SCARE RATING SYSTEM
5..... Go ahead and have an Ambulance on standby, you're gonna need it!
4 ..... May initiate releasing of bodily functions! 3 ..... Scary, but nothing you can't handle! 2 ..... Seriously? This place would only scare the Elderly & Young Children! 1 ..... Don't walk, RUN back to the ticket booth! 
Haunted House of Horror (Courtland, AL.)
Scare Rating: (4 out of 5) Overall Experience: (3.5 out of 5)
http://www.hauntedhouseofhorror.com
OVERALL RATING = 18.5 out of 25 Scare Rating: 4 Overall Experience: 3.5 Costumes & Make-up: 4 Decorations & Special Effects: 4 Bang for Your Buck: 3 (15 min. @ $20.00)
9-30-11 (Friday, 7:00pm) ... I went to this with a couple of friends from work, Randell Brannan & Darren Allen. This was the first year for the Haunted House of Horror and it takes place in what use to be Courtland High School. It's an old school building that is run down looking, giving it an already spooky appearance. I went on a Friday night and there was a high school football game going on right next to the old abandoned school at the football field next to the school, which i guess they obviously still use. It was kind of neat having the football game going on right next door and it didn't interfere at all with what was going on inside the Haunted House of Horror.
You first enter into the old gymnasium where you purchase tickets for $20.00, and then you sit on the old bleachers and wait to get in line. Interestingly enough, the old school colors were black & orange (Halloween colors), so all the bleachers were painted black & orange. The owners of Haunted House of Horrors obviously didn't have to do any painting as the old school already had the Halloween colors taken care of. That is what i call a lucky break! (Score!!!). Inside the gymnasium, they have a souvenir section set up where you could buy t-shirts for $20.00, but the only other items they had were glow sticks and fake fang teeth that were a bit pricey. The t-shirts looked pretty cool but I was a little disappointed that they didn't have more to offer. They also had a concession section set up with bottle drinks and chips but not a lot of choice in that either. They definitely kept it simple when it came to souvenirs and concessions.
When you buy your ticket, they give you a token (ours had a tongue on it) and a wrist band. As the people waited for their token name to be called (about 25 minutes), there were two monster actors that walked around the crowds. I was expecting these monsters to try and scare people who were waiting, but instead, they mostly walked around and talked to people. Some of the kids were taking pictures of them with their cell phones. They did have a black wall set up for picture taking with the actors. While the actor's costumes were great, they didn't scare anyone or really attempt to scare anyone. I thought that was kind of a lost opportunity for them to really get people amped up for the haunted house to come. The wait in line was about 20 minutes, which wasn't too bad. They also showed a horror film with a projector& screen in the gymnasium while you waited.
Once we were in line, they would let about 6 people in at a time. One really neat feature was the guy who divided you up into groups of 6 was an actor dressed as an escaped insane asylum patient. He would interact with you as you waited in line. This guy did a great job. It made the wait entertaining. This guy was actually really funny. He first would tell you the rules and then he would just verbally mess with you. He was actually very funny and did a great job with the kids that were in front of us and with us also. That was a neat feature that you don't see everywhere.
It took us about 15 minutes to go through the whole haunted house. If they could have made it last closer to 20 minutes, it would have been prefect. The actors in the haunted house did a great job at scaring people. The props were great and it was just really well done. For this to be their first year, they really did a great job. One really great feature was a sliding or moving floor. As you walked along, the floor would slide out from under you back and forth. It made you feel like you were drunk and couldn't walk. It was really cool how they did that. It sounded like it was done with compressed air somehow. They also had a vibrating floor in one of the scenes where they had an electrocution room. It gave the effect of an electrified floor.
As you went from room to room, you would go through doorways with black plastic or rubber hanging down, so you would have to part the black rubber slits to walk through. They had several trap doors that would suddenly open right as you walked through the doorways. A monster would pop out of these trap doors and scare the heck out of people. Your attention was towards going through the doorway and looking ahead to the next scene and these trap doors (approx. 24"x24") would be right next to you on your left or right side. This was very effective at scaring people. It was a great simple effect.
They had some animatronics but didn't over do it. Animatronics only are effective if properly done. They aren't always very scary, so if you rely too much on animatronics, you lose some of your scare factor. Haunted House of Horrors did a great job at not over doing the animatronics. They stuck to the human scare element and that was a smart thing to do.
They also had what i call a spinning dryer. This is a large pipe you walk through on a catwalk and the spinning lights disorientate you causing you to lean heavily to one side as you walk through. This one was a really good one and worked on me and my friends very well.
The actors in all the scenes really did a great job at scaring you. There were several times when they would appear out of nowhere. They were very well hidden. I am one to always look at every corner and at every little thing to see if something is hiding and while I did guess correctly several times, there were several times where the actors were so well hidden, I didn't see it coming. They included your typical chain saw scare as well but I thought they did well at not over doing chain saws. Chain saws work period, so you have to include them but some haunts over do chain saws and I thought these guys did a great job at not over doing them. They also had butcher scenes and a great funeral scene.
