Features:
✓-Free Parking✓-Restrooms/Porta Potties On-Site✓-Food/Concessions✓-Gift Shop/Souvenirs✓-“Old-School” (Low Tech)✓-You will NOT be touched✓-Uncovered Outdoor Waiting Line✓-All-Outdoor Attraction
How Do We Get These Scores?
Our Rating System
UPDATE FOR 2022: Our former “Atmosphere” and “Theme” categories have now been combined and renamed “Immersion.” Our intent with this is to give more appropriate credit to attractions that have shown a clear focus on achieving and maintaining better customer experiences (both inside and outside the attractions) and developing creative storylines.
Each of the category scores in this review are calculated using a weighted average of several questions that we rate on a scale of 1 to 10.
The following breakdown explains what these scores typically mean. All of our Teams use this as a reference for providing accurate ratings:
10: “Peak Performance”This score is treated as if it has a chastity belt on it. “10’s” are reserved for the best of the best; those that we feel could not possibly improve on what they’re doing.
9: “Innovative and Groundbreaking”It rocked! Nearly everything seemed to go as planned and it was one of the best we’ve ever seen! These guys are leaders in the industry, and attractions like this are truly hard to come by.
8: “Solid”A high score on our scale. They had a good handle on it and, overall, they knew how to use it well. Most attractions can learn from what these guys are doing.
6 to 7: “Good”We could tell that a good effort was made. However, we’ve seen this done much better at other places, or can detect areas where significant improvements can be made. This is about the top end of what we’d call “Family Friendly.”
5: “Average / Fair”Compared to the competition, they weren’t the best, but definitely not the worst. Scares and Special Effects in this range are usually considered “Family Friendly.”
3 to 4: “Below Average”We could see that a clear attempt was made, but most other professional attractions are doing a much better job at this.
1 to 2: “Poor”It appeared that very little time, thought or effort was contributed to this aspect.
0 (Zero): “Non-Existent”No apparent effort was made to make this a significant contributor to the attraction.
Afterword:This rating system is standardized across all of The Scare Factor’s official haunt review teams. However, keep in mind there will always be minor differences between Teams, as we all have varying levels of experience. Regardless, we do our best to remain true to our core values, which is to promote all haunted attractions!Perhaps the biggest thing to remember is: sometimes the score – in and of itself – doesn’t tell the whole story about an attraction’s merits. This is why we provide detailed explanations for each category… to help you better understand how and why we chose the score/s that we did.We do our best to not let feelings or emotions rule our judgement, while also viewing the attraction through the lens of the typical haunt-goer. But, because all reviews with ratings are inherently subjective, this is nearly impossible to completely prevent. Though, when in doubt, we tend to give slightly lower scores than our original “gut feelings” to account for this, and also give the attraction more room to improve over time.We also do our best to be fair and consistent across all of the haunts that we review. We know that you’ll be looking at these scores and comparing them to other attractions, so we hope this review helps you out in that aspect.Do you have some feedback about our review system? Contact Us Here to let us know what you think!
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Final Score: 6.64
How Did We Get This Score?
Final Scores:
(15% of Final Score) Cast: 8.65
(15% of Final Score) Costuming: 5.4
(10% of Final Score) Customer Service: 7.15
(10% of Final Score) Atmosphere: 6.13
(15% of Final Score) Special Effects: 3.52
(5% of Final Score) Theme:
(15% of Final Score) Scare Factor: 6.62
(5% of Final Score) Entertainment & Value: 8.9
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Summary:
Rutledge Corn Maze is located in Olympia, Washington and they open a Haunted Maze each October. The Haunted Maze is an old-school corn maze haunt with a spirited cast. Rutledge Corn Maze has a unique two path, non-scare maze which is included with your admission to the Haunted Maze. (This year’s corn maze theme was the regionally appropriate BigFoot.) They also normally host a zombie paintball experience that was closed this year but is planned to return in the future. Our team had a good time going through the Haunted Maze.
Cast: 8.65
How Did We Get This Score?
Cast Scores (15% of Final Score):
(20% of Cast Score) Did it seem like there were enough actors?: 8.67
(30% of Cast Score) How creative, believable and convincing were the actors?: 8.67Explanation:
There were a couple of actors who broke character really easily after their initial scare like the actor who broke when someone in our group thought he was a sunflower. Overall, every character had great banter.
(20% of Cast Score) How interactive were the actors (verbally and physically)?: 9.33
(15% of Cast Score) How creatively & appropriately did they use dialogue?: 9.33
(15% of Cast Score) Was there a good variety of characters?: 7Explanation:There were mostly clowns with a couple of non-clown characters.
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The chatty cast in the Haunted Maze were a highlight of our experience. There were enough actors to keep things moving. This haunt relied almost entirely on actor-driven scares. The actors mostly stayed in character but every actor was very interactive. Most of the actors played around with our responses and did great with their improv throughout their scenes. It made us want to respond to them and try to be creative with our responses. Even despite our occasional cracks at them, they all responded brilliantly.
