Factory of Terror OH Review (2014)

On the night of our visit, around 90 paid actors were terrorizing the customers brave enough to step foot inside the doors of FOT. This number is down a bit from last year and was evident due to a few somewhat-lengthy dead spaces where no actors were encountered. However, the actors that we DID come across showed several qualities that helped make their performances very believable and realistic’ not to mention scary! Some of these include scene- and theme-related dialogue, physical and verbal interaction with our group, and demented displays of violence and, in one case, cannibalism! The following is a list of some of the most memorable characters we encountered during our visit: In The Asylum, the guy in the gas mask, the bloody, old, caged patient, and the criminally insane actress. In Industrial, the intimidating boss-lady in the locker room, the girl in the white dress in the cage area, and the worker in the assembly room. In the Labyrinth, Norma Bates, the monsters in the darkness, the zombie, and the grave keeper. In Massacre on Mahoning, the cook, ‘Ole School,’ and the actress (‘Toby’) who was in the freezer. Lastly, in House of Nightmares, the librarian and the leg eater were noted as having exceptional, interactive dialogue!

The costumes at FOT varied from haunt to haunt in order to meet the needs of each character and their given locations. Makeup generally consisted of bloody or grungy designs that helped add an extra layer of realism. We didn’t notice many masks being used, however we did see the occasional gas mask in a couple of the attractions. The costume articles, as a whole, tended to be comprised of worn and tattered clothing and a few original pieces that were made by FOT’s talented designers. Starting with The Asylum, most of the outfits we noticed consisted of bloody makeup, patient gowns, lab coats, and a realistic, orange jumpsuit for the criminally insane actor! Some of Industrial Nightmares’ characters mirrored their theme as well by utilizing authentic worker outfits (i.e. bloody, grungy coveralls) and weapons like human leg bones and even a mini sledge hammer! As we entered the Labyrinth of Darkness, Norma Bates greeted us with her Victorian-style clothing, complete with gloves, leopard-print cloak and black corsage. Since the first half of this haunt is a pitch-black maze, we weren’t able to see what the actors were wearing in that area. However, once we escaped the darkness, we noticed a zombie with appropriately-distressed clothing and bloody makeup and a grave keeper who was also rather’ dead-looking. Massacre on Mahoning also yielded some original costumes, mostly including more grungy and bloody articles and a few that blended well with their surroundings, allowing them to lay in wait until JUST the right moment! Finally, House of Nightmares generally consisted of clowns and a few other characters. Some of the characters in this attraction didn’t make as much sense with their respective scenes as they did in the others, but anything can be in ‘a literal nightmare.’

The massive factory itself, a large FOT sign on the front of the building and a mini FOT semi parked in front of the haunt made the place rather hard for us to miss! Plenty of signs along the road directed customers in the right area to park where flaggers were keeping vehicles organized. If you want a better shot at parking closer, reserved parking is available for an additional fee. Security personnel were roaming the premises during our visit to ensure customer’s safety and friendly staff members were located inside the ticket stand at the entrance to each attraction. An ATM is available at the ticket booth for your convenience. Multiple roaming characters and TVs entertain the crowd during the wait, and multiple free photo opportunities are available throughout the factory. The halfway point of the factory offers a concession stand (the ‘Grub Hub’), a gift shop (‘Rotton Cotton’), another ATM, and rides in their unique ‘Scare Chair’ for $5.00. Some minor uneven flooring and stairs were encountered during our tour, but overall the factory was easy to navigate.

FOT really is located in a huge, once-abandoned factory! Some Halloween lights, the haunt’s decorated mini semi, signs, and TVs at the ticket booth displaying behind-the-scenes footage started getting us prepared to enter a haunted house before we even stepped foot in the queue area! The first waiting area is decorated well with more TVs, loud music, and hanging body parts, that continued to increase our anticipation to enter. Be sure to read the rules before entering, you probably won’t see too many like these! The midway point of all of the attractions also has creepy d������������������cor including dismantled bodies, photo opportunities, a zombie projection, and large spiders! Multiple characters, including a custom ‘creature-reacher,’ continued our anticipation to enter the next haunt. Each attraction had its own, exclusive fa������������������ade that really helped get us in the haunt’s mind-frame before we began each journey.

