Fear Forest Haunted House and Hayride Review (2023)

A sizable number of monsters populated Fear Forest, waiting to spread fear and frights. Actors were interactive for the most part. Some moved fast, and some moved slowly, there were pouncers and stalkers, and they produced a variety of vocalizations from sinister or funny dialogue to screams and snorts.

Haunted Hayride:
Michael Myers put us in double jeopardy by showing up not once, but twice! Was it two separate Michaels, or the same actor? Not sure, but when he got on board the wagon, this bean pole cast member scraped his head on the roof just like last time. Jason nailed the proper walking motion, even if he moved a little fast for the part.

The clowns bounced around with super-high energy, tearing through and past the wagon in a frenzy as the riders freaked out. We met a zombie who yearned for braaaaiiiins. Johnny from the meat stand grumbled that he’d murder us and feed us to his dogs. In one of the lines of the night, a bloody-suited gent said he’d mix our brains in with his mashed potatoes! We definitely had never heard that one before.

Insane-a-tarium:
A black and white clown, a pig-faced attacker, and a freakish pursuer all made an impression without much vocality. That can be creepier than being yelled at full blast. We’ll cover their looks and actions in the Costuming and Scare Factor sections.

Psycho Path Haunted Trail:
We got creeped out by a zombie that made an awesomely weird croaking noise. A nurse at a mobile medical site asked for our help and that we not leave her. Was she a victim or a killer? Hard to tell, but we didn’t really trust her either way! A dark robed intruder grabbed our attention by sliding and skidding on the ground.

Forbidden Cornfield:
Standouts here included the first actor, who wanted to harvest our ‘toesies.’ Sorry, buddy, these little pigs are not on the market! Also, the last actor who made sure we would remember the place as we made our way out. In between, a bloody bride asked for help looking for her grim groom.

Most monsters made their appearance work with masks. The most prevalent theme started on the hayride, where we witnessed a bunch of hideous cured-skin-masks. They kept appearing frequently throughout the night.

Hayride:
As we just mentioned, many of the actors wore icky skin masks. The movie star trio of Michael, Jason, and Leatherface all looked the part – even down to Leatherface’s curly locks and Jason’s patchy scraps on his scalp.

Many costumes were of the hayride/countryfied type, like hillbilly overalls and one-piece mechanic jumpers. The braaaaiiiins zombie wore a fashionable duster. The clowns sported rather terrifying masks and full-length clown costumes. The chainsawer’s seriously messed-up face featured metal bolts through its mouth.

Insane-a-tarium:
We saw lots of good looks in here. From a desiccated old guy with a scraggly beard to a sewed-up-face guy with stringy hair. A pig-faced actor had boar-like tusks protruding from the mouth area, and a flat-headed Frankenstein-looking thing carried a huge hammer. Most of the actors appropriately wore some kind of medical apparel.

One who wasn’t dressed like healthcare staff, but still looked great in an awful way, was Laughing Jack. Do you know this one? We just found out the name and story of it. It’s the ‘Creepypasta’ black and white clown with dagger teeth and a sharp, striped, conical nose. This version came with long, pointy fingernails that looked like they could do some serious damage.

Psycho Path Haunted Trail:
The nurse had either lost a lost of blood or caused a lot of it; she was covered in so much splatter, it looked like she belonged on a criminal forensics show. A zombie in a suit appeared like he’d just stumbled out of the ‘Night of the Living Dead’ set. A skeletal face framed by tattered cloth elicited an ‘Eeeww!’ from us. Lots of dark robes and similar attire helped the actors blend into the night.

Forbidden Cornfield:
The first (‘get your toesies’) actor looked fantastic, with what we can only describe as a corn silk face. The ending ghoul in stitched lips and top hat made a horrific final impression on the way out the door. The bride stood out by virtue of her white wedding dress (albeit blood-stained), while most of the other actors adopted dark clothes to help hide out amidst the corn.

Fear Forest is located in Warren, Ohio (or Lordstown, depending on your navigational system, but either way, it’ll get you to the same location, which is close to Youngstown). We found it easily via GPS.

A large overhead illuminated sign greeted us above the driveway entrance. The haunt provided ample parking in a large asphalt lot with good lighting. Ticketing is outside, adjacent to the parking lot, on the way inside to the main building.

Some port-a-potties reside out by the ticket booth and in between attractions. However, Fear Forest also provides those magic words that are music to a haunt-goer’s ears — permanent restrooms! — in the main building.

