to scare everyone, spooky music playing over the speaker system, and some scary decorations.

We were shown a video about the storyline right before we entered the haunt. For the most part, it carried through the haunt pretty well. The storyline was pretty open to interpretation of what could be provided within the house. The haunt takes place in a real barn and has a bit of a haunted barn theme.

Overall, we were completely and consistently immersed inside Avondale. Some of the scenes didn’t quite flow together very well, like the transition between the carnival and the spider-themed room. But, for the most part, everything flowed together very well, and nothing seemed out of place.

The atmosphere after we exited was decent. We exited near the ticket line, so it didn’t seem like we were forced to leave immediately. However, there weren’t any additional activities offered other than going through the haunt for a second time. And we would have been happy to do so because we had such a good time the first time around!

The sound effects used in each new scene were perfect. They weren’t too loud so we couldn’t hear the actors and they weren’t too quiet so we couldn’t hear them at all. The haunted house scenes were playing creepy haunt sounds, the swamp scene played banjo music, the barn scenes with the pig people played pig sounds, the little girl’s room played creepy toy music, the carnival played carousel music, and the list goes on!

Each scene was highly detailed and realistic. It was easy to see that the haunt operators spent a lot of time constructing each scene. There was so much detail placed in every scene, it was hard to take everything in. We loved the nice touch they added in the beginning. The granddaughter that told us not to get her floors dirty pointed out a dead girl prop that was wearing a “Grainger County” shirt. Avondale Haunted Barn is located in Grainger County so we enjoyed that little detail. We also really enjoyed the barn scenes with the pig people. I suppose those scenes were easier to stage than most since they are in a real barn, but the blood and gore added made it much more creepy.

We thoroughly enjoyed every prop and animatric used within Avondale. They used a granny animatronic rocking in a rocking chair, bodies hanging everywhere within the barn scenes, a giant rat animatronic, inside the carnival we saw the “headless girl,” and they even had dirty underwear hanging on a clothesline. Yuck!

The lighting and effects changed throughout Avondale. Flickering candles were used to light our way through the haunted house portion, strobe lights were used to create a creepy vibe, and the swamp scene was very effective at hiding the ghillie monster. We really enjoyed the morgue scene with the use of an illusion that we were looking down a long hallway with mortuary cabinets and the incinerator.

We were effectively terrified by the Avondale Haunted Barn. We really felt bad for the victims in the barn, there were some very spooky characters in there trying to kill them. From the bloody body parts to the sound effects and lighting used, everything about Avondale was unsettling.

The scares were aimed toward everyone in our group. We were grouped with another couple that seemed to scare easily, but the actors didn’t single them out. They would scare us from all directions: above, behind, and both sides. Each of the animatronics were timed effectively to where they would activate when our whole group was near it.

Avondale did a lot of things that were unexpected. Our two favorite unexpected scares were the two different actors that looked like animatronics. At first glance, you would think they were just very realistic animatronics, but then they came running toward us!

Avondale used a huge variety of scares, we were highly impressed! They used your standard jump scares, but there weren’t very many of those. Some of the actors would use distractions where we thought a live actor was an animatronic, but came to life. There was the use of suspense buildups where an actor would use my name and speak to me from some direction, but I wouldn’t see them until a few rooms later. Phobias were used with spiders, clowns, and dolls. Camouflage was used with a ghillie monster in a swamp, or a scare actor in all black in a dark room. Illusions were used in the morgue scene to make it look like there was a long hallway of mortuary cabinets. Sensational scares were used in the swamp where we could see and smell the scene of a swamp. I could go on, there were so many!

Avondale ended with an intense scare. We stepped into the morgue and saw the long hallway with an incinerator and a victim behind bars telling us to get a key from around a darkened corner. Suddenly, a crazy medical examiner comes charging out from around said corner to chase us out the door.

Avondale has blown us away with their fantastic performance! We were effectively terrified and entertained. It felt like it was long enough, but you can easily lose track of time when you are in there.

The only entertainment provided aside from the haunt itself were the queue actors, the spooky music, and the decorations. So, the extra entertainment was lacking a bit, and we would have liked to see a few more activities outside the haunt.

Avondale Haunted Barn is well worth the price of admission! General admission is $16.50, and we were inside the haunt for a total of 23 minutes for a minutes per dollar rating of 1.39. This is the highest we have seen in this area! Not to mention, this is also significantly longer than what we experienced during our last visit.