For a first year haunt, I thought these guys did a great job. My only negative comment would be to make it slightly longer. I think a $20 haunt should be a 20 minute experience, so if they could add a little more and make it at least 3 to 5 minutes longer, it would be a great haunt. The only other suggestion would be to add a better experience to the people who wait in the gymnasium. If the actors would try and scare people instead of just walking around or if they added some sort of entertainment, I think it would enhance the overall experience. Don't get me wrong, I left thinking it was worth the $20. I didn't buy a t-shirt for $20, but if they continue to build on this, I think they will do very well in the future. I only buy t-shirts from places that i think really did well and I almost bought one here but maybe with a little improvement, i will buy one next time around. Overall, it is worth the $20 and you will have a great experience.
 
Smith Farm's Haunted Corn Maze (Hartselle, AL.)
Scare Rating: (1.5 out of 5) Overall Experience: (1 out of 5)
http://www.smithfarmscornmaze.com
OVERALL RATING = 8 out of 25 Scare Rating: 1.5 Overall Experience: 1 Costumes & Make-up: 1 Decorations & Special Effects: .5 Bang for Your Buck: 4 (13 min. @ $9.00)
10-1-11 (Saturday, 7:00pm) ... I took the whole family to Smith Farm's even though I was sure that at least one of my kids would probably not want to go through the corn maze. It ended up being myself, Bryan and Abby that went in as Gail & Jackson waited at the car.
One neat feature was that they had these little flashing pumpkins that you could take if you had children that might get too scared. When the actors see these flashing pumpkins, they back off trying to scare you so they won't frighten the children. This was a great idea, because Bryan & Abby each had a pumpkin lantern but there was one group in the maze that didn't have a lantern and had a small child and this child was screaming and crying the whole time. I felt sorry for the kid. They should have taken a lantern, but they apparently didn't know about the lanterns, so maybe the ticket staff should suggest that when they see small children. I actually had to ask for the lanterns myself as it was not suggested by the staff.
I hate to be too harsh because I actually spoke with the owner of Smith Farm's previously and he is a super nice guy. They own this farm and economic times had hit them pretty hard and this corn maze was a way to help out. This is a small time operation with very little investment and you can tell.
The price is right at $9.00 for adults and $7.00 for children, but I would say that you should probably keep your money on this one and maybe spend it on another haunted attraction. We had to wait for about 23 minutes because not all the actors had showed up yet but once we got our tickets, we went right in. There was no wait once we got the tickets.
The corn maze itself was very confusing as to where to go. We actually got lost and couldn't find the way out as did other groups in the maze. The frightened child group had also gotten lost and they were asking actors how to get out and no one could tell them how to get out. We wandered around through the corn field trying to find out how to get out and this was a real buzz kill for the whole event. The trails were not marked at all and we ended up tromping through some corn to break through to the exit.
They only had two props that were in the maze and both were not very well done or thought out. The actors did an "ok" job at attempting to scare you but overall, it was not worth the $23 I spent for the 3 of us. They did have some light concessions but to be honest, I was not even interested to find out what they had nor did i see any t-shirts or souvenirs available.
I can't even really tell you how long it takes to go through the maze because most of the time we were trying to figure out how to get out but my best guess would be 10-15 minutes if you don't get lost. Overall, don't waste your time at this one.
Sloss Fright Furnace (Birmingham, AL.)
Scare Rating: (3.5 out of 5) Overall Experience: (4 out of 5)
http://www.frightfurnace.com
OVERALL RATING = 20 out of 25 Scare Rating: 3.5 Overall Experience: 4 Costumes & Make-up: 4 Decorations & Special Effects: 3.5 Bang for Your Buck: 5 (42 min. @ $20.00)
10-7-11 (Friday, 7:00pm) ... There were 9 of us that went to Sloss Furnace on a Friday night. I went with 5 friends from work, Randell Brannan, Darrin Allen, Kim Skinner, Laura Jo Rogers, Janice McClellan and her husband, son and son's girlfriend. This was my first time at the Fright Furnace although I have been to Sloss Furnace several times over the years as I was born and raised in Birmingham. I couldn't wait to experience Fright Furnace.
The original wait in line was about 15 minutes to get your tickets, which wasn't bad at all. I expected it would be longer than that. The ticket staff did a good job of moving people along. They have two attractions, "Tour the Furnace - Slag's Revenge" and "Tour the Woods - Descent into Darkness" and of course, we did both. It cost $16.00 for just the Furnace Trail and $20.00 for both trails. If you go with a group of at least 13, they have a group discount of $3.00 per ticket if you order 24 hours in advance. They give you a ticket with a letter on it for the Furnace Trail and they call your letter to get in line. This is nice because you can walk around and hang out or get something at the Road Kill Cafe or watch a movie. They also had a stage setup where I am guessing that they have occasional bands or performers but on this night, the stage was empty. Their website did say they had performers every Friday night but we didn't see any on this night. They showed the movie "Scream" on a huge 25 foot screen that had really good quality and there were chairs set up in front. It was like a small theater and there were a lot of people watching the movie as they waited for their letter name to be called.
