Wicked Woods of Terror Haunted Trail Review (2017)

WWoT had a unique cast of 25 volunteer actors when we visited, which seemed a little bit light when considering the size of the attraction. While the actors did an admirable job of covering the different scenes, we still encountered several dead spots where there were no actors at all. We thought that the cast as a whole did an excellent job and found them to be quite interactive. Most of them worked well with their props, and several actors used creative dialogue to help heighten the experience.

We especially enjoyed the Pigman who followed us around for several scenes and the character who wore a mask with glowing crosses. But the actor who stood out above all others was ‘Disgusto’ the clown. One moment, he had our review group really creeped out and, the next, laughing hysterically at his jokes and highly-entertaining antics. Be forewarned, though, that he just may want you to ‘play with his big balls!’

We did encounter a few sub-par performances, especially the guy with the chainsaw who gave a half-hearted effort; in fact, he really didn’t even chase us at all. He just stood there looking confused at what to do with us. There were a couple other characters that didn’t seem to say or do much at all, as well. But, the less-than-stellar performances were definitely the minority and the fact that it was the opening weekend might have played a factor.

Overall we were quite pleased with the majority of the cast.

While WWoT doesn’t appear to have as large of a budget as some of the bigger haunts in the area, they do work very well with what they have. The set designs and effects have more of an old-school feel to them, but we found them to be creative and quite original. We really enjoyed the neon colored Clown Room that housed the infamous Disgust the Clown, the “hellelevator,” and the creepy Cemetery. The room that had the ‘sinking ground’ effect was also a highlight, as it really felt as if we were going to sink into the Earth around us. The lighting in particular was well-executed. The scenes themselves seemed to have just the perfect amount of light to see everything well and there was just enough light in between the sets to be able to see where we were going.
We did feel the sound effects were a little lacking and noticed an absence of a soundtrack with the exception of one room.

Some of the scare techniques used by WWoT include unnerving sounds, intimidating dialogue, entrapment and several well-timed ‘pop’ scares. There was one great moment when we thought for sure a lady in the rocking chair was an animatronic creation. She ended up giving our review group quite the scare when we noticed she was actually real! There were a few excellent environmental scares, most notably when walking through one scene that felt like we were sinking into the ground. The characters made sure that everybody in our group got an equal dose of frights by targeting each member of our group evenly.

Another great aspect of this haunt is that when the cast noticed you were not scared, they would at least attempt to entertain you with jokes, making fun of our appearance and getting us to sing ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm,’ among other things. They did an admirable job of making sure we were entertained during the entirety of our tour

The price of general admission is $15 and $25 for a VIP fast pass. During the busier parts of the season, the lines here can get very long and the wait can be upwards of several hours. For those nights, we highly recommend the VIP fast pass option.

From start to finish, it took our review group 26 minutes to complete our tour, for a MPD (minutes per dollar) score of 1.73. We feel that you get a lot of quality entertainment for your money here and that it is a great value. WWoT has an annual off-season event called ‘Escape The Woods,’ which is a unique combination of a haunted trail and interactive escape game. This event is usually held during the summer months, so make sure to keep an eye on their Facebook page for updates.