Jasons Woods Review (2026)

I have somewhat mixed feelings about the guest experience at Jason’s Woods. On the one hand, everyone I spoke with was unfailingly polite and courteous. It was easy to find information, easy to get around, and parking was a snap.

Unfortunately, the pleasant experience falls apart a bit in the ticketing line. While the line moves quickly, everyone is required to be in it. Even if you pre-purchase tickets online, you need to stand in the same line as everyone else and wait for your turn at the window. I understand the need for paper tickets so staff can check them off (though electronic systems and scanners exist for a reason and are widely used), but if you’re going to do that, you really need to give those who pre-purchased tickets their own line.

There is a lot to be said about a good entrance. It sets the mood; it gets you pumped up and ready to play. The three traditional haunted houses here have great entrances. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who will be coming by, but all three are choreographed, with special effects and music to set the mood. They were phenomenal. The other two attractions don’t reach the same heights; they just kind of start. Throughout everything but the hayride, immersion remains strong, not perfect, and I was absolutely taken out of the moment by some costuming choices to be discussed later, but the theming was strong and consistent.

The hayride is another story. You are essentially driven from vignette to vignette, with nothing really happening in between to connect anything. There’s an earthquake, now there are evil cars, now a boat is trying to kill you. The entire thing felt disjointed.

Jason’s Woods has a good number of resources backing their production from decades in the business, and it shows in a largely professional polish. The animatronics are stellar, the sound design is on point, and they make great use of lighting effects. There are some interesting things here, with a giant hand attacking a school bus as a highlight.

For the hayride, I must tip my hat to the technological achievement of it all. There are some huge effects there; they work extremely well. The cart itself is its own animatronic; it moves and rumbles and jerks along with the scene. It was cool to see; I just wish there was more thought put into things.

The Zombie Apocalypse showcases the best and worst of Jason’s Woods. I’ve never seen lighting used to such great effect in a haunt before. It’s hard to see anything; you’re disoriented, and then, right on cue, a light shines just enough that you can see the zombie you missed, jump at you. It also contains a truly unsettling animatronic dog that shivered my spine just right. At the same time, the sets were basically nonexistent once you got out of the intro hall. Most of the haunt felt like we were wandering past black plywood, because we were.

Costuming is such a vital, important part of creating a good character. Energy and acting count for a lot, but if you hear a bloodthirsty ghoul and you see teenagers in a rubber mask doing their best, it takes some of the sting out of things. The costumes and makeup at Jason’s Woods that we saw were subpar, to the point that it actively took me out of the haunt. It was a huge disservice to their cast, who did their best with what they had. The zombies had the biggest disconnect between costume and acting. They growled, snarled, and approached everything with a savage, feral energy.

They also had perfectly clean arms, hands, and necks, and what looked like cheap plastic masks that covered their faces but left the back of their heads open. Even in the dim lighting, you could see the line. Other haunts had full-head masks but no makeup, so a distorted face with a mouth hanging open made a human chin in the mouth completely visible, making the whole thing look less realistic than it could.

The one big exception here is the clowns from the Carnival of Fear. They were done up well, nothing that would set the graveyard aflame but perfectly serviceable clown makeup. They had energy, jokes, and the ability to seemingly materialize at random throughout the haunt. Even simple costume additions and light distressing can create a more complete look while still allowing the cast’s performances to do most of the heavy lifting; for example, pairing a Jason mask with a few more character-specific details would make the appearance feel more fully developed.

The more traditional haunts, and to a slightly lesser extent the Lost in Jason’s Woods trail, do a solid job bringing the scares. They managed to make my brother and me jump, which is hard to do with us, as versed in the mechanics of haunting as we are. They used misdirection well, at one point even using the actual Scream movie to distract us for Ghost Face to hit us from behind.

The scares varied in intensity and creativity, but there were multiple moments that were deeply impressive. The same cannot be said of the hayride. We’d ride to a clearly visible stopping point. We would stop there. Some sort of sound effects and special effects would kick off. One or two actors in indistinguishable costumes would climb on board, crawl a bit in the hay, grunt, and then climb off for the hayride to start up again, rinse and repeat for 30 minutes. By the end, even the actors seemed bored; a demon lord promised us doom while pantomiming to a slow, weird audio track of himself laughing, and then, for a finale, Leatherface gradually climbed up, moved his chainsaw around, climbed back down, and we were blissfully done.

Despite the areas we felt could be improved, we genuinely believe this attraction still offers solid value. It isn’t cheap; the non-peak day general admission ticket is $40, and it gets more expensive the busier they expect to be. We spent a total of 54.3 minutes inside the haunts at Jason’s Woods, for a Minutes-Per-Dollar ratio of 1.36. I feel like the hayride padded that a bit, but even cutting the hayride time in half, we’re still over 1.

That’s a solid amount of value, especially because we did have fun. I don’t think I’d personally choose to go on the hayride again, but I would absolutely hit up the other attractions. There is more fun to be had as well: some cool props, a live band, a few mini-haunts, and delicious food trucks were on-site.

While it has some areas that could be improved, this haunt still delivered an experience worth checking out.