Forsaken Forest Review (2026)

Getting to Forsaken Forest wasn’t hard. The first thing I noticed were flashing lights in the road to grab drivers’ attention. On one side of the road, the haunt was clearly visible, while a sign directed visitors to parking on the other side, which was free. Attendants were around to guide cars to spaces. The ticket booth was labeled as such and all ticket options and prices were displayed. General Admission was $25.00 for those with cash and $29.99 for those using a card. Other areas of the haunt- General Admission and VIP lines, merch, concessions, etc.- were also labeled and easy to find.

Forsaken had several things to keep visitors occupied in their midway before they chose to get in line for the trail. A live DJ with an impressive spooky setup was blasting fun tunes all night long. Halloween and Autumn decor was everywhere, with a large amount of it clustered by the merch building to form a nice photo op. Characters roamed constantly between the haunt and the midway, scaring customers and taking photos. Something NEW they added for 2026 was an optional inflatable maze right beside the line that groups could go through for a little extra fun- and some early scares- while they waited. (Just watch out for Bozo the Clown!)

The haunt’s website was very thorough, including all of the basic information potential customers would want or need to know before going, an extensive FAQ, and even a gallery of photos and videos! I did ask about a storyline while I was there and was told it was on the site, but did not find it anywhere. With the full knowledge a lot of haunt customers are not nerds like myself, who enjoy reading these things, I would love to see it added.

The haunt seemed to be on a property that is in use over the off season, so it’d probably be impossible to fully remove or hide anything that would be out of place at a haunted attraction. However, while walking around the midway, I noticed they kept those things to a minimum as much as they could. I also did not see much that would break immersion on the trail itself, i.e. trash, exposed wires, or lights just stuck out in the open.

At first glance, Forsaken Forest seemed to follow typical haunted trail format, with some surprises – meaning the haunt largely consisted of scenes that would fit a scary attraction. I explored a lair filled with vampires, battled my way through a zombie outbreak, had to deal with a bunch of rowdy rednecks in a junkyard, and that’s just naming a few examples! I was later told one of their iconic, roaming characters, C.U. Splatter, had a heavy hand in the story behind the trail. However, this was not made obvious to customers while on site. I recommend either having someone at the head of the trail give groups a quick rundown of what’s going on within those trees, putting up stanchions that they can read as they’re progressing in line, or making a trailer/short movie and projecting it someplace in sight of the queue.

One of the pain points with running a haunted trail is that it can be hard to include the special effects that many of the indoor haunted houses use to enhance their shows. Not only are these haunters at the mercy of the elements, they also have to deal with the usual problematic guests coming through and breaking stuff night after night.

I’ll get the negative out of the way: there was not much by way of audio along the trail, other than what came from automated effects- like the wood chipper grinding up a victim and a large glowing spider- and some rock music around the chainsaw area. A heart monitor was also beeping in the doctor’s lab. There weren’t many animatronics used, either. But Forsaken Forest still had some cool sights to show visitors, like the glowing test tubes in the aforementioned lab, an amazing actor-controlled man-eating plant, props with light effects, a foggy laser swamp that was incredible, and something uniquely grotesque in the butcher shop that I won’t spoil.

Moving on to props, they could have gone heavier on these in some areas, but each portion of the trail mostly had a good amount of stuff added. For instance, the roaches scattering across the counter (eww!) in an old trailer were a nice- and nasty- touch, there were discarded signs and other odds and ends in the junkyard, and the vampires’ lair was loaded with candles, skeletons, and other set details. They even added some props along the trail in-between areas, like the towering Nosferatu encountered early on.

“You’re just in time for dinner!” a fanged beauty announced- a bit too cheerfully- as a pleading, terrified human was sat down before us. Too bad she wasn’t quite enough to feed the vampire clan… they decided they needed one of us too! Man, we really hated to cut the dinner date short, but we had many more “friends” to meet in those woods. Not long after we stepped into his shop, the butcher came to us with a suspiciously cordial greeting – a hard contrast to the poor soul screaming their lungs out from somewhere unseen! He swiftly marched off to silence the screamer, then came back and tried to sell us some *very* fresh “brisket”. Our group was briefly captured by the family of hillbillies lurking in the junkyard; fortunately for us, they seemed to NOT be in the mood to kill us all, opting to lead us through a breathing exercise and crack some jokes instead. Whew. Upon briefly entering a doctor’s office, where a group member was given a “shot” (of VERY cold water – yowch!), we exited and immediately found ourselves dodging a snarling horde of hungry zombies. Could the source have been Dr. Ivan Stitch’s lab, which we discovered a little later? Both him and his assistant, Igor, checked us for bites and signs of infection… hmm. Towards the end, we had to battle our way through a wooden maze, where the maniacs inside delighted in chasing us with chainsaws and closing off paths as we tried to find the exit!

Oh, by the way: the roaming actors weren’t confined to the exterior areas of the haunt. We spotted them here and there on the trail, too. Bozo was doing a rather messy number two in that trailer I mentioned (gross!), and The Empress- elegantly dressed in black and with shadowed eyes- appeared at one point, warning us to be quiet as she tried to lead us somewhere safe. If only that safety had lasted…

Costumes worn were largely tailored to each character, and I did not notice many that looked too plain or were just all black with makeup or mask. C.U. Splatter, an older long-haired gentleman, wore a prosthetic that was blended so well it looked like it was actually part of his face. Multiple actors wore eerie-looking contact lenses to enhance their creep factor. The best makeup job *had* to be Dr. Stitch – not only was his face done up, but he had highly detailed UV-reactive makeup all over his chest (complete with painted abs). Awesome!

Forsaken Forest is a heavily actor-focused attraction, and as a result, most of its scary moments come from its cast. And let me tell you: they were on *fire* the night my group came through! As we navigated the spooky woods, scares were frequent, and we couldn’t drop our guard and take a breather for too long before someone- or something- else came charging out of the woods with a snarl or a screech.

In addition to the usual pop-out scares, we had multiple actors come at us at once, stalk us down the trail, strike things to create loud noises, use props like chainsaws and horns to make us jump or send us scattering, and several more tactics. They were very good about coming at us from multiple directions, ensuring everyone in the group got at least a little of the action – I would love to see more attacks from above or below (i.e. actors crawling or an automated effect that goes for customers’ feet). Speaking of feet, shout-out to the actor in the junkyard who did a flip and hit a sign with both feet to produce a loud noise! That was cool!

Escaping the claws and clutches of the Forest’s monsters took exactly 20 minutes. With the cheapest ticket option sitting at $25.00, that brings Forsaken Forest’s MPD (Minutes Per Dollar) rating to a solid 0.80. A little below the full minute we typically like seeing in haunts, but still quite close! Customers are also given extra entertainment for their money in the form of the roamers, fire pits to keep warm by, fun music, and a nice spooky atmosphere all around the property, and in my eyes, that’s pretty good value.

What waits for you within the shadows of the trees? Monsters, madmen, and many other nightmares that will linger in your head for days – if you survive. Grab your friends or family and head over to Richmond to brave the Forsaken Forest this haunt season.