The Haunted Chicken House Review (2024)

We were greeted by Skinner (part man/part chicken!) and Jam, who roam the property, interact with guests in queue lines, and generally make sure the haunt is operating well and guests are having a fun experience.

The cast of The Haunted Chicken House created an array of unique, creepy, and frightening characters. The cast was skilled at conveying odd behaviors and generating a fun sense of unease.

One of the actors had true contortionist skills as she crawled backward and upside down along a hallway while wearing a doll mask that appeared to be upright. She created a scene that challenged our brains to make sense of what we were seeing.

In the autopsy room, we encountered a grotesque scene featuring an attendant who, disturbingly, was tasting the water from giant tubs filled with bodies! His insistence on sharing this “delicacy” added a nauseating twist that highlighted the actor’s commitment to pushing boundaries.

Scoring multiple scares on guests, the pig boy (pig mask… the rest looked human) was very active, jumping around his scene, climbing fences, and hopping over furniture to surprise guests from various angles. The energy of this actor allowed him to move between at least 2 rooms.

The cast of The Haunted Hayride also made great efforts to bring their characters to life. Each themed scene—featuring hillbillies, zombies, and apocalyptic gangs—was filled with 6-8 actors who were fully immersed in their roles. As the hayride journeyed through these chilling environments, actors expertly timed their scares, emerging from the shadows to engage and terrorize the riders. Actors climbed up the sides and front as well as into the hay wagon, running up and down its length to frighten the riders. The actors seemed to know exactly which guests were most vulnerable and concentrated on them, giving the rest of us a very fun show!

The character costumes in the Chicken House were pretty diverse, and included a few unique combinations that worked in the scene. For example, the butcher wore a plague doctor mask. Initially, we found that to be an odd combination, but when you consider the recent pandemic…various forms of bird flu….it suddenly makes all the sense in the world that a character may have a phobia of disease while working in a chicken house.

Other characters, such as Chicken Boy and Pig Boy, went with a minimalist approach to costuming wearing only a mask and blue jeans. Their costumes reflect a gritty, backwoods vibe to match their character as well as allow greater freedom for their frantic activities, movements, and climbing.

Familiar faces like the Babadook and a Demogorgon add a fun twist, appealing to pop culture fans while maintaining the creepy tone of the haunt. Their inclusion serves as a nod to well-known horror and recognition that keeps guests engaged.

The Haunted Hayride costumes were for the most part cohesive and added to the overall scenes. Again there were hillbillies, zombies, apocalyptic gang members, and clowns In the darkness and chaos the costumes didn’t seem to matter much to the guests that were being preyed upon by these rogue groups of scary people.

There were two characters that stood out on the hayride: (1) The black and white clown had excellent makeup, a lengthy black and white nose, and a black and white costume to complete the look. (2) This tree-looking creature with a root-like face & ghillie suit was both eerie and semi-camouflaged at the same time. This creature stayed on our hayride wagon for several stops and managed to reappear and scare guests each time.

With about 70 costumed characters in the Chicken House and along the Haunted Hayride the haunt does a good job of creating unique looks to support each scene and story.

The Haunted Chicken House’s website is nicely organized with clear navigation. You have options to purchase tickets online as well as at the venue. The website provides the history of the haunt and has a section that describes and provides a video for each of their 3 attractions. You can make well-informed plans for your visit from your home computer or phone.

GPS gets you to the obvious entrance to the venue. Just look for the pyramid made of cars and hearses in various colors, with (what else?) a giant metal chicken perched on top! This structure truly sets the theme for this wild-ride haunted house.

Food/concessions are located at the same booth as ticket sales, offering a good variety of reasonably-priced menu items. And of course, chicken is on the menu! Once you have food and/or drink in hand there’s a nice fire pit area to sit and enjoy.

For all of your t-shirt/merchandise needs, you’ll find a booth near the fire pit. And should nature call, porta potties are in this area as well.

All staff members that we encountered were extremely helpful and friendly. The staff was also very quick to respond to misbehaving guests to help maintain a safe and fun haunt experience for everyone.

