Brimstone Hayride:
While we waited to depart towards what would no doubt be our doom, creepy music played in the background. Lots of audio was used throughout our ride: rockin’ tunes, a prisoner’s gruff warning in the penitentiary, a frantic backing track in the Drive Thru Theater – just to name a few examples! We noticed some custom set pieces, like the aforementioned theater’s brightly lit sign. Other appropriate additions to the hayride’s scenes were an inmate thrashing in an electric chair, parked vehicles illuminated in red light at the theater, and a towering animatronic boar monster.
Many areas included props and set details to add to their realism. The prison’s cells had chipped paint and mildew running down the walls. Jack O’Lanterns were brightly lit along the Headless Horseman’s hollow. Outside of a cannibalistic hillbilly family’s shacks, freshly slaughtered pigs were strung up. Some set pieces were crazy big, too, such as the many decommissioned vehicles we rolled past. Sensory effects were also deployed in several spots. Fire shot high into the night. Strobes accentuated sets, props, and animations. An alien that had freshly broken out of its containment in a military bunker spat venomous “saliva” (water) at us on the wagon.
Some scenes were highly detailed, while others were slightly less so but still got the point across. With the full understanding that this is an outdoor attraction and therefore at the mercy of the elements, we’d love to see more added where possible.
Psychosis:
True to its name, Psychosis came across like a haunt meant to play off patrons’ fear of the unknown – and we could tell it was carefully constructed to do that job well. Most of the house was dark or dimly lit from room to room, with two portions even sending us outside! Some effective lighting techniques included flashing red lights in one area and a flickering overhead light in a darkened corridor, leaving us wondering what might be lying in wait for us ahead. Audio mostly consisted of rock and metal tracks, and was loud as hell, which helped to increase our anxiety.
Due to the dim environment, it was sometimes hard to make out props and set details. However, we noticed textures like bricks and rotted spots added to walls, a few corpses, the mirror or window in what looked like a funeral parlor was quite grimy, and stacks of metal barrels formed a maze in a factory scene. Adding additional props and details will help to make this attraction even more intense.
The animatronics and effects included in this attraction often made our walkthrough even more treacherous. A realistic elevator shook, rattled, and rolled as it delivered us to our fate. Black walls squeezed us in the form of a claustrophobia tunnel. Beyond the window of a living room- where we could tell murders had recently taken place- a thunderstorm boomed and flashed ominously. We were nearly torn apart by a gigantic bloody saw at one point, as well as fired at by a massive killer robot!
The Bog:
The woods at night are creepy enough on their own, but the black tendrils stretching from the trail’s facade were a frightful warning that The Bog was preparing to swallow us whole. Along our trek, we found ourselves surrounded by the ambient sounds of nocturnal critters. Frantic music played in more intense areas, as did old-fashioned tunes in an abandoned bar. Yes, abandoned… It seemed that the town that once existed here was devoured by the darkness long before our group arrived. Wall textures on the various businesses included bricks, lattices, posters, and newspapers. Tendrils of vines hung from the ceiling of what was either a greenhouse or an attic (we noticed some random stuff there besides the greenery). A bell rang amidst a school’s rusted lockers. The walls of the doctor’s office were disgustingly grimy, and the windows were busted open. In the operating room, old medical equipment and devices littered the scene.
For props, we noticed some junked vehicles tucked within the foliage of the forest. An animated zombie, trapped in a cage, thrashed furiously against its confines. The bar was filled with shelves of spirits – anyone want a drink? Too bad they seemed to be closed… All the chairs were stacked up on tables. We aren’t going to spoil where it was or what it was, but at least one massive actor-matronic puppet was used, too. Also, the added animations on the trail were placed effectively and provided great startles!
Strobes illuminated multiple spots, like a few of the old businesses and the greenhouse/attic (which was pretty cool, as it looked a bit like a thunderstorm effect). Lighting wasn’t just used to accentuate scenes – it also cast eerie hues of blue, green, yellow, and red against the surrounding trees along the trail. Fog provided a spooky effect as it spilled out before us in one area, and when we encountered some clowns, we had to enter a spinning vortex to escape.
As mentioned above, adding more fog would help to make the trail even spookier. Scenes had varying levels of detail, and while they all looked pretty good, some could have used a bit more.
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