Deceased Farm Review (2019)

Deceased Farm does a great job of mingling a huge and diverse crew of Haunters amid the scenery, animatronics, and sets. They’re very good at interacting with guests as well as their surroundings. You’ll find a variety of creeps ‘ from clowns to hillbillies to cannibals to madmen to vampires and more. There were a few places where it seemed as if there could have been more actors, but for an opening night in mid-September, that’s something that can be glossed over to a small degree.

As an aside, the haunters here are very well trained. On multiple occasions through the night, we witnessed moments when the haunters were acutely aware of themselves and their props and how those related to the physical presence of the guests.

Safety is clearly an issue that has been drilled into the crew. Even though they’re there to elicit screams and fill you with terror, a guest will not have to worry about their safety around the crew of the Farm.

As we talk about costuming, we can’t help but mention that these actors are working in the Southern heat. It’s still practically summer and those wonderful, crisp, cool Halloween nights haven’t really set in. Too, a sizable chunk of the actors are working either outside in the fields or in buildings with little or no A/C. With all of that in mind, the costumes were usually good across the haunt. Details are sometimes sparse, makeup doesn’t survive for long in the heat, and masks are even more difficult to last long in. But, every costume, mask, and application of makeup was appropriate for the surroundings. The clowns tend to be confined to the initial 3-D area, zombies and vampires are in the graveyard, hillbillies out in the corn field, and so on.

Deceased Farm always excels when it comes to customer service. Parking is easy and free; just be sure to keep your eyes open for people moving through the parking lot and listen to the parking guides and you’ll be fine. We do wish that there were (more! bigger! brighter!) signs on the way leading to the Farm. It’s tucked away in the outskirts of Lexington county outside of Columbia. GPS can easily get you to the location, and there is usually enough of a crowd to follow once you’re close, but we think that (more! bigger! brighter!) signs would only help to avoid any confusion on the way.

With a heavy internet presence, it’s easy to find the times and costs of everything that goes on at Farm and there are plenty of non-costumed staff in the waiting yard if you ever have any questions or any sort of issues. They are accommodating, friendly, and always willing to help (or to find someone who can help).

As a guest, remember that the Farm consists of a great deal of walking ‘ in and out of buildings, up ramps, through a corn field, and so on. Wear some secure close-toed shoes suitable for the event and be aware of needing to step up or down slightly as you enter and leave the buildings. Most of the transition areas are lit so that you can see the small degree of difference, but as a guest, one should be aware of these transitions.

Also, take the warning to leave phones and valuables in your car or in a safe place on your person. Even on the night we went, there were guests who somehow managed to lose something (a phone, maybe) in the corn field while they were running in terror from the actors. The staff say that this happens with enough frequency every year that the warnings (posted in multiple places outside the haunt) are a necessity.

The Farm always has a lot of unique sets that you simply cannot see anywhere else. Every year, they make a few changes, so even if you have been before, you still haven’t seen everything that the Farm has to offer.

As we said above, we attended on opening night and were one of the earliest groups through, so we were seeing things early on. In some cases, this might lead to an event that’s a bit more raw and needs refinement, but not at Deceased Farm! They’ve managed to clean up some of the sound bleed that plagued some of the scenes in the past. Now, everything seems to be much more contained and focused.

Again, the location of the haunt on a working farm only adds in to the various effects, scenes, and sets. Animatronics, used sparingly, are spaced out and used in appropriate places. In most cases, the animatronics are used as distractions giving the actors time to prepare or to seize a chance to get very close to guests.

It would be amiss of us to neglect to mention a couple of unique examples of special effects. The whole stable set up was great. Many of the 3-D paintings are unique. And, there was one instance where a set was decorated with a number of stuffed animals; however, the room requires guests to duck down or crouch as they go through, putting the guest in the position of a child as they get low to the floor.

The theme at Deceased Farm is, of course, a haunted farm. However, the website reveals that the initial 3-D area is intended to represent a ‘mind-warping trip’ as you transition to a farm ‘inhabited by unspeakable creatures’. That reality-bending trip is perhaps not as explicit as one would anticipate; some might find the inclusion of the 3-D elements and clowns at the start of the haunt out of sync with the remainder of the night’s event. However, if you can accept the strange and disorienting sights of the beginning, the rest of the haunt flows fairly seamlessly through a series of ‘haunted farm’ tropes that all work well together ‘ hillbillies, chainsaws, graveyards, wrecked school buses, and junkyards.

There are a wide variety of scares out at the Farm. From being chased through a corn field ‘maze’ to drop panels inside the structures, from jump scares to looming and leering actors, the Farm has a little bit of everything to bring to bear to produce screams.

The actors did an excellent job of spreading scares to everyone in the group, even when groups got bunched together. We had the group in front of us get so scared they stopped moving forward, which led to us catching up to them at about the same time the group behind us got so scared they caught up with us in a cloud of screams, cries, and dust. This did not deter the actors, however. They kept right on working the whole group, making sure that there wasn’t a ‘dead zone’ because of the sudden clump of people.

So many people in the groups around us (and occasionally Mckenzie and Olivia) were jumping, screaming, crying, and falling all over one another, that we sometimes had a hard time advancing through the haunt (and an equally hard time not falling over from laughing at the enjoyment of it all).

Deceased Farm does a great job of delivering bang for the buck. They offer not only a variety of ticket options (Entrance, Fast Pass, VIP) but also have a variety of other entertainment in the yard for minor additional charges. From a snack bar and a beer garden, to a zombie shoot and some mini-escape rooms, to the gift shop exit, there are plenty of things to do inside Deceased Farm either before you enter the haunt or after you’ve exited.

When we attended on opening night, there was also a live band performing. At other times during the season, music is often playing in the holding yard instead. In addition to a few off-season events, during the season they host a special ‘Witches Night Out,’ which is an event for women only that also supports a local charity.

The area encompassed by Deceased Farm on the Sease Farm seems like it contains some room to grow and expand if the Haunt so chooses. As mentioned before, the haunt also changes up a degree of their scenes and sets and the pathways through all of it every year providing a great incentive to come back again and again.