Our ticket letter was the letter "G" and they had just called out the letter "C" to go into the Furnace Trail. The ticket taker suggested that we go do the Woods Trail first and by the time we got done with that, we would be close to our "G" letter being called out. The Woods Trail line was a 16 minute wait and it took 17 minutes to go through the whole Woods Trail. The Woods Trail was actually better than i expected. The actors did a really good job at menacing people and scaring people. For the most part, it was actors who would approach you as you walked along the trail. There was also a long "serpent's back" style slide that you would ride down. They would give you a burlap bag to sit on at the top and you would slide down into a waiting monster actor at the end. They also gave you the option to bypass sliding and go straight into a maze like ending to the Woods Trail. The maze had several monster actors that would intentionally try and mis-guide you through the maze. They kept telling you the wrong way to go and would slightly try and scare you. After making many wrong turns, we finally made it out of the maze, which was the ending to the Woods Trail. Overall, i thought the actors along the trail did a good job of interacting with the groups of people. There was a wide variety of creepy things that they would say to all of us and it made some parts very humorous as they scared some of my female friends.
Right after we finished the Woods Trail, they called our "G" letter to go through the Furnace Trail, so the timing was perfect. Once we entered the gate to the Furnace Trail, we waited about 10 minutes in line and the Furnace Trail lasted 25 minutes in length. Obviously, the Furnace Trail was the main event as it actually enters the Sloss Furnace itself. There were a lot of actors involved in both trails but especially the Furnace Trail. There are also many many 55 gallon metal drums all over the furnace that monster actors would bang on making a loud noise that did a pretty good job at scaring you. They had smoke machines blowing as you walked through the main furnace area. This really gave the place a creepy look. Sloss Furnace already has a creepiness to it, but the fog machines and strobes really makes this one of the best atmospheres for a Halloween Haunt. There weren't really a lot of specific scenes and I don't remember seeing any animatronics, which isn't a bad thing. They relied on human scare elements. Even though there weren't many actual scenes, the make-up job on the actors was really good. The actors kind of created the scenes by what they were dressed as instead of being in actual scenes. It was very dark and I thought they did a good job at not over lighting or over strobe lighting it. I thought the lighting and smoke from the smoke machines really enhanced the already creepiness of Sloss Furnace. There were parts that were so dark, you had to hold the shirt of the person in front of you to keep up and that was the case in both trails at Sloss Furnace.
My criticisms are that I felt like there could have been a better scare element. The actors were really into their roles and the make-up& costumes were fantastic but it just wasn't as scary as I thought it would have been. I think there needs to be a little more variety in how they scare you. One problem is that the walkways at the furnace are so narrow that it limits the ability to have scenes like you would have in a haunted house where you constantly move from narrow hallways to larger rooms where the scenes exist. Everything typically happened in a line along one side of you with occasional opposite side interaction. I think the actors were kind of limited in what they could do to scare you. Hiding in the dark corners and popping out at you was about all they could do other than banging on a metal drum but after you see and hear that a few times, it becomes predicable. The main scare element was when the actors would approach people and get right in their ear and say creepy things or make sounds at them. Other than that close interaction with the actors and i would say, without that close scare interaction, there wasn't much else that was really that scary. I think there just needs to be a little more creativity in finding a wider variety of ways to scare people.
They did have several actors that crawled really fast up on groups of people and this really seemed to get people jumping and screaming and there was one actor that I believe was hanging from the ceiling or maybe was just on top of something but he seemed to scare everyone, because it was unexpected to have someone reaching down at you from above at that point.
Near the end of the Furnace Trail, they give you some 3D glasses as you enter a 3D maze. This was actually really cool. All the walls and floors were speckle painted with multiple colors that just popped out at you and they also had many scary faces that seemed to pop off the wall at you. You entered what I call the spinning dryer two different times and with 3D glasses on, this was really cool. I have been in a few of these spinning dryers but never in 3D and that made it even more disorientating. The spinning dryer is a large pipe that you walk through on a catwalk. The whole pipe spins with lights inside causing you to lean to one side or the other and you can barely walk through to the other side. My criticism of the 3D maze is that it had no scare factor to it. It was neat and cool but there were no actors trying to scare you. I thought it was a lost opportunity to have some monsters made up in a way that the 3D glasses would really make them pop at you as they approached you. It just seemed like a lost opportunity.
