Seven Cedars Farms Haunted Hayride Review (2016)

The entire crew of Seven Cedars Farm hayride is completely volunteer. The show brings you from one scene to the next with two to six actors per scene. Between these scenes, you will usually bump into a dark face or two that are trying to get you. Almost every scene has a victim and a killer or monster (which impressed me). More often than not, I find myself on small, local, community hayrides and I’m lucky to get one victim scene while the rest are simply pop-out scares. Even a good portion of the ‘big name’ haunted hayrides have just their scary monsters and killers in their scenes. At Seven Cedars’ hayride, the victims don’t only get what’s coming for them during your brief drive-by’ they also come back to attack you for not rescuing them.

The crew operates on a shoestring budget, but the haunt does provide costumes to their cast. You will find familiar characters along the way and they are all dressed up properly. Trust that you will not see Freddy Kruger running in shorts and flip flops. Many of the cast members between the sets will be wearing masks and black robes. Unfortunately, I had to attend on a night where many of the cast decided to stay home. Someway, somehow, they were able to call in quite a few favors and get a decent crew onto the trail. With what little time they had to prepare, or plan, or even discuss anything, it did feel like they had to put on a mask and go to a spot that looked empty. Just being able to get people to show up is impressive, let alone with only an hour or two before show time.

There really isn’t much leading up to the hayride. You show up, grab a ticket, maybe a dough boy, chill for a bit while watching a movie, then you go on the ride. The best build up I would have to say is there are no lights on the tractor. You are completely in the dark on the wagon until you get to the first scene, which is when a big spot light turns on and immediately directs your attention. When the scene is done, it’s lights out again. Just being in the dark on the hayride is a really creepy experience.

The hayride is a long one. You can always count on some actors being ready to pop out at you, but you just never know when, exactly. The scenes give us a few familiar faces from your favorite horror movies and, for some people, that is the ‘ultimate’ in scariness. A killer walking up to you with a chainsaw means nothing unless it’s Jason Voorhees, right? The darkness of the hayride is definitely the scariest element. They are the only hayride in New England that drives with no lights. Most would question the safety of the driver and the actors and passengers, but the drivers have been doing it for three years now and know the back woods like the back of their hands.