2009 Event Review
Please note: this review is for the 2009 season rather than the current season.
The Dark Side
by louiscyphre (Review Crew) after attending on Saturday, October 10, 2009 at about 8 p.m.
Submitted: Monday, October 12, 2009
Review
Set at an actual farm, the haunt is spread out over what looks like acres and acres of land, and made up of at least four different segments, an abandoned mine (with one heckuva cool, disorienting spiral staircase/vortex thingie), a hayride with an accompanying soundtrack, a haunted forest with some elaborate setups, and a haunted corn maze that kind of speaks for itself; by the end you may feel almost entertained-out. We loved the mine and the forest, but the hayride was kind of short on ghouls; perhaps H1N1 is hitting the ghoul community hard.
Don't expect an over-arching theme or anything art-y or anything like that, but these guys are serious about what they're doing and they do it well. There's some clever set-ups, for instance, with distracting you into looking at something that's slightly lit (what's that little fire over there about?), and then dazzling you with blazing flames (Fire Bad!), so your little retinas are overwhelmed and non-operational for a minute, and then a ghoul lurches out of the dark and slams his powersaw into the side of your haywagon, sending up sparks (yes, sparks!) and everyone screams, etc etc. Is it wrong to think of this as fun? Whatev.
It does look like a lot of effort goes into this haunt, and it takes a long long time to get through, so give yourself an hour or more, at the very least, and savor the terror. And it's all for just the one reasonable admission fee, so kudos to them.
Signage / Visibility / Location
Wait Area / Line Entertainment
I think they sold little treats and stuff at the main building, but we were kind of rushing in. Anyways, you line up on a hill and wait to get the high-sign from some ghouls to approach the entrance to the mine; when you reach the entrance, there's a witch who tells you the "Story of Glacier Rock Farms and Its Mad Owner." I think the story has changed a bit since I was last there, but that's how legends grow, I suppose. Actually, the waiting on the hill is kind of cool, with the stars all lit up behind the mine and over the ridge and farm as you look down over the whole place.... Some random ghouls kind of wander around, too, but my favorite part is that you still line up next to a real cow pasture, and so cows wander in and out of the scene, and they're kind of spooky, at least to city slickers like us, but I don't think they're vampire cows like the ones featured in the commercials for that Little Vampire movie (it came out in 2000, god help us, look it up on imdb if you're confused), although that would be interesting, I suppose, as long as I didn't have to have any kind of contact with that horrible gel-haired Jonathan Lipnicki kid. Sorry, accidentally tapped into the decades-old rivalry between me and Jonathan Lipnicki there. Curse you, Lipnicki!
Anyway, the wait is nice and pleasant and suitably atmospheric.
Actors' Performance
Sets Scenes / Props / FX
Length
Crowd Control
Most Memorable Moment
2) When you enter the abandoned cabin, give the bed a wide berth...that's a pun, sorry.
3) Oh boy, if you can't stand enclosed spaces, you're going to have a hard time in one part of the mine. It felt like we were being forced into a cattle slaughtering pen...seriously disturbing.


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