They did have monster actors that were around the Port-o-lets and general areas that would scare people walking by or waiting in line for the Port-o-lets and this worked very well. Some of the port-o-lets had a strong urine odor coming from them and many didn't have toilet paper, so my female friends had less selection of port-o-lets than us guys did. It seems like maybe they need to have them serviced more frequently or at least checked for toilet paper and deodorizers. We got there at 7:40 pm, so it's not like the port-o-lets had a full night of usage. Luckily, the odor didn't emanate past the port-o-let area though, so it wasn't a widespread odor problem.
Let me say this though. Even though the scare factor was a little lower than i expected, you get 42 minutes (25 minutes for Furnace Trail& 17 minutes for the Woods Trail) of entertainment for just $20.00 and I would call that a pretty good deal. Many other attractions are $20.00 and it's just a haunted house that you finish in 15 minutes. They do have cool t-shirts that are $18.00 for short sleeve and $25 for long sleeve. I bought two t-shirts and I don't buy t-shirts unless I like the attraction and I think it deserves my money for the t-shirts. I know that may sound funny, but that's how I roll!!!
They had Candy Apples, Large Pretzels, Popcorn, Soft Drinks, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Beer and an assortment of other concessions. They actually have a great concession offering. The souvenirs were a little disappointing. The t-shirts were great but there wasn't a lot for kids other than glow necklaces and a spinning head flashlight thing. They had coffee mugs and stuffed animals and a few other small things but not a lot of good choice items that were unique or cool things for kids to have. I would have bought something for my kids if they had a better selection of items for kids.
They had an area where you could get your picture taken with a live python and had other snakes there also. Once your picture was taken with this snake around your neck, you would pay $16.00 to $25.00 for the photo depending on what size photo you got. I thought this was a bit pricey and didn't get one but i did see a fair amount of people doing it, so I might just be crazy in thinking it was pricey.
The overall experience was great and we had a lot of fun and that's what counts, so it was definitely worth $20.00. I will definitely be back to Sloss Fright Furnace in the future, but i would like to see them work on the scare element a little more. They have great costumes, great make-up, great atmosphere at the famous Sloss Furnace, so the foundation is there. It just needs to be kicked up a notch! It is well worth your $20.00, so check it out for yourself and get your own take on Sloss Fright Furnace!
Disturbia Haunted House (Huntsville, AL.)
Scare Rating: (4 out of 5) Overall Experience: (4.5 out of 5)
http://www.disturbiahauntedhouse.com/
OVERALL RATING = 20.5 out of 25 Scare Rating: 4 Overall Experience: 4.5 Costumes & Make-up: 4.5 Decorations & Special Effects: 4 Bang for Your Buck: 3.5 (17 min. @ $20.00)
Rated #19 “Top Haunted Houses in America 2011” by Hauntworld.com
10-21-11 (Friday, 7:00pm) ... Bravo!!! Much better than last year! As I said last year (see 2010 Haunted Attraction Critique), I knew the owner, Shane Dabbs would get Disturbia meeting all expectations in 2011. He did not disappoint. I went to Disturbia with my wife, Gail, and my sister-in-law, Lisa and her boyfriend, Kevin.
Scare Rating: I gave Disturbia a 4 out of 5 Pumpkin rating and that is better than 2010's rating of 3 out of 5. Last year was the first year for Disturbia and they didn't have time to get everything in place but this year, they did a great job at scaring you and playing on your phobia fears. While last year, my critique was too much emphasis on animatronics and not enough human scare factor, this year, they did it right. Disturbia has some of the best animatronics that I have seen but they did them in a tasteful way this year. They weren't overdone and they were well thought out. Placement and meaning is the key to good animatronic usage and Disturbia had the right mix of great animatronic placement mixed in with a robust human actor scare element. Some of the best animatronics were a werewolf nawing off body parts from a unfortunate victim complete with crunching sounds of the werewolf chomping through flesh and bone, a great double shot of hungry dinosaurs lurching at you from both sides and an awesome animatronic snake that spits air at you.
If you hate clowns, they got them. If you hate dolls, they got them. One of the creepiest actors that I have seen yet is a porcelain doll actor that is perched on a shelf that you have to pass to get through. My wife and her sister were terrified of this human doll and we are grown people! I have to admit it was one of the creepiest things I have seen. Whoever that actor is, she gets major kudos. Her costume was first class. It was hard to tell if she was real or not.
The clowns were creepy looking clowns and there was one clown in particular that was especially good. He was a bigger fellow but did a great job at scaring everybody in our group. They were letting groups of about 6 or 7 at a time go through. Some of the actors were very well hidden and the surprise factor was really good throughout. As we went through, some of the actors I could tell were real and would probably do something to us but a good number of them were very well hidden and were a total surprise.
Disturbia does a good job at not having too many gaps without a scare. They hit you on a constant basis. It took 17 minutes to go through the haunted house, which was much better than last year's time. If they could get it to 20 minutes, it would be perfect but 17 minutes is not bad at all especially since they stay on you and it's pretty packed with scare elements. The ending was much better this year as they literally chased us out the door with chain saws. The actors all did a great job and played their roles very well. Job well done Disturbia!
