Nightmare on Edgewood Review (2017)

The actors and actresses within each of NoE’s haunts did a great job of keeping the action going and keeping dead spaces to a minimum. As mentioned above, this is a ‘touch haunt,’ so you’re never really safe from having your personal space bubble ripped to shreds.

We knew we were in trouble in MDF when an injured projectionist came stumbling out of theater 11 (our destination) and made a bee-line for the exit’ which was the OPPOSITE way we were going! In the first scene, we met a girl angrily chanting the Freddy Krueger jingle and, when we tried to jump in and sing with her, she screamed, ‘My song! Not yours!’ right before tackling one of our group members onto the bed. So yep, we let her take it from there after that. Her matching aggressor was one of the most believable and ‘physically interactive’ villains in the first haunt, along with Leatherface, the Creeper, Jason’s mother and the pig-faced brute. Though, we do need to also give special mentions to the Creeper for playing every aspect of his character quite well and we’ve never seen Jason’s mother portrayed better in all our years of reviewing.

Insanity offers a pretty random selection of actors. It seems their sole purpose in life is to make getting through the maze as difficult (and sometimes frustrating) as possible. It’s easy for a lot of groups to get bunched up in here too, so one-on-one conversations were scarce and limited to generic screams and taunting… except for the girl that was guarding the path to the exit.

The clowns in Karnival were very familiar with how to ‘interact’ with guests! This was another one where we were touched quite a bit and they were probably the most energetic bunch of our whole visit! If you wear a hat when you go through’ well’ let’s just say they like hats.

We noticed a big improvement on the realism of NoE’s costumes this year! The vast majority of characters had some very believable wardrobe selections, all the way from the movie villains and clowns down to the victims and those in the queue line area.

At the start of MDF, even the movie theater projectionist was wearing a red bellhop type of suit! He also had some realistic zombified makeup features. Freddy’s victim looked like she’d been slashed a few times in her night gown and the gloved goon himself had a very credible silicone mask. The majority of the other movie characters that we came across were dressed as if they were ripped directly from the movie screen too. Although, the butcher didn’t have any type of shirt on, his mask was just as realistic as the rest for the character he was portraying (if this guy was a character at all, this may have been the real deal). Not only did the movie characters have great costuming, but the actors themselves were appropriately sized for the parts they were playing, which added an irreplaceable level of authenticity.

In the dark maze, it was rather hard to tell how detailed the costumes were because we couldn’t really get a good look at them. We did quickly see some minimal makeup and black clothes, though, that fit with their surroundings’ even if by default.

There was quite a mixture of masks and makeup in the Karnival. Some clowns had exceptional pieces while others really stood out to us as being unique and different. Most were trimmed out in bright colors that helped them match their surroundings and kooky demeanors and the makeups that we saw looked pretty good too!

NoE is very easy to find. Our GPS always brings us right to their location and the search lights were literally spotted a mile away. Multiple flaggers were helping customers get parked in their large and well-lit, paved parking lot (which is free, by the way). From the parking area, follow the haunt signs around the right-hand side of the ball field. While you shouldn’t need it, the friendly staff members in the parking area and those by the pick-up/drop-off area will be happy to assist you and keep you moving in the right direction.

The ticket booth is easy to spot and be sure to snag a couple of selfies with NoE’s two hearses and Pennywise the Dancing Clown… just watch out for its sharp teeth while doing so! Navigating the haunts and lines was pretty straightforward and friendly staff members were located at the head of each attraction.

Though we never laid eyes on the concession stand during our visit (we were too busy admiring the the theater facade in the crowd), they have always had one in the past that offered plenty of haunt memorabilia, snacks and drinks. Yes, sometimes we do get so sidetracked and excited we do forget to check other things out. (Oops)

NoE is located at a baseball field, but as we started to near the ticket booth, things began to change. The first thing we noticed was a large warning sign that stated we would be touched at this haunt. From the other side of the parking lot, we could hear the screams of many customers and a chainsaw as they all went running out of the exit! We then walked past the haunt’s two hearses, which always helps amp-up the ‘haunted house’ feel. A very startling-looking fiend greeted us as he scraped his shovel across the ground and Pennywise was actually being polite for once and taking pictures with the crowd (he must’ve just recently eaten someone). At this point, if we weren’t at a haunt, this would be one strange ball game!

R&B music echoed all the way across the ball field and gave the atmosphere a fun, party-like vibe. The facade of Midnight Double Feature was spookily decorated and quite impressive, considering it isn’t a permanent structure. The continued scraping of Shovel Man’s weapon further increased our anticipation to enter. At the Karnival, we waited outside a red- and white-striped building and entered through a large clown’s mouth, which helped let us know we were going into the funhouse portion of the haunt.

Moving floors and rooms, oh my! There is quite the variety of special effects at Edgewood, from things that are giant to things that are small… but deadly! Many of their effects are built in-house and, if you visit them about each year, you may notice that they don’t use the same ones over and over again and, if they do, they will be placed and used differently.

