301 Devil’s Playground 2020 Review

Another weekend… another haunt. This time it was three of us from the HRC who ventured to 301 Devil’s Playground located on Maryland’s northeastern side of the Chesapeake Bay in Galena. The haunt has four attractions: The House of Hell, 3D Phobia, The Barn of Torture, and The Harvest. This haunt really lives up to its name.

You start the night by going through The House of Hell. The design of the path through the house is laid out in a way that utilizes the space well. There are twists and turns everywhere, which make the house feel larger than what it probably is. The scenes throughout the house are detailed and very creepy. They use both animatronics and actors in the scenes. The path does not just stay inside. It takes you outside as well where more actors and animatronics are waiting to scare you. The placement of the actors and the animatronics, both inside and outside, complement each other well. There are many places for the actors to hide, so be prepared for them to jump out from places you may not even expect.

Between the house and the barn is the 3D Phobia attraction. A circus theme seems to be popular for these this year. The entrance for this attraction is unique from what we have seen at other places. As soon as you are out of The House of Hell, the path takes you around the front of a bus to the entrance doors. There they have an actor sitting in the driver seat admitting groups on and spacing them out again. This is a creative way to space out the groups again. Once you go in, you are given 3D glasses to wear for your walk through the attraction. There are designs, illustrations, and words that seem to pop out from every surface that you see. Things hanging from the ceilings are even painted. At times, this can make it difficult to tell if it is really there or just an optical illusion. The makeup and costumes on the actors are well done and help them seem more like props in the scenes. There are some actors who even pose in ways that make you think they are props. That is, until they jump out and startle you. When we went through, the actors would not always jump out at the first person. They waited just long enough to give the guests a false sense of security and to let their guard down thinking no actor was there.

When you come out of 3D Phobia, there is a staff member collecting the 3D glasses. You then make your way to The Barn of Torture. Again, 301 Devil’s Playground has a creative way to space out the groups. It is almost like a miniature attraction with a detailed scene you walk through as well as an actor to keep guests entertained. From there, you are let in to The Barn of Torture. From the get go, this attraction lives up to its name. Just like with the house, there are twists and turns everywhere. The scenes are well done with hiding spots for actors. Some scenes have an actor out in the open to get your attention so that another actor or animatronic can surprise you. The swamp scene is a popular one at many attractions, but here they have fog under the green light. This made it very difficult to see if there was anyone or anything lurking under the light waiting to get you.

The last attraction you go though is a corn maze called The Harvest. Not as many haunts have been doing corn mazes over the past few years, so it was exciting to see how they structured and designed their maze. For the most part, the path follows a specific route, but there are times when you have to pick the direction to go. Depending on the path you choose, you may or may not cross paths with another group or end up back where you started. You don’t have to worry about getting lost because there are actors throughout the corn maze to keep you going in the right direction. The actors blend in well with the scenes or the corn around them, so sometimes you won’t see them until they have already jumped out and startled you. One of the buildings you walk through is pitch black. You will want to walk with your hands out in front of you or you might walk right into the wall... or something else.

Just like other haunted attractions, 301 Devil’s Playground has added some safety requirements due to COVID 19. You must wear a mask at all times while you are at the attraction. There is a staff member checking each person’s temperature before you can go up to the ticket booth. While in line for the ticket booth and as you go through each attraction, you are given hand sanitizer. There is also supposed to be staff monitoring the line and asking groups to keep the six foot distance between them and the group in front of them. We purchased the Hell Pass, so we were not in the line long enough to see this for ourselves.

There’s still time to go out there and see for yourself what this haunt has to offer for the COVID 19 of 2020 season. 301 Devil’s Playground will be open for one final weekend on October 30th and 31st. Saturday the 31st is their lights out experience where you will go through the attractions with a glow stick. Buy your tickets ahead of time online or purchase them at the ticket booth. If buying them at the haunt, it is cash only and there is no atm on the property.