Overall Experience: The night we went, they had special guest, Danielle Harris, from Rob Zombie's Halloween 1 & 2 remake movies and she was also in Halloween 4 & 5. Unfortunately, Danielle must have been a little late. The line was long waiting outside, before they let you in. We waited outside for 45 minutes. When Danielle finally arrived, they started letting people in. You had to pay a $5.00 cover charge, which I am assuming is the cost to pay Danielle for her time in signing autographs and having your picture taken with her. We had no intention of getting an autograph or photo (which was an additional $10.00) and so I wish there was a way that you didn't have to pay the extra $5.00, just because she is there. Disturbia cost $20.00 but if you go on a night when they have a guest, be prepared to pay $25.00, even if you have no intentions on getting an autograph or photo. Maybe there is no way around this in order to pay Danielle Harris, but it would be nice if there was a way around it for people who just want to experience Disturbia by itself. There was a long line waiting to get Danielle's autograph however, so it's a neat thing that they bring in special guest. We walked around and watched her signing autographs and taking pictures with people and I recognized her from those movies, so that was kind of neat and certainly added to our overall experience.
Once we made it inside, we bought our tickets ($20.00) and we received an orange token. You have to wait for them to call out your token color and then you get in line. This is nice, because you don't have to wait in a long line. You can walk around and watch the Halloween Rock Band, The Cornstalkers, or get something to eat at the concession area or check out their souvenir shop.
They have a wide variety of gothic like t-shirts, as well as, Disturbia t-shirts and even a t-shirt for The Cornstalkers. They also have scary Halloween masks for sale and Halloween candy like, gummy eyeballs, gummy earthworms, candy maggot mints and gummy scorpions. They have a lot of neat souvenirs for adults and kids. They also have someone who pushes around a shopping cart full of glow sticks, glow mowhawk hair, glow skull necklaces and other glow items. There is plenty of stuff to choose from. I bought a Cornstalkers t-shirt for $15.00 (the Disturbia t-shirts were $20.00 and they didn't have any youth sizes or small sizes). I would have bought one of the Disturbia t-shirts for my kids if they had Youth sizes. I also bought a glow skull necklace ($8.00) and some gummy candy for the kids.
The concessions were awesome. They had deep fried corn dogs, deep fried oreos, hotdogs, soda drinks and a wide variety of other good eats. They are a bit pricey but good to eat. We bought some deep fried corn dogs and some drinks. They have a nice sitting area to eat right next to where you get in line when they call your token color, so you just get up and walk about 20 feet to get in line.
My favorite part is watching the Cornstalkers, the Halloween Rock band. These guys play Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Edgar Winter's Frankenstein and other Halloween themed rock songs. They just rock! Comprised of just a Bass Player, Drummer and Keyboard Player, they Halloweenize classic Rock songs. Rock on Cornstalkers!
We waited for 1 hour after we bought tickets, so our total wait was 1 hour and 45 minutes. If Danielle Harris had not been there, you probably could have taken off the 45 minute wait outside. The one hour wait goes by fast though with the Cornstalkers playing and checking out all that there is to offer. It doesn't seem like one hour. I have to say that Disturbia does a great job at giving you things to do while you wait. This is why I have given the overall experience a 4.5 pumpkins out of 5 as opposed to last year's rating of 3 out of 5.
Disturbia is well worth the $20.00 and i believe you will have fun, especially if you go with a group of friends. Kudos to Shane Dabbs and all the people involved with Disturbia for making it one of the best Haunted Attractions in the area. Go check out Disturbia and see what you think and I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
 
Arx Mortis (Killen, AL.)
Scare Rating: (3 out of 5) Overall Experience: (2 out of 5)
http://www.arxmortis.com/
OVERALL RATING = 18.5 out of 25 Scare Rating: 3 Overall Experience: 2 Costumes & Make-up: 4 Decorations & Special Effects: 4.5 Bang for Your Buck: 5 (45 min. @ $25.00)
10-22-11 (Saturday, 8:00pm) ... WOW! and I mean WOW in a bad way. I had heard about Arx Mortis being rated as one of the top 10 Haunted Houses in the country and being the best in the area, but I am not seeing it. If that is the case, then Arx Mortis is overrated. I went to Arx Mortis with friends, Janice McClellan and her Husband, Chad.
Scare Rating: I am being generous at giving it a 3 out of 5 rating. Arx Mortis has 3 attractions, "Covington Clinic", "Miner's Hill" and a new attraction for this year, "Chaos", which is where you get to shoot paint ball guns at targets. Chaos is not scary but more of something to do to pass the time and have some fun. They charge $7.00 to get into Chaos but it's $5.00 for 50 paint balls or $12.00 for 100 paint balls.