FOT is filled with so many original and high-quality special effects that it is hard to pay attention to everything in only one or even two trips through! Some of the characters worked very well with the effects in their respective areas, and we must say the controllers of the actormatronics did a great job using them! Their effective placement and well-timed reveals had all of our group members quickly darting away from them and left a group behind us refusing to walk past one of them! Realistic sound effects accompanied the majority of the scenes and intensified the overall atmosphere in these areas. Scene detail is also second-to-none at FOT and aids in making you feel as if you truly are where they want you to be! Some of the effects that we came across in the Asylum include mutilated corpses, an attacking guard dog, an electrocution chair, effective air cannons, a tree with glowing eyes, a church fa������������������ade, zombies trying to push through a door, poppers, a computer generated image (CGI), a large creature, an infirmary, and a seemingly never-ending mirror maze! Industrial Nightmare offered engine parts, zombie parts, haunted lockers, spraying shower heads, some kind of gas shooting up from some grating in the floor, an electrical room, a boiler room, disorienting strobes, a claustrophobic passageway, an industrial compactor, falling boxes, a vehicle surprise, buzzers, many flashing lights, thick fog, a distant ladder incident, and plenty of hanging body parts to go around! As you wait in line to enter Labyrinth, be sure to check out ‘Bitin’ Bill,’ you won’t want to miss him! Once inside, you’ll encounter a lot of darkness, as it’s the point of the attraction, but other things can also be found lurking in the shadows. You may also find some other scenes and details after you find your way out’ that is, IF you do! Some of them include an effective attack dog, air cannons, live walls (you will know what we are talking about if you find one!), zombies emerging from the ground, a lively hearse that has driven through the wall, a large pumpkin creature, a bridge that actually takes you over water, and a realistic graveyard. Some of the items we came across while visiting the mansion include a coat rack surprise, vicious snakes, another CGI, dismembered corpses, poppers, a flailing corpse, a mausoleum, a cemetery, old coffins, a skeleton digging itself out of the ground, a crushing wall, effective strobe lights, ghostly cabinets, a cold blast in the freezer, spiders, a well-hidden rat, and a transitioning vortex tunnel that brought us into fluorescently-painted scenes. The House of Nightmares offered more gory items than the other attractions as well as two large creatures holding up the fa������������������ade for the entrance, flickering lights, air cannons, a sink with running water, a ceiling surprise, a library, blood-splattered walls, a meat market with a swine surprise, leaning brick walls, Skulliath (giant skull), an experimentation scene complete with random parts of corpses sewn together, and sliding floors that make it hard to run away from the terrors within!

