Maniacs in the Woods’ haunted trail is put on by a 501(c)(3) entity, the Venture crew #4054 youth organization. We’ve been there four times now and have always enjoyed the spirited cast of volunteers and students to go along with an often ingenious, house-engineered take on effects.
In August of last year, word came out that the Maniacs had lost their location of seven years and it looked like they would be packing it in and heading out into the sunset. But shortly after, they announced they had found a new location – at a nearby campground that used to hold its own haunted trail for campers.
This was quite a happy reversal of fortune. They ended up opening just in time for the season and are now finishing up their second year at the new location, where they seem to be in a better position.
We are very glad to see these fine folks still up and around and doing great things for the young’uns. Well done, Maniacs leadership. That’s how to show these kids resiliency and how to stand tall in the face of adversity!
Again, it’s an all-volunteer force for everyone at the attraction, including the acting troupe. The actors are mostly high schoolers with some smaller-pints mixed in. They showed up exhibiting high energy and vivacious willingness to perform.
We’ve never had a problem with the amount of actors relative to trail length, and this visit proved to be no exception. Sometimes they bunched up a bit which left short areas of dead space, but mostly we didn’t go too long without meeting up with a monster.
There were a few talkers with short bits of dialogue, but the majority of vocalizations consisted of healthy screams and rough growls. They leaned into the vitality of youth to give very physical performances: jumping out to issue a paint-blistering shriek, attacking from the ground or out of some shrubbery, even climbing the trees for a bird’s-eye scare opportunity. Jacko the Pumpkin Dog put on an exemplary performance in this regard, running around wildly on all fours, getting up in our faces, and pursuing us on the pathways.
The outfits these Maniacs wore went all the way from pretty awesome to street clothes with no apparent makeup – mostly in the case of quick-pop-out-and-screamers. Masks looked well-fitted and tucked for that nice ‘no necklines’ appearance. Makeup jobs were generally simply presented and effectively done for the overall rather dark environment.
The executioner, a plague doctor, and a gravedigger all dressed in complete and suitable costumes. The clowns always look great. Molar rocked tooth-filled eyeball orbits, long yellow hair, and big poufy pom-poms on a patchwork circus outfit. We don’t know the name of the other clown who’s always there, but they looked equally great in their customary gear of a floppy top hat, comically oversized bowtie, and a loud plaid sport coat with a giant flower pinned on, accessorized with a bat to bash in brains.
Michael Myers made an appearance in his blue mechanic jumper, and a not-quite-Ghostface looked as good as the real thing, jabbing around a nasty blade. Best costumes of the night went to Jacko the Pumpkin the Dog who rolled around in all-black body wear with a glowing orange jack-o’-lantern mask, and one of the attraction’s signature characters, a towering stilts-walker in black robes with a giant skull mask.
Maniacs in the Woods is located in Bristolville, Ohio, near Youngstown, on the grounds of the Paradise Lakes Family Campground. We had no difficulties finding it with GPS. A large prop and sign marked the driveway.
The free parking area, situated on grass, was illuminated by staked lights. Watch your step and stay on the path from parking to ticketing, as we noticed some deep furrows and grooves in the ground and on the sides.
The set-up was quite obvious to follow, from ticketing/merch and photo booths to the entrance queue. Police were on site for security. The trail itself seemed a bit rougher than at the old location; we stumbled over some roots and such.
The tech-savvy maniacs have installed a basic website since we last visited. They also maintain a presence on several social media platforms, including a Facebook page that has all the essentials.
Between our first and second review visits, the surrounding atmosphere at Maniacs in the Woods went from dark and quiet to full-blown party-fest. It’s something of a mix between those two approaches at the new place.
Things are a little more spread out here, with the DJ throwing down dance jams about halfway down the blinking-string-lighted walk from parking to ticketing. There was a food truck out toward the beginning of the path (looks like there’s usually more than one, but we didn’t mind because the solitary truck parked there on this evening served up some of the best darn sauced chicken wings we’ve ever had) along with a small bonfire and picnic tables.
We already noted the tall prop out by the driveway turn-in. They also built a canopied movie pavilion down by the attraction entrance; on this night, the choice film on offer was the original Night of the Living Dead from 1968. They’re coming to get you, Barbara!
The entrance construction – two cement posts adorned with lanterns, bloody handprints, and the name of the attraction in bloody paint – survived the move, along with the traditional blast of an air horn to announce the next group striding off to brave the fearsome forest.
Toward the start and in some spots throughout, we could hear the dance tunes or sounds from other scenes, which created unwanted distraction. We also became befuddled a couple times where it was too dark to know where to go. The few dead areas also had our minds wandering; this year’s travels impressed upon us that one of the most sure-fire methods to pump up immersion is to provide relentless action every step of the way, not giving the patron any time to think.
Overall, though, an immersive milieu came together here through well-executed effects and the dark environs of the woods, as well as the maniacs inside those woods. The exit led past a large “I Survived” backdrop/photo op in a graveyard scene, a nice way to end the visit.
The effects work here spanned from solid old-school basics to innovative, inventive trickery. A clothesline of hanging sheets recalled the scene from Halloween of Michael standing amid the billowing laundry. An awesome witch animatronic appeared to float over a steaming red cauldron. An arch built of skulls looked eerie bathed in scarlet lighting. We were amused to see a Barbie-branded casket in the cemetery, left over from the movie craze of two years ago.
The audio portion of the attraction was minimalist, but the lighting struck a great balance between mild and wild. Some places got the entirely dark treatment, in others we followed glow sticks on the ground to follow the path. A few props received full floodlighting, and a field of green-glowing foliage seriously wowed us.
But, we must doff our hats to the laser applications most of all. There were three total, and two of those occurred outside, covering a lot of area. One started off as a low swamp below our knees, then ended up above our heads as the topography changed. The other created a flat, vertical wall of swirling fog that seemed like it was 30 feet tall. Somebody here knows their physics and optics. These were among the very best lighting effects we’d seen all year.
21. How scary was it? (35% of score): 7
22. How well did they provide scares to everyone in the group? (15% of score): 8
23. How predictable were the scares? (25% of score): 8.1
24. How well did they provide a wide variety (types) of scares? (10% of score): 7.1
25. How strong was the ending / finale? (15% of score): 7
Actors used plant cover and darkness to launch attacks from in front and behind, on the ground, and even from above, as a couple of them climbed the trees! Having a live fire waved in front of your face is not a typical scare tactic, but we ran into it here in the form of the gravedigger’s flaming shovel. The executioner waved a big axe in our direction, and a ghillie-suited bushman got the drop on us by exploding out from behind a camouflage of flora.
Sudden screams and noisemakers, creepy props and animatronics, and the spooky dark forest itself, all played a part in a successfully scary venture – perhaps a little less so than on our other trips to the old location, but these things ebb and flow from visit to visit, and it was still nervy enough to be a frightfully fun time. In the end, we got chased out of there by the stilts-and-skull creature and some other creeps who were hot on our heels and pursuing us right to the finish line.
It took us 14 minutes to move past all the maniacs. Against the $15 general admission, the MPD (minutes of in-attraction entertainment per dollar spent) came out to 0.93.
That’s a tad below the 1.0 ratio we use as a benchmark figure. But the actual price point itself is remarkably low, and we enjoyed our walkthrough as usual, with its refreshing blend of old-school charm with high-tech touches – so a satisfying amount of value definitely applies.
Maniacs in the Woods will be open on Friday- Saturday, Oct. 31 & Nov. 1, to close out the 2025 season. Get out there to have a good scare, enjoy some cool effects, and support a good cause.
1604 Housel Craft Road, Bristolville, Ohio 44402