Miner's Hill is a Haunted walking trail through a wooded area outside. By itself, I would give Miner's Hill a 2 out of 5 pumpkin scare rating and may would have to consider a 1.5 out of 5. This just simply was not scary at all. The actors were not very aggressive and most of the time they would just approach you and maybe grunt once or twice and then move on. I don't know how many actors they have for this attraction but it seemed like there were only maybe 10-12. There were long gaps of time walking through the woods where nothing happened. You would get to some scenes throughout the trail and there would be actors there but they were very tame and really didn't make a big effort to scare you. One scene, the actor had a chain saw but it was an electric chain saw. Have you ever heard an electric chain saw? It sounds like my electric razor. Not very scary. It sounded like someone was shaving instead of cutting your leg off. It was really pitiful. Chain saws have a terrifying sound to most people and i can't believe they chose to use an electric chain saw. As you come out of the trail, the ending is back in a garage like area where it was decorated with black light type effects and you knew it was the end so you expected one last scare, but there was nobody there. It was really disappointing. It took 20 minutes to go through the trail.
Covington Clinic is their main event and is the Haunted House part of Arx Mortis. I will say that it is incredibly decorated. It really is creepy and has several different looks to it as you go through. One part is like walking through an underground cave. Another actually goes through a swampy area where there is damp dripping water that actually drips on you. The atmosphere was great at Covington Clinic. When I said I was being generous giving an overall scare rating of 3 out of 5, it's because of Covington Clinic. By itself, I would give Covington Clinic a 3 out of 5. If you average out Miner's Hill & Covington Clinic, it would get a 2.5 out of 5, but I am giving it the scare rating overall based on Covington Clinic since that is the main event.
It took 25 minutes to go through Covington Clinic and the actors did a decent job. They had some great costumes and the atmosphere was awesome. My criticisms are as follows. I don't know if they pay their actors or if they are volunteers or a mix of both, but it seemed like there were a lot of missed scare spots throughout the haunt. There were several areas through Covington Clinic where there were no actors at all and you could tell there were suppose to be. One area was like a cell holding area where they had these bars on windows and some open places in the walls where you kept waiting for something to jump out at you and nothing ever happened. I think we went through that whole area not seeing one actor. There were some other "missing gaps" like that also.
The most surprising part of the whole thing was the very beginning. They were taking in about 7 or 8 at a time and they lead you into this room where you watch a video on a large television screen. Just as the video shows this actor approaching the camera to knock it out, an actor jumps from behind the television screen and scares the heck out of you. That was the scariest part for me of the whole attraction. The actors that were there did do a decent job at scaring people, but it was not the caliber that I expected from a place that was rated as one of the top 10 in the country Haunted Houses.
They had what I call a Spinning Dryer or Vortex Tunnel where you walk through a large pipe on a catwalk and it spins which disorientates you. I have been through many of these as they are a popular item in Haunted Attractions, but this was the worst one I have seen. I don’t know if they were missing lights in the tunnel or what happened but surely it was not set up the way they intended. The lights were so dim that it didn’t disorientate you at all. You just walked right through it with no effect. The people in our group all pretty much said, “well, that sucked”. It was just another wasted opportunity.
They had a good number of animatronics but once again, they were out of place in some cases and weren't very scary. Placement of animatronics is key to having them enhance the experience. There was one large demonic like dragon monster that was set up to chomp down at you as you look above through the ceiling. As you pass the doorway, there was no ceiling and this monster would chomp down at you from above. It was a cool animatronic but the problem was you could see it coming before you ever got to the room where it chomps down at you. It kind of took the scare element out and it was just a neat animatronic at that point. Several of their animatronics were like this. There were two animatronic monsters that didn't seem to work or they were badly mis-timed. I stopped one time to see if one was working and it finally started moving but our group had already left the room. The opportunity was lost. One seemed to not work at all. It was just disappointing and only mildly scary.
Overall Experience: Oh boy, where do I begin? It took us an hour to get to Arx Mortis from where I live. We got there at 8:00pm and there was a huge line. When I say huge or long, I mean really long line. It was cold that night also and we waited outside in line for 2 hours and 52 minutes. Yes, you heard me right, almost 3 hours! We finally got inside to get our tickets. They give you a color coded ticket and ours was blue. Once we got our ticket, we waited 53 more minutes to hear our color called to get in line. They make you go through Miner's Hill first, so that meant we had to go back out in the cold. Once we got in line for Miner's Hill, we waited another 25 minutes in that line. We got to Arx Mortis at 8:00pm and it was 12:10am when we finally got to go through an attraction. Miner's Hill took 20 minutes to go through, then we waited another 30 minutes in line for Covington Clinic. It took us 25 minutes to go through Covington Clinc. We finally got through all of Arx Mortis at 1:36am and i got home at 2:30am. This was a 7-1/2 hour ordeal, including 2 hours of driving time, and 5-1/2 hours spent just at Arx Mortis.