Be prepared to experience multiple themed haunts at FOT because each of these attractions offer their own diverse creations. Up first is The Asylum, and it’s ‘filled with the crazy and the cooky!’ In this Asylum, you will come face-to-face with some uncontrollable nuts and possibly go crazy yourself, depending on how long it takes you to escape their mind-seizing maze of mirrors! If you make it out of their mirrors, and can still see straight, you’ll be sent into Industrial Nightmare! This leg of the facility contains equipment from the original factory that is now being used to attack innocent victims! Where did they just come from? Is something going to happen below me? Is that machine really crushing a body? You’ll have to visit this old factory to find out! Next is one of their new attractions for the 2014 season, Labyrinth of Darkness. This attraction was created by popular demand due to customers reporting that blackout events and pitch black mazes are their favorite events, and that’s exactly what this haunt offers! In this maze of darkness, ‘the creatures of the night aren’t the only thing you have to worry about, you may just end up shocked at what you find!’ Just when you think you can see where you’re going in this maze, your night vision will be flashed away from you! Massacre on Mahoning is a mansion inside the factory’ yes, we said a mansion inside the factory. When business started falling, the factory’s founder, Mr. Terniz was convinced that his constant presence would increase his employee’s production, since he thought they were the cause of the losses. After working so many long hours, his mind became unstable, causing him to go on a murdering spree and forcing him to build his own personal cemetery to hide the evidence! If you’re brave enough to enter his still-standing mansion, you may run into quite a few of his victims who are seemingly alive, and some who are not, that are continuously searching for their cause of torment! If you make it through all of the attractions listed above, you will be faced with entering the last and debatably-scariest attraction at FOT; House of Nightmares! This attraction is also new for the 2014 haunt season and is considered ‘a literal nightmare!’ The ‘baddest of the bad,’ and ‘blood, guts, and gore’ can all be found in this demented section of the factory. Monstrous and ravaged creatures dwell within these walls, seeking their next victims! We suggest you keep all of your limbs tucked close to your body for this one, we’d hate to hear that you left the factory without them! Each of the attraction’s queue areas were decorated realistically well, which enhanced the overall believability of each attraction before we even entered them! Since the night of our visit was the FOT’s closing night, the crew were given permission to move out of their scenes and station themselves selectively somewhere else in the factory. As we walked through, it wasn’t evident that they had done this, and many of the characters that we came across worked very well with and still matched the respective scenes we found them in.

Many different types of frights were thrown at our group during our trek through each of the attractions at FOT! In the Asylum they threatened us, had intimidating weapons, distracted us, made us dizzy, tried to push a fence over on us, played with our hair, tried to keep us lost in a maze of mirrors forever, and even startled us multiple times! In Industrial we came across more threatening dialogue, falling barrels, a bungee surprise, loud noises, total darkness, and intimidating stares. Within Labyrinth, some of the scare techniques included unsettling sound effects, dark areas, ear-piercing screams, another intimidating weapon, unexpected touching, and the actors had personal lights they could use to their advantage to ruin our night vision! Massacre on Mahoning supplied our group with creepy stares, drop panels, more ominous sounds, and multiple creature-encounters! The House of Nightmares successfully supplied more scares to our group that included creepy comments, a ceiling surprise, several effective disguises, acts of cannibalism, sliding floors making it harder for us to escape, a second bungee surprise, intense sound effects, and a very effective run-in with a giant skull! Good hiding spots were used in every attraction. They also made sure to take us out of our comfort zone by shutting the lights off, making us feel our way through the darkness, crouching through a tunnel, tickling us, and trying to keep one of our group members’ limbs! Even when other groups caught up to us, they still did a decent job at targeting everyone in the line, and not just the front or the back.

General admission tickets that’ll get you into all five attractions at FOT are $26. FASTpass tickets that will grant you access to a shorter line are $36 (which is a BIG advantage on busy nights). Our review group spent a total of 47 minutes making our way through each of the five attractions, showing that FOT gives their customers 1.8 minutes of entertainment per dollar spent (general admission)! Keep in mind that our group’s times may vary slightly from yours, depending on how quickly you can escape the various entrapments and misdirections throughout the Factory. Season passes will cost you $100, but this includes unlimited FASTpass entry to all events throughout the season! On Sundays, you can get a 4-pack of tickets for $75 (a $29 discount) and other group rates are available as well, so be sure to check out their site for more details. A coupon is available on their website and you can also get FREE admission to FOT if it’s your birthday (during a normal day of operation, of course)! FOT is typically open every Friday the 13th throughout the year, so keep them in mind on these especially-spooky dates. They also offer several other deals, including discounts for those in the military, so be sure to look for these discounts on their website as well. One last option is the ability for customers to pay $20 for ‘reserved parking’ that’ll grant you access to one of the parking lots closer to the ticket booth (yet another awesome advantage on busy nights)! So ‘run, go tell your friends’ about FOT and check them out this haunt season’ or on ANY Friday the 13th throughout the year! Just remember, ‘screaming is only the beginning!’