Fear Forest runs a solid website with good and complete information, and a Facebook page to which they are very responsive.

The hayride kept us secure for all of its one-mile length, with comfortable seating and a reasonable step-up/down. The house did not present many obstacles besides a small stretch of downward slanting floor and the usual negotiating of dark or foggy rooms. The trail gave us one of the smoother outdoor surfaces of the year. The mulch-smothered cornfield path felt remarkably smooth and soft.

Patrons buy tickets at windows outside, then go through the very brightly lit main building with a merch shop and a couple of photo op stations to the darkened hayride line out the back side. It looked like a typical farm set-up, with the tall corn stalks visible nearby.

Hayride:
The wagon started us off by going under a neon sign archway that read ‘Fear Forest’ flanked by pumpkin headed ghosties on either side. Tons of effects, interactive scenes, and actors jumping on and off the wagon kept us more immersively engaged than many other hayrides we’ve experienced.

Insane-a-tarium:
The wagon dropped us off at the entrance to the Insane-a-tarium, a spookily lit corrugated metal facade with an imposing prop figure looming from an overhead deck. In the inside queue area, we walked past a video window and watched horror film clips on a screen. We didn’t get to try it, but near the entry door, they had a coin-operated …game? Sadistic experiment? That lets you operate an air cannon on people in another part of Fear Forest and watch the results!

We experienced greater immersion in the Insane-a-tarium than last time, aided by quite dark boarded walls and smoother transition areas. The visible ceiling with wires and such proved to be the most immersion-breaking element in the building.

Psycho Path Haunted Trail:
We entered the path through a tall wooden fence, the approach lined with skulls. Effective lighting, a series of similar-looking and well-constructed wooden shacks and shanties, and the naturally spooky environment of the woods kept the immersion fairly high. Once in a while, we could hear sound bleed from a hayride scene, but the engaging actors kept our attention on the way before us most of the time.

Forbidden Cornfield:
While the cornfield had the most pedestrian entryway, it was the most immersive attraction overall, being literally a walk in the cornfield. Corn, props, actors, and some ground lighting focused us on negotiating the dark, narrow path. Like the trail, Fear Forest created nice pacing here that gave us just enough apprehension of what awaited ahead and kept us in the proper frame of mind.

The whole of Fear Forest, but especially the hayride and house, gave us an absolute bonanza of superior SFX satisfaction.

If animatronics are your jam, Fear Forest’s collection just might reduce you to a quivering puddle of fanboy/fangirl jelly. We think they’re trying to set some kind of record here! There seemed to be one around every corner, and they exhibit a huge variety of sizes, shapes, motions, and sounds. They filled out scenes, scared, helped set up live actor scares, and sometimes just took up some space so we had something cool to look at or react to.

Haunted Hayride:
A speaker by the front of the wagon piped in music and sound effects. We’ve been calling it a wagon, but in fact, it was more of a tram with comfy forward-facing, bus-style seating. Our transport still got pulled by a tractor, but our booties appreciated the offering of considerably more creature comfort than usual.

The hallmark feature of the hayride was probably the drive-thru vortex that apparently the Fear Forest owners also manufacture, who knew! Their immense, awesome mansion facade provided a backdrop as the Leatherface (Sawyer clan) estate.

We went through a beautifully lit cemetery with multiple skeleton, corpse, and coffin animatronics, and a chainsaw barn with a nasty rotting meat smell and no end of body parts stacked and strewn about. The Quality Meat Company’s wares looked questionable at best. The clownhouse came through with a titanically creeptastic presentation. Little clown dolls, some on swings, greeted us on the way in. It was loaded with a barf-splosion of skeezy clown paraphernalia inside, including a giant jack-in-the-box, and we heard Pennywise crack wise about floating.

Animatronics flew out at us out from cabin doors, popped out of caskets, and shook their noisy groove thing in any possible context. We also ran into (almost literally) a train, admired the water feature at Camp Crystal Lake, and recoiled at a hanging body strung up by its own intestines around its neck and a bobbing body getting consumed by a massive meat grinder. Air cannons, the old headlights-and-honk trick, and crucified skeletons were a further tasty sampling of the delectable fx smorgasbord on the hayride.

Insane-a-tarium:
Being the only indoor attraction, Insane-a-tarium took advantage to plunge us into quite dark environs streaked with fog and strobes. Blood-caked medical props of every description filled the institutional scenes. Weird music punctuated by random screams, plus all the various animatronic whoops, wonks, and warbles, serenaded us through the corridors.