As we made our entrance to The Haunted Chicken House, we found ourselves in a room with a small chicken coop… and maybe the only live chickens we encountered. If they weren’t live chickens, the haunt used a really good quality chicken poo scent! This certainly immersed us in the chicken house setting. From there, it was a wild adventure with switchback narrow hallways that ramped up and down between the scenes. We didn’t feel immersed in a single story, but we don’t think that’s their intention. There were certainly chicken, farm, and county-related characters and scenes, but The Haunted Chicken House seasoned this poultry content with some more familiar characters as well. Moving from scene to scene or long hallway to long hallway, we were always left wondering what was around the next corner. The propping and special effects kept us grounded in this surreal experience from start to finish.

The Haunted Hayride was a different style of adventure. We rarely felt immersed on the ride, and the individual scenes gave us brief vignettes of a story before the characters turned their attention to the guests on the hayride… but that is the nature of most hayride experiences. As you leave a fright scene to ride through the woods you are curious as to what the theme of the next scene will be. As much as we enjoyed the creative scenes, it was also fun to watch the actors playfully attacking the more reactive guests on our wagon.

The Haunted Chicken House creatively uses many traditional special effects to achieve its scares.

Through the really long, dark corridors, we felt things brush against our ankles in a few spots, giving us the sensation that there must be little rodents running around. Cleverly positioned hose devices created this sensation that we were not alone in the dark.

If vortex tunnels mess with your equilibrium, imagine the effect when the tunnel is double the standard length. Yes, The Haunted Chicken House seems to have joined 2 vortex tunnels to make doubly sure you are thrown off balance.

Many haunts have fluorescent dot rooms used to camouflage an actor. We have to say that the room we encountered here was one of the best at creating this camouflage illusion. Is that a door? A mirror? You’ll have to check it out to see for yourself.

The Haunted Chicken House also plays around with lighting and floor level changes, particularly in those long, narrow, dark hallways. You see the one light way down at the end, but as you walk toward the light, you find yourself descending. And then there are those rats!

We don’t want to give away all of the scares, but remember that The Haunted Chicken House contributes to their local firehouse. Look for a nod and effective special effect that is firefighter-related.

The Haunted Hayride used a few special effects in their scenes. Fog created an eerie silhouette of characters before they emerged from their small sheds. In certain scenes, there were gunshot sound effects that were realistic. Otherwise, the hayride was mostly actor-driven for its energy and scares.

The Haunted Chicken House has an array of ways to get screams and jumps from its guests.

Jump scares are certainly a staple of most haunts, and that holds true here. Some characters such as Pig Boy managed to maneuver around to achieve 2 or even 3 jump scares on groups. We were surprised by a vampire that seemingly appeared from nowhere above us with the help of some clever misdirection by another actor.

The Haunted Chicken House also uses several common phobias to achieve scares. Those long, dark, narrow hallways combined fear of the dark with claustrophobia, and speaking of claustrophobia; we had to push our way through two sets of claustrophobia bags… back to back. Just when you think you’re free, there are creepy dolls and encounters with clowns for the coulrophobes in your group!

The Haunted Chicken House also plays with your senses by using camouflage (that great dot room), sensational scares (hallway rat tails), and disorientation (that double-length vortex tunnel) to throw you off balance as you traverse the halls.

What would an autopsy room be without a little blood and gore? Pair all of that with actors that get close and personal to intimidate by invading your personal space, and you get a haunt that finds a way to get a scream or jump from every patron.

The Haunted Hayride scares through a few phobias (clowns) and a bit of camouflage (the ghillie suit creature), but regardless of character type, the name of the Hayride game is intimidation. All of the characters move onto the hayride, thrusting everything from a clown horn to a chainsaw in your direction. Their actions only became jump scares if you let your attention lapse during the playful assaults.

We spent a total time of 33.5 minutes in The Haunted Chicken House and on the Haunted Hayride. The cost of a 2 attraction ticket is $40. This results in a MPD (minute per dollar) value of .84, and for $15 more, you can get a ride on the Crazy Train! The MPD value is good compared to other haunts we have seen.

Included in your ticket cost is a fire pit seating area where you can stay warm, and people (or creatures) watch as you enjoy refreshments from the concession area. There are also a few spots for photo ops where you can pose by chicken-topped vehicles or even in your own oversized birdcage.

The Haunted Chicken House is a fun experience and a highlight of the haunt season for the surrounding area. If you find yourself on I-20 between Atlanta and Birmingham on an October weekend, it is worth a stop to take in the scares and spectacle of The Haunted Chicken House – “It’s finger-lickin’ scary!”