While waiting for our color code to be called, I did check out the souvenir shop. They had a pretty nice selection of stuff for adults and kids. They had string dolls, bone and syringe pens, Halloween CDs, glow sticks and other items for the kids and they did have youth size t-shirts. I did buy two Arx Mortis t-shirts at the beginning which I never do because i like to check out the haunt first before i buy a t-shirt. The only reason i did this is because we had already waited for 3 hours out in the cold and i knew once it was over, we would want to go home and not hang around, so i went ahead and bought t-shirts. Truthfully, I would have not bought the t-shirts if i had waited after the event, because it was not worth it. I only buy t-shirts of places that i think did real well and deserve my money. That's just how i roll.
This is not a new attraction and I am really shocked that they haven't figured out ways to improve the long lines and make the experience more pleasurable for everyone who is paying $25.00 for both attractions and an additional $7.00 if you opt to do Chaos. Due to the disappointing extremely long waits, we did not do Chaos. Apparently we weren't the only ones, since I didn't see many people at all go into Chaos while we waited for an hour for them to call our color coded pass.
Once you have your ticket and you are waiting inside, they have concessions and a Halloween Rock Band. The band, "Mass for the Machine" plays like heavy, what i call almost "Cookie Monster" rock versions of popular songs like Coldplay etc... While i was excited to see them play, guess what? They couldn't play. They played like one song. They kept tripping the breakers for their amps and apparently, this had happened last year and they actually shut down the whole attraction. You would think after a year, they would have that problem solved. It's not hard to get enough power. Get a generator if needed. This was just another let down.
Janice went to get in line at the "Killing Town Cafe" concession stand. They have a lot of great stuff to get at the concession stand and i would love to be the owner, because they must rake it in on concessions. The line was extremely long and i think Janice waited in line for at least 20 minutes and was like 4 people away from ordering when they called our color code. So, all that waiting in line for her and nothing to show for it. Why was the line so long and take so long? The concessions were very slow it seemed to me. Just another disappointment.
So basically, the hour we waited for our color code to be called after waiting for 3 hours outside, there was nothing to do to make the wait more bearable. No Halloween Rock Band, No concessions due to taking too long. If you wanted to use the bathroom, they only had 6 port-o-lets set up outside where you waited in line, so once you were inside, you would have to walk back outside where you just spent 3 hours waiting to use the restroom.
The name of the game at Arx Mortis is wait, wait, wait and then wait some more. If you like waiting in line, then you will love Arx Mortis. You do get 45 minutes of attraction time for your $25.00 but we were there for 5-1/2 hours. I would not suggest going late like a lot of people like to do. If you wait till 10:00pm, you may not get in. You better go early. If you want to pay extra, you can purchase a VIP pass that allows you skip the wait, but of course, this makes the wait even longer for people who don't have the money to pay the extra $10.00 for a VIP pass.
Bottom line is that Arx Mortis needs to work on making the attraction more consumer friendly. A lot of teenagers who came in late, saw the line and left. I heard several of them say they were going to Disturbia in Huntsville. There is no doubt in my mind that Arx Mortis has lost some business by not solving these problems. After hearing and seeing all the people who left, I don't doubt that they have lost a decent amount of business. I thought of several ways that these problems could be solved or at least lessen the length of time, so they just need to bump their heads together and figure out how to make it a more pleasurable experience for their customers.
I would be willing to bet that their repeat business percentage is lower than most places also, because it is such an ordeal to get through it. After we got finished, my group all said that they would not be back. I personally won't go back either unless they do something to improve the long waits and improve the scare factor. In my opinion, it is just not worth the trouble. As always, I encourage you to go check it out yourself and form your own opinion, but if I do that, you may be cursing me after this one, so I will leave it up to you. If you do go, prepare to be there for many hours.
The Haunted Gin (Meridianville, AL.)
Scare Rating: (2.5 out of 5) Overall Experience: (3 out of 5)
http://www.thehauntedgin.com/
OVERALL RATING = 16.75 out of 25 Scare Rating: 2.5 Overall Experience: 3 Costumes & Make-up: 3.5 Decorations & Special Effects: 3.5 Bang for Your Buck: 4.25 (20 min. @ $15.00)
10-29-11 (Saturday, 7:00pm) ... This is my last Haunted Attraction visit this year, so I decided to check The Haunted Gin. It has been heavily advertised on TV and Radio. I went to The Haunted Gin with my Sister-In-Law, Lisa Pierce, her boyfriend Kevin and a friend of Kevin's. This was the second year for The Haunted Gin and I have to say I was a little disappointed.
Scare Rating: I gave a scare rating of 2.5 Pumpkins and I said I was a little disappointed. Typically, I don't expect a lot out of Corn Mazes, because they are difficult to pull off a real seriously scary experience. So, I didn't go in with high expectations but I was anxious to see what they had to offer due to all the advertising that I have heard. I spoke with the owner last year and this year and I know he has been trying to get the cotton gin itself open to include in the haunt but has some work to get it ready, so he's had to rely on the corn maze for this year and last year. The experience was about what I expected.