We saw a prop guy with guts stuffed into his mouth like a hose and many unfortunate patients / victims in a bloody mess on exam tables. Circular saw blades came cutting at us through a door. A charred skeleton slid out of a crematory oven.

The maternity ward looked amazing. A live delivery scene was shocking, gross, and surprising (ever see the sledgehammer birth set at the Haunted Hoochie? this is just as memorable, we had to stop and watch it again!), while a squirmingly yucky ‘It’s Alive’ mutant baby launched itself out of its bassinet …newborns aren’t supposed to be that mobile! The nursery gave us off creepy doll vibes to last for days.

Psycho Path Haunted Trail:
The trail’s design aesthetic brought us lots of wooden fencing and structures housing props and actors. The nurse’s medical trailer flashed emergency lights. Crawling upper-torso-only zombie animatronics tried to grab us, and a skeleton mesmerized us with glowing eyes and a moving jaw. Yep, the animatronics game remained strong here as well.

Forbidden Cornfield:
The cornfield fittingly offered fewer effects than the other attractions. Strategically placed stake lights gave off sparse illumination. Did you think we might mention animatronics again? Well, of course, we will. There were a good number of them amid the corn. Stir in a few monster props, and bam, we had an effectively effects-upped cornfield.

Haunted Hayride:
We felt the hayride was fairly tame in our first go-round two years ago. That was no surprise, as we usually find the hayride to be the least frightening option at multi-attraction places. This time, it seemed like the scariness got amped up a bit due to more energetic actors and grislier props.

We already mentioned the high-octane clown duo. Besides them, Leatherface repeatedly drove his saw under the tram’s open space by the riders’ feet to prompt some panicky shoe lifting. Characters boarded the vehicle and brandished axe, cleaver, machete, and hammer. Animatronics hurtling toward the tram startled us.

Insane-a-tarium:
The house attraction saw the most revamping and the most increase in scare impact. Laughing Jack terrorized us with clacking talons. The flat-headed fellow banged his hammer. Pigface grabbed a hook off the wall and waved it in our faces. The stringy-haired weirdo followed us quite a ways and kept getting in repeat frights. A big dude was right in our way when we parted a curtain and forced a big scare. Drop windows and other ambush attempts heightened our feelings of fright.

Effects and sets reinforced fears of doctors, disease, and infirmity. On that note, we also noticed numerous wheelchairs and walkers (here and on the hayride and trail, as well), a phobic life-cycle bookend to the baby trauma and horror of the maternity ward.

This attraction owned the best scare out the exit door. It was an approach we’re all used to at the end of haunts, but timed well and performed potently for a successful flourish of a fright at the very end.

Psycho Path Haunted Trail:
Things got off to a quick and pulse-quickening start that continued through to the end with a series of cunningly camouflaged and concealed creatures. One robed beastie flipped us out with a number of skidding and sliding maneuvers, moving a bit like Ghostface. Was this guy wearing rollerblades or what?

Forbidden Cornfield:
The children of the corn stashed themselves with ruthless efficiency within the stalks. They stayed well hidden until the reveal. Some silently pounced, some made weird noises (snorting, honking), some threatened or yelled.

Some of the animatronics were of the ‘coming at ya’ variety and made us jump back. The mix of props and actors had us checking out each dark figure intently. As the guy behind us wailed, ‘I can’t tell what’s real!’ The hidden murderer at the end gave us a frightfully fitting finale to Fear Forest.

We took 52 minutes to make the circuit of all four attractions at Fear Forest. Here’s the time by each attraction: Haunted Hayride – 24 minutes, Insane-a-tarium – 11 minutes, Psycho Path – 7 minutes, Forbidden Cornfield – 10 minutes.

That total exactly matched the timing of our former visit. Given the improvements we’ve noted and our overall greater enjoyment, the value feels like it correspondingly went up. The MPD (minutes of entertainment per dollar spent) came out 1.73 –- also the same as last time, because unlike everything else in our inflationary world, the prices have held steady since 2021!

The general admission price is $30 for the Quad Combo, giving access to all four attractions, with a speed pass option of $40. It’s $12 for the hayride only or $20 for a hayride speed pass. It’s become apparent to us that quite a few people, especially those with small kids, do the hayride only.

We believe Fear Forest produced great value, and we strongly recommend getting there yourself for the improved experience. Just watch out for those animatronics, they’ll be coming to get *you*!