The Dead Woods Review (2024)

Aside from a couple dead spots, the cast supplied a decent number of bodies who staffed each main area along the way. We were told half a dozen actors were out that night, but the spread seemed pretty well balanced, neither crawling with creeps or low on loonies. Our other thought about numbers is we heard a lot of “Help me!” pleas, so the ratio was perhaps somewhat skewed – tipped a little too much toward victims versus monsters/assaulters.

But if nothing else, these victims were forceful and zealous in their sorrows. They weren’t alone. The whole cast kept up a potent amount of energy all the way through. And we still met plenty of characters besides distraught victims. The resistance group was represented by a handful of army stragglers, including a camo soldier stealthily scouting and a ghillie-clad trooper.

As for the aliens and other freaks (sometimes it was hard to tell if we were meeting outer space psychos or terrestrial terrifiers), the Face Collector taunted us about going the wrong way and floundering to find an exit. A lizard-ish alien tried to eat us. Good thing there was enough of us to go around, because the alien priestess shrieked with delight when she saw fresh meat to feed the alien hatchlings.

Toward the end, we had an extended interaction with Pogo the space clown and Pogo’s spazzing-out victim. The victim pleaded with us for protection and they both walked with us for a while. We got between them, but they worked around us, the two approaching each other, recoiling, feinting, and juking in an involved physical effort, until Pogo took down the prey and noisily feasted zombie-style. Then Pogo capped it off by running to cut us off and squeezing in another appearance at the end of their area. We salute the commitment of these two!

Another excellent performance occurred when we met up with COBY! Apparently, that is how the character’s name is spelled, in all caps with an exclamation point, like in a musical. COBY! had a tremendous shriek and laugh. COBY! first acted like a victim, then came across the rope to harass us on our side of the trail. We got to see COBY! twice due to how the trail wound around. We were pleased to receive some sassy side-eye and another scream during COBY!’s encore.

Although we did see more street clothes on display than at our last visit, as a rule the characters looked pretty good in their ugly ‘badness.’ Overall detailing was a little plain, but there were plenty of strong individual efforts.

A loopy, robed rogue with eyeballs all over their face carried a jar full of even more eyes. They tried to get us to make a contribution to the jar. Not happening! The camo and ghillie GIs had complete martial-oriented outfits, some skull-faced creepos in black robes gave off a sinister vibe, and Pogo was decked out in full and flamboyant carnival wear. We’re unsure if COBY!’s half-mask was supposed to be part cyborg or something else, but it sure looked cool.

The alien priestess rocked some nasty long fingers and a stellar tiara like something out of a Flash Gordon serial. The alien hatchling’s fang-forward face rather resembled Audrey from The Little Shop of Horrors. But the nastiest makeup had to be the Face Collector. The gloppy, melty, sickly green, poxy face grossed us out. Fair enough, Face Collector. We’d be trying to gather up some extra faces too.

The Dead Woods is located in Caledonia, Ohio, about an hour north of Columbus. Pay attention to the parking sign. Our GPS directed us to the right spot for the attraction, but the parking area is directly across the street from the foot entrance. Parking attendants pointed the way to a spot in the free grass lot.

The entrance leads past a tarot reading tent. Ticketing is right after that, where they also sell merch and yummy, cheap hot cocoa. Tickets are available on-site only and by cash only. Nearby is a table where you can vote for your favorite actors in a variety of categories after you go through. The winning actors receive awards at their post-season celebration. What a great idea! We wish more attractions did something like this.

The attraction entrance is further down from there. We think it would be difficult to get lost since everything is in more or less a straight line.
The Dead Woods contains several instances of dark maze. With more dark mazes comes more opportunity to bop your nose on a wall, so keep your hands up in there. We found the path to be relatively clear of roots and such. The most threatening thing we came across was a camouflaged stretch of super-spongy ground that nearly took us down.

There is no website, but The Dead Woods does have a Facebook page that includes pretty much any info you might need.

We took in a nice haunt-y atmosphere outside the attraction. Lit tiki torches, tents, and the ticket trailer area suggested a creepy little pop-up village, where we listened to chart toppers of the terror top 10 like The Time Warp and I Put a Spell on You. We passed inflatable alien props, a lunging spider prop, and a lovely warm fire crackling away on our trek to the queue.

Visitors should watch the attraction’s teaser video (on the Facebook page) that sets up the alien invasion story. We saw news clippings affixed to trees that reported on UFO sightings, abductions, and historical items like the Roswell incident. We thought the alien angle could have been played up more by some of the actors instead of making more generic statements like “this forest is dangerous.”

A further series of flickering torches lit our way on the trail. The organic lighting and ramshackle wooden structures fit the woodsy environment. The ropes cordoning off the pathway performed a valuable safety function, but took away somewhat from the elemental immersiveness of the natural scenery. The exit led us back close to the starting point.

For a traditional haunted trail that’s pretty actor-forward, we enjoyed a healthy helping of eye candy and FX fun. We saw some of the most realistic-looking spider webbing we’ve ever come across at The Dead Woods, thick strands hanging from the trees. That was prop webbing, right? If not, we shudder to think of the 8-leggers we might have been walking around.

We admired a massive cobra head prop lit up by a strobe, crept through a laser swamp tent, skirted a toxic waste dump, and peered into the dark woods to find glowing sets of eyes blinking back at us. Another laser swamp effect was triggered by a circular light fastened above head level, an inventive angle that created unusual patterns. The skull-with-brain alien from Mars Attacks made a pictorial appearance on a wall.

We navigated quite a bit of dark maze areas. These, and even some of the more illuminated structures, featured cunningly concealed exits – including doors that, once found, had to be pushed, pulled, and prodded to discover how they opened.

We heard some snatches of eerie music, plus air horns and what sounded like bird shrieks, along with some of the scary pop songs when we got closer to the exit, but most noises seemed to be coming from the actors and (screams of the) patrons …including us.

Our first scare came courtesy of a victim! This individual popped out of a dark corner in one of the first cabin structures to warn us about venturing further into the forest. They really didn’t have to tell us, as we heard constant loud screaming coming from ahead!

The camo soldier, ghillie soldier, and a crawler who took advantage of a superior prop distraction delivered frights by way of cunning concealment and/or striking from the ground. A skull-faced assailant also played the positional game, this time hanging around high up on a wall. Others got more in our face, like COBY!, the alien priestess and hatchling, and Pogo.

If you hate stumbling around blindly, the dark mazes here might have you cursing …and running into either actors or other visitors, which can freak people the f out. We heard other parties in the mazes yelling, “I’m gonna pee my pants!” and “Did I just touch somebody?” Very amusing when it’s not you. Or wait, maybe that was us. And then, at the very end, they amped it up again by separating us for the last dark maze. Oh, The Dead Woods, you play dirty, and we love you for it.

We escaped ETs for 30 minutes on this trail. Against the $20 general admission, the MPD (minutes of in-attraction entertainment per dollar spent) was 1.5. That’s a good cut above the 1.0 minimum target we want to experience as a rule. It’s good value for your haunt dollar, based on the fun time we had on this trail, where an old-school approach comes accented with some neat modern effects. Fast pass is available for $30.

The Dead Woods has a good thing going on here. Check ‘em out to get on the ground floor of this alien invasion. Just try not to get probed …unless you’re into that sort of thing!