Corn Mazes are difficult because you are somewhat limited in what you can do. The scenery never changes and the monster actors only have so much they can do. They basically can only jump out at you from the corn. This is scary a couple of times but can get too repetitive. I will say that this corn maze is a beautiful thick stand of corn with well defined pathways. You won't get lost in the corn, it is well defined. It took 20 minutes to go through the maze and there were only about 5 times through the maze when an actor jumped out from the corn to scare you. The actors did a decent job at scaring you but sometimes it was predictable and sometimes it was unexpected. Once the actors came out at you, there wasn't much that they could do except maybe follow you for a little bit which a couple of them did do.
There were several scenes set up through the maze which were short tunnel walk-throughs where an actor would be either inside or just outside waiting for you to exit to jump at you. This was a bit predictable as well although one actor did get me pretty good one time. I was in the front of our group of about 6 or 7 and this actor jumped at me right when I exited one of these walk-throughs as I opened the plastic covering to exit. There was one female actor who was both creepy and funny. She had a loud high pitch voice and talked like a little girl to you but she would also let out some chilling screams. We could hear her even well after we left her scene and it was kind of funny to keep hearing her scream, "Somebody Help Me". I turned around to our group and said, "For God's sake, somebody please help her"! It was funny and she did a great job.
They did have some animatronics along the maze. The best was a werewolf looking animatronic that lurched out and a large rat that growled and jumped out at you. There was also a creepy looking half a body of a girl that looked like she had a rough night that was swinging back and forth above you.
We waited in line for 45 minutes to get into the Corn Maze and one sign that the haunt may not be very scary is when you see a lot of children. I saw a good number of 7 to 9 year olds and a couple of kids that looked like maybe 5 or 6 years old. That's usually not a good sign for it being a really scary haunt. After going through the maze, I do believe I could have taken my 7, 8 & 10 year old kids through it. So, if you are looking for a Haunt that you could take your kids to, this would be one as well as the Trail of Fears Haunted Hay Ride put on by Madison Parks & Recreation (see 2010 Haunted Attraction Critique).
I felt like they were trying to build your anticipation as you walked through the long Corn Maze. As I said before, there weren't many actors along the trail (maybe 5 that jumped out at us). The scenes had more actors but as you walked through the corn itself, you had long walks where there was no scare element. At first, I felt like this was an attempt at building the anticipation. If you had too much, it would really get repetitive. Having said and thought that, I will say I believe there needs to be a little more scare element along the trail. Maybe just a few more actors in the corn. The long waits in between seeing actors on the trail was maybe a little too long.
The ending was real disappointing. There was no real conclusion. You come around a corner and there is a Grim Reaper that is not an animatronic but just a stationary prop, then you see a clearing and you can see the exit out of the Corn Maze. Everybody in our group was thinking that something was going to give us one last big scare, but nothing happened. We just simply walked out the exit and it was over. This was after a long walk where it had been a little while since we saw an actor, so it was just a real let down of an ending.
Overall Experience: The farm is really a neat looking place and has a creepy feel to it, but yet it is a very pleasant place to be. It's clean and everything is close. The staff were all very friendly. They had concessions where you could buy bottle drinks, chips, cotton candy etc.. and it was all very reasonably priced. I did buy two t-shirts mainly because they looked really cool and they were selling them for $10.00 down from the normal price of $15.00. I got the impression that they were trying to get rid of their t-shirt inventory because they had no youth sizes and no 2x or above sizes. The girl at the window told me that I bought the last XL t-shirt they had, so all they had left were Small, Medium and Large left.
It cost $15.00 to go through the Corn Maze and you can take a Non-Haunted Hay Ride for an extra $5.00. We opted not to take the Hay Ride and they must not get many takers on the Hay Ride, because there were only a handful of people on the trailer and I didn't see the trailer move for the hour and 15 minutes that I was there. If you do have small children, they might enjoy the Hay Ride though.
I definitely think The Haunted Gin needs to get the Gin building open and let the Corn maze be a 2nd attraction. I don't think the scare factor will increase unless they can get the Haunted House effect in the Cotton Gin. The Corn Maze would be a nice 2nd attraction and then they could probably ask a $20.00 to $25.00 ticket price for both attractions. The beginning part of the trail is where you walk through a short section of the gin and it was really well done, so if they can get the cotton gin open for a real "scare your pants off" haunt, I think The Haunted Gin will be a much better attraction. Overall, The Haunted Gin has a lot of potential. If you went last year or this year and was disappointed, don't write it off just yet. Let's see if they can get the cotton gin open for next year and if they do, give it another shot. I know I will. It has a lot of potential. The staff seems to really care about what they have and it is well put together, it just needs "More"! If you get a chance, go check it out and if you couldn't make it this year, give it a shot next year. This attraction has a chance to really grow into something great!   |
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