One of the clowns burst out of the corn scaring one of our teammates then proceeded to follow us for some time while throwing out short little zingers as others from our team egged her on. This continued until we ran into the large toy blocks, where another actor flopped out from behind them, and our clown disappeared. It was a really effective team scare.
There also was a butcher that was offering up some ‘Papa’s Meat’. When we responded that we didn’t know what he was talking about, he explained that it was Daddy’s Meat but that was too weird so he was trying Papa’s Meat instead. When we passed him turning the corner out of his scene, he started shouting ‘Daddy’s Meat! Get some Daddy’s Meat!’ Apparently, Papa’s Meat didn’t have the same ring.
Costuming: 5.4
How Did We Get This Score?
Costuming Scores (15% of Final Score):
(15% of Costuming Score) How complete / finished did the costumes appear to be?: 4Explanation:
Most of the actors were in street clothes or wearing a farm branded hoodie.
(25% of Costuming Score) How creative / detailed were the costumes?: 3.67Explanation:
There were some attempts with costumed characters but not a whole lot variety.
(20% of Costuming Score) Was their makeup creative? Detailed? Realistic?: N/A
(15% of Costuming Score) How effectively did they use masks (if used)?: 7
(25% of Costuming Score) How appropriate were the costumes for their scene/s & theme/s?: 7
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The costumes were low quality or thrown together with street clothes. The masks worked to where every actor could speak through them just fine but they were not particularly realistic or unique. There were hardly any scenes (which we will talk about a little later) so the characters were mostly random. There were a lot of clowns with a variety of other characters peppered in.
Customer Service: 7.15
How Did We Get This Score?
Customer Service Scores (10% of Final Score):
(25% of CS Score) How easy was it to locate the attraction, park, and navigate the premises?: 7.67
(30% of CS Score) How safe was the attraction?: 6.33Explanation:
There was no signage about social distancing or wearing mask enforcement. There also wasn’t a COVID-19 response on their website. The lighting in the midway also made everything hard to see.
(25% of CS Score) How professional, helpful and friendly were the staff members?: 5.33Explanation:
There was no obvious staff in the midway. If they were staff, they just blended in with the crowd. If the staff wore vests or something with lights, they would have been easier to identify.
(20% of CS Score) How easy was it to find their information before* arrival?: 10
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Rutledge Corn Maze had an easy to get to the location that our GPS sent us to directly. It wasn’t hard to find parking and there seemed to be a lot of available parking. The ticket booth staff was great and extremely helpful. After the ticket booth, however, there was very little to direct us around and the midway was extremely dark. We had to take a guess as to where the corn maze was. There is a huge unlit sign at the portal that we passed up and wound up looking at every fire pit for the maze entrance.
It is fairly easy to find information about the Haunted Maze and daytime activities on their website. The Haunted Maze doesn’t have much of a social media presence but you can find a lot of information through the farm’s social media pages. We purchased a ticket for admission to the haunted maze which also included admission to the corn maze – a happy add-on that we figured out at the ticket booth but wasn’t listed anywhere on their website.
Atmosphere: 6.13
How Did We Get This Score?
Atmosphere Scores (10% of Final Score):
(60% of Atmosphere Score) How obvious was it that you were at a haunted house before entering?: 8
(40% of Atmosphere Score) How well did the atmosphere prepare you for what you experienced inside?: 3.33Explanation:
The line actors should have been more engaging. They mostly just completed a loop before disappearing. We didn’t really get a sense of the haunt from the outside.
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The location was very obviously a corn maze with fire pits. There was very little Halloween feeling throughout the midway. Once we were in line for the Haunted Maze, there were large palisades with paintings of menacing clowns, a character legally distinct from Jason – the name tag even had a different name, and a huge open mouth skull. There was no music in the queue line at all. There were a couple of line actors who came out every hour to circle the queue line before retreating into the corn, but their interaction with the crowd was fairly minimal.
Special Effects: 3.52
How Did We Get This Score?
Special Effects Scores (15% of Final Score):
(20% of SFX Score) How effective were the sound effects?: 3.67
(20% of SFX Score) How creative / original were the scenes & props?: 2.33
(20% of SFX Score) How well were the scenes detailed?: 3Explanation:
The scenes didn’t really work as they were. It would have been better to leave them out and focus on costuming OR spend more time developing more scenes.
(25% of SFX Score) How well did they achieve & maintain the suspension of disbelief?: 4.67
(15% of SFX Score) How effective were the SFX at providing scares / entertainment?: 3.67
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This definitely was an old-school haunted corn maze. The effects were a variety of off-the-shelf props and Halloween scene decor. There were a couple of sound effects but no overall ambient sound throughout the haunt: The toy blocks played clown-y type music; a couple of effective car horns in the corn; Ace of Base in chainsaw alley. The maze was in a relatively condensed area to where you did get noise bleeding from other areas in the maze that helped fill in the dead spaces between actors.
We went past a meat counter with the butcher, a graveyard, and a sizable clown area. There also was a hallway of randomness near the end next to the chainsaw clowns that just basically was a funnel to set up patrons for the chainsaw scare. Since most of the haunt was just corn, it proved to be a fun playground for the actors even despite the emptiness.
Theme: N/A
How Did We Get This Score?