There were a lot of realistic sounds effects pumping through the walls this season, especially in the movie scenes and carnival area. In the movie scenes, we could have told you what movie we were entering with our eyes closed due to the appropriate sound tracks that were playing. In the dark maze, there was more of a variety of sounds such as dubstep music, screams, horns and some kind of creepy talking that we just can’t explain… but it was making the hair on our arms stand on end! Loud, carnival-style music was heard in the clown corridors, which made it hard for us to hear these whackos sneaking up on us.

There are a lot of other effects that we came across between the three attractions. We don’t want to ruin all the fun but some of the things we found include giant creatures trying to grab us, flickering lights, a tight tunnel, the Jigsaw puppet riding a tricycle, a swampy area, toxic barrels and waste, vintage, arcade-style games, thick fog and authentic hospital decor that made us feel as if we were in a real hospital!

Each haunt followed a different theme and each of them was apparent to us upon entering.

As we entered the Edgewood Theater’s Midnight Double Feature, we were directed to go to theater 11. Within, we seemingly slid behind the silver screen and became a part of some of the scariest horror movies out there. This theme was pretty apparent throughout our journey and we didn’t notice much that didn’t make sense to us… except a few characters in the butcher/hospital area.

As we are sure you can imagine, Insanity is a blacked-out maze, so you are going to encounter many creatures that lurk within the dark. There was more of a variety of things encountered here and, although no single theme seemed to be followed, we feel like everything was mainly just out to get us!

There were many clowns lurking within the Karnival and we had a general idea of what we were getting into here based on the name and facade of the building. These clowns were Hell-bent on entertaining us… maybe not in such a ‘fun’ way, but darkly entertaining nonetheless. We didn’t come across anything that didn’t belong in this area including the sound track.

Have you ever been walking through a haunt and turn around to barely catch a member of your group being pulled backwards into a dark hole in the wall to not see them again until you exited the haunt? If you haven’t’ well… welcome to Nightmare on Edgewood! They are known as Indy’s most intense haunt and, after visiting most of the other haunts in Indy in the same weekend, we must agree! They are actually the second to most intense we’ve seen all year! In our experience, we’ve learned that we might as well prepare ourselves to walk through this one alone; you just never know when they might yank you or one of your friends from the group!

For those who may have missed it in other categories of this review, this is a full-touch haunt! The actors here can and will touch you, but they do it in appropriate ways and to where it intensifies the scares. Despite their rowdiness, we’ve never been injured here and they consistently get rave reviews from their customers. Many other types of frights were launched at us here too…

As we made our way through the silver screen scenes, we came across the intimidating villains from those movies as well. They were very threatening, had no remorse for personal space and, quite frankly, didn’t care if we wanted to be touched or not! Freddy pushed us into some barrels in his boiler scene, Leatherface and an aggressive butcher refused to let up on us until they’d used every means possible to make us fear them, the Creeper got nice and close for a few good sniffs and Jason’s mother was a little bit ‘edgy’ too’ not including her undead, machete-wielding son!

Just when we thought we were navigating the dark maze alone, our surroundings would come to life! We would be walking along and start to actually see an outline of where we were going and ‘boom!’ something would shine or make a loud noise causing us to jump and lose any night vision we’d managed to muster. Needless to say, this made the scares in the dark maze very hard to predict. They split our group up in this one too on multiple occasions and, at one point, we had to sacrifice one of our group members so the rest of us could exit the attraction. You might bring someone with you that you don’t like very much just for this reason.

The Karnival was by far the haunt that provided the best distractions. At multiple times, the quirky clowns were able to catch us off guard because we were gazing at one of their new props or effects for this season.

General admission to enter all three of the haunts at Nightmare on Edgewood is priced at $25.00 this year. This ticket price is the same as last year, but the haunt was a lot longer this year! Last season, we timed them at just over 16 minutes and, for 2017, we clocked them almost 10 minutes longer at 24! That brings their MPD value (minutes of entertainment received per dollar spent) to 0.96 which is below the average of 1.5 that we see most often, but such an improvement from last year’s length. Of course, each group’s tour time will vary as there are two mazes that you must find your way out of within the three haunts. Multiple coupons are available to print right off of their website which makes general admission even cheaper.

On busy nights the lines can get rather long, so they do offer VIP admission tickets for $40.00 that will grant you faster admission to the haunts. There is a limited number of these that are sold per night. For those who like to solve puzzles and test their smarts, they also have two different 6-minute escape rooms. Pricing for those is $5.00 each per person and there are also a limited number of them sold each night. This season, Nightmare on Edgewood and House of Trepidation have teamed up to offer a discounted ticket to both haunts. You can visit NoE’s website for additional information.

We hit nearly every haunt in Indianapolis, Indiana this year and we must say that NoE is the most intense in the area. They are a full-touch haunt and they used it well! If you love horror movies, getting your scare on in a fun environment and watching your friends run, we highly recommend a visit to Nightmare on Edgewood this season! Just watch out for Jason’s mother, she’s blaming her son’s death on everyone!