2012 marks Nightmare on Valley Street’s 10th year in operation on their action-packed haunts covering over 20 acres. All-new this year is the Hillbilly Hayride: An Offroad Experience, where you can bring your kids and anyone else that’s ‘too chicken for the trail!’ Nightmare on Valley Street brings you over 30 scenes, over 40 live monsters, and attempts to capture those who make it through the trail in Rat Trap, a demented AND difficult haunted maze! If you’re in the Dayton, Ohio area this year, don’t overlook Nightmare on Valley Street for this year’s haunt season!
The cast consists of between 100-120 interactive and volunteer actors that take pride in the construction of the trail each year. The sheer number of actors fills up each attraction and helps eliminate dead spots. Each actor (or group of actors) gets to build their own scene and design their own scares to their own twisted likings. As a result, if you’re looking for a variety of characters, this is the place to go! These guys and gals have a little bit of everything to offer. From crazy savages and monsters to skeletons and trolls, it’s here! Among our favorite characters are the werewolf (who played his part very well), ‘the rappelling guy’, and a very hungry gorilla!
Because each actor was in charge of their own wardrobe, some characters fit their scenes more appropriately than others. Also, some costumes/makeup/masks were more elaborate than others, depending on what each actor was able to provide. However, the haunt does have a few artists on-staff to help each actor prepare.
The attraction was a little difficult for us to find. We finally realized that an orange highway sign is used that says ‘Hayride 1500 feet, Haunted Trail’ with arrows pointing you in the right direction. We didn’t notice it immediately because we saw the barricade and were accustomed to thinking that it meant the road was closed, when this wasn’t the case. We followed the rest of the signs and found a large, gravel parking lot with portable restrooms when we arrived. An attendant was also present at the gate to point us towards the best parking spot available. The ticket booth was located next to a concession stand where refreshments could be purchased and another stand offered Nightmare on Valley Street souvenirs. For those waiting in line, an occasional BOOM helped keep patrons’ blood pumping.
The first things we noticed as we approached the ticket booth was the bonfire, the sounds of those screaming on the trail and the special effects used in the two haunted attractions as they echoed up from the woods! We could also hear loud music coming from loudspeakers playing a local radio station. The rustic, cabin-style ticket booth and makeup on some of the staff let us know we were at a haunted house. Between haunts, Nightmare on Valley Street’s hearse was located next to the trail for us to see.
The wide variety of special effects in this attraction helped improve the haunt as a whole because there were many things we had never seen before. Special rubber mats helped the actors’ distraction techniques and kept us off balance. Multiple ‘motorized attacks’ seemed to be a specialty of this haunt and they were used very effectively throughout the attraction. Another interesting effect was an actors use of ropes to catch us off guard from above! More motorized techniques were used in Rat Trap along with lots and lots of sheets to make the maze even more disorienting.
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Each actor or group of actors was permitted to create their own theme for each scene. As a result, no specific theme was designated for the attraction without being more specific than ‘things that scare people.’ However, Rat Trap’s theme was obviously a haunted maze designed to entrap those who made it through the trail, but still contained several different genres of scares.
It was fairly easy to predict what type of scare was coming up throughout the trail, but we never knew exactly when or what was going to scare us! Distraction was used occasionally and scares ranged from actors falling from trees and wrenches banging next to us to motorized vehicle scares and a caged prisoner swinging from a tree. For the trail, we found that most of the scares were directed towards the front of the line, but those in the back got some scares as well! Our group got separated multiple times throughout Rat Trap which helped take us out of our ‘comfort zone’ and made it a scarier haunt.
What They Liked Most:
The walk-through haunt is long. It took us 40 minutes to walk through the whole thing. Some of the set dressing is admirable, and the portion of the h... Read More
Suggested Improvements:
A psychologically painful experience, and not for the reasons you'd hope.
There are two attractions: a hayride and walk-through "maze&qu... Read More
What They Liked Most:
What a great haunt. I remember this from years ago and it has grown to an even better attraction. The Actors provided true realism to their scenes, th... Read More
What They Liked Most:
We arrived near Midnight- there was no waiting in line. The monsters gave it their All! Great Maze in the pitch dark. Never knew what was behind the n... Read More
Suggested Improvements:
Crawling monsters in the woods give chase.
MASTER: 100 reviews of 60 unique haunts in 10 years.
EXPERT: 50 reviews of 30 unique haunts in 5 years.
VETERAN: 15 reviews of 10 unique haunts in 3 years.
APPRENTICE: 5 reviews of 5 unique haunts in the past year.
NOVICE: Entry-level team.
4040 Wrightway Road, Dayton, Ohio 45424