Theme Scores (5% of Final Score):
(30% of Theme Score) Could you tell what the theme was?:
(50% of Theme Score) How well was the theme carried throughout the attraction/s?:
(20% of Theme Score) How well does their location authenticate the theme?:
This score is left “N/A” when we believe the haunt is trying to target a random variety of themes or phobias, rather than a single overarching “Theme” or “storyline.”
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This attraction didn’t seem to follow an overall theme.
Scare Factor: 6.62
How Did We Get This Score?
Scare Factor Scores (15% of Final Score):
(30% of Scare Factor Score) How scary was it?: 6.33
(15% of Scare Factor Score) How well did they provide scares to the entire group?: 7.33
(25% of Scare Factor Score) How predictable were the scares?: 6.67
(15% of Scare Factor Score) How well did they provide a wide variety of scares?: 6.33
(15% of Scare Factor Score) How strong was the ending / finale?: 6.67
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A couple of our teammates jumped at the well-timed actor entrances. One actor got one of our teammates and the rest of the cast seemed to attack at the opportunity. However, they still tried to hit everyone in our group. The fact that all the scares were human-driven made our experience more specialized. Since there were very few sets and a whole lot of corn, it was somewhat harder to tell where in the corn an actor was going to pop out from.
Even when one of the chainsaw clowns popped out at the beginning of the chainsaw alley, noticing that we were not reacting much to his chainsaw, he just popped back into the corn. The group ahead of us were runners so both clowns went after them, leaving us relatively unscathed.
Entertainment & Value: 8.9
How Did We Get This Score?
Entertainment & Value Factor Scores (15% of Final Score):
(30% of E&V Score) How satisfied were you with the entertainment received during the main attraction/s?: 8.33
(25% of E&V Score) How satisfied were you with the entertainment that’s available with* the ticket price, excluding the main attraction/s?: 8
(30% of E&V Score) How appropriate is/are the ticket price/s?: 10
(15% of E&V Score) Have they effectively used their available space?: 9.33
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The general admission price for the Haunted Maze is $21 and also includes the non-scare maze with that price. It took us 15 minutes to go through the Haunted Maze. This haunt is .71 minutes per dollar which is around the average in our area. The ticket for haunted maze also included the 45 minute no-scare maze and the midway. We felt that admission to both attractions, which were a part of the same ticket price, was generous and provided a good evening of entertainment.
This was the first season that any of us ever heard of Rutledge Corn Maze and we were excited to visit a new haunt in our area. Despite its flaws, we left the haunt with big smiles on our faces and excited at what we had seen. The cast did a lot to save the experience and we just know that a bit more polish and investment is all it is going to take to turn this into a great haunt. We loved visiting and are excited to see what they cook up in the future.
How Did We Get These Scores
Our Rating System
Each of the category scores in this review are calculated using a weighted average of several questions that we rate on a scale of 1 to 10.
The following breakdown explains what these scores typically mean. All of our Teams use this as a reference for providing accurate ratings:
10: “Peak Performance”This score is treated as if it has a chastity belt on it. “10’s” are reserved for the best of the best; those that we feel could not possibly improve on what they’re doing.
9: “Innovative and Groundbreaking”It rocked! Nearly everything seemed to go as planned and it was one of the best we’ve ever seen! These guys are leaders in the industry, and attractions like this are truly hard to come by.
8: “Solid”A high score on our scale. They had a good handle on it and, overall, they knew how to use it well. Most attractions can learn from what these guys are doing.
6 to 7: “Good”We could tell that a good effort was made. However, we’ve seen this done much better at other places, or can detect areas where significant improvements can be made. This is about the top end of what we’d call “Family Friendly.”
5: “Average / Fair”Compared to the competition, they weren’t the best, but definitely not the worst. Scares and Special Effects in this range are usually considered “Family Friendly.”
3 to 4: “Below Average”We could see that a clear attempt was made, but most other professional attractions are doing a much better job at this.
1 to 2: “Poor”It appeared that very little time, thought or effort was contributed to this aspect.
0 (Zero): “Non-Existent”No apparent effort was made to make this a significant contributor to the attraction.
Afterword:This rating system is standardized across all of The Scare Factor’s official haunt review teams. However, keep in mind there will always be minor differences between Teams, as we all have varying levels of experience. Regardless, we do our best to remain true to our core values, which is to promote all haunted attractions!Perhaps the biggest thing to remember is: sometimes the score – in and of itself – doesn’t tell the whole story about an attraction’s merits. This is why we provide detailed explanations for each category… to help you better understand how and why we chose the score/s that we did.We do our best to not let feelings or emotions rule our judgement, while also viewing the attraction through the lens of the typical haunt-goer. But, because all reviews with ratings are inherently subjective, this is nearly impossible to completely prevent. Though, when in doubt, we tend to give slightly lower scores than our original “gut feelings” to account for this, and also give the attraction more room to improve over time.We also do our best to be fair and consistent across all of the haunts that we review. We know that you’ll be looking at these scores and comparing them to other attractions, so we hope this review helps you out in that aspect.Do you have some feedback about our review system? Contact Us Here to let us know what you think!
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