The Deranged Haunted Attraction Review (2026)

While researching The Deranged on social media and other haunted house pages, we found helpful information about their operating days and hours, including the dates and times of their specialty nights. This information was very helpful while planning our visit. We also noticed they have a website with everything you need to know for your upcoming trip to Belle Plaine.

The Haunt grounds were impressively tidy and clean; even around the outdoor fire barrels, everything was clean and picked up. Every haunt staff member, in character or out of character, was friendly and very helpful, showing us where to park and buy tickets, even pointing out how to get to the waiting area and where to present your number in line.

When you walk up to the building from the parking lot, you automatically see the traditional barn front end and flashing lights guiding you to the ticket booth built into the building. They had an old-style toilet in a jail cell next to an old delivery van outside as a good photo opportunity, and I was partially made to pose on the seat of the stool.

The waiting area inside is the corral where the animals would be sold, with the original bleachers for you to sit at. They give you a ticket with your number on it, and there is a ticket keeper screen on the wall that will call out your number, as if you were in the movie Beetlejuice. Once through the sale barn area, you enter the Iowa woods/marsh area with fog; Lazor Swamp under the swamp was sand and limestone to keep you immersed.

They had a boat right at Lazor line level, making you feel more like you were wading in the Iowa marshes. Once through the marshy area, you enter a beautiful old house facade with a beautiful front porch. As you make your way through the house, you notice a birthday cake with the number six. We later asked the owners what the significance was, and it was the haunt’s 6th birthday.

For the most part, the front had kind of a woodsy, marshy backwoods theme, then went to a wastewater plant, then clowns, so theming was a little everywhere, which I don’t mind; it gives my mind a break between areas, but the theme ended up picking back up once you got closer to the outside areas.

The Deranged Haunted Attraction had quite a few animatronics and was later told most were built on site, and others were bought at Transworld. The fog for the swamp and marshy area, I believe, was scented to match the room theme, and other rooms had the scent fans throughout the rest of the haunt.

Some rooms were very dim to no light at all, and others had beautiful lighting and just the right colors. Once outside, you had to go under a spark ceiling, like the spark walls, but the clown above you is sparking around you and your group. At the end of the bus area, you come around a corner, and the bus flashes its light at you and blares its train horn, scaring the living [Bleep] out of you.

Every Kreacher or character in Deranged did an amazing job with the jump scares and the character theme. If you were a clown, you behaved as one; if you were a nun, you looked at us for a second and then struck. The haunt, for the most part, uses masks and very little makeup, but they do use some on the arms and other bare skin areas. If there was makeup, it was well done. 

The clowns in the bus area never lifted on those chainsaw triggers one bit as we were trying to find our way out, barely giving us a chance to discuss what we saw, and I was okay with that! The costumes were nicely done with the corresponding mask. The nuns had a barely distressed nun outfit, with simple yet effective face makeup, but knew when to pop out just right. Unfortunately, when we would complement the masks between our team, a couple of actors broke character and said thank you in their normal voice. Some actors in the clown area more or less just stood there. Other than a couple of opening-day hiccups, my team thought the actors did an amazing job.

With the spark walkway above you to the professional-grade props, The Deranged Haunted Attraction did an amazing job of giving us some jump scares and some close calls; it takes a lot to get me, and in some places I wasn’t so fearless. I will admit to a few scares. There were a couple of “dead” zones in some spots, like the hallway with the clown TV on a door with a window; the white sheet room could use someone in there with a white morph suit and overalls over the suit to hide the person’s features but still have the theme of country.