Night of Terror 2020 Review

Located on the Creamy Acres Farm in Mullica Hills, NJ, Night of Terror is a full night of fun and excitement. This haunt has four attractions: The Ride of Terror, The Harvest, The Playground, and Dark Dreams. For those who are interested, there is also a Haunted Paintball Hayride where you get to shoot at live zombies.

Much credit goes out to the team at Creamy Acres for their line management set up. There is one entrance to Night of Terror and attractions are sequential as each attraction goes one after the other. As intimidating as the line for the Hayride looks, it doesn’t feel long. On a busy night it’s easy to wait in line for an hour or more to get on the hayride, but it is the only wait and it doesn’t feel long because it keeps moving at a steady pace.

The Ride of Terror hayride builds up as the ride goes along and it has plenty of time to build. It’s one of the longer hayrides and is packed with a dozen or-so scenes as the tractor meanders through a creepy forest. Starting off easy and manageable, each scene becomes larger and more intimidating than the previous ones with huge animatronic monsters and surprise pyrotechnics. At Creamy Acres, they don’t just randomly put animatronics throughout the hayride. Whether the creators find the animatronics to fit their scenes or if they build their scenes around their animatronics, we don’t know. What we do know is that the animatronics fit the scenes perfectly and are well placed. This ride had scenes that none of us in the HRC remember seeing anywhere else. This includes what seemed to be a vertical swamp we passed through. Creamy acres is known for its fun attraction all year round, so the crew here is no stranger to hard work when it comes to building set designs and hard work. The actors are well placed throughout the attraction as well. You never know where they are going to come from. They may come at you from the sides of the hayride, from up above, or be right in front of you on the ride itself. COVID precautions are in play after each ride ends. Once all the patrons are off the hayride, one of the staff members gets on to spray it down and disinfect it in time for the next group. We thank the crew for that.

Ride of Terror ends and The Harvest begins. A tightly packed trail through the corn has many turns and corners. This makes for great hiding spots for actors to surprise their unsuspecting guests. For those actors who don’t have a corner to hide, there are monsters in camouflaged costumes hiding in plain sight. When the hidden actors aren’t around, high tech mechanical monsters can be found everywhere and throughout. You will definitely want to be sure to wear good walking shoes since the ground here can be muddy and some areas you go downhill.

The Harvest dumps out to The Playground. For the HRC, this was a highlight attraction. It is a 3D nightmare of a circus designed to be disorienting for adventurers in 3D glasses. In each circus themed room, faces and other painted images seem to float off the walls. Clowns hide and seem to come out of nowhere as rooms twist. The Playground is sensory overload in the most freakishly entertaining way that ends in the most unique way before entering Dark Dreams. In all the years we have been going to haunted attractions, this is the best 3D attraction any of us remember seeing.

Dark Dreams is an indoor adventure constructed to maximize actor and mechanical surprises. It’s impossible to predict where surprises hide as they come from all directions. The 360 degrees of screams and disorienting tickles seem to come from everywhere and nowhere which makes Dark Dreams an intense way to end the night. Night of Terror throws everything it has in this attraction and lays it on the line to finish the evening on a strong note.

After the night of screams is done, sitting down and having a bite to eat is a great way to come down off the adrenaline rush. Between food trucks, dessert concessions and Creamy Farms hot dog stand, there is no shortage of food options along with honey and preserves to take home to the family.

Buy tickets online for specific time slots and expect to spend a whole evening at Night of Terror at Creamy Farms. Don’t forget to visit during the winter holiday season for Night of Lights for an evening of Christmas lights and games for the kids. A definite year round thumbs up to the Creamy Acres crew and staff.

Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres 2020 Review

This past weekend the HRC decided to make the trip to Newtown, PA to visit Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres. Thank you Sleepy Hollow for not missing a beat when it came to adjusting to COVID 19 protocols. The Hollow needed to be modified to an outdoor attraction and the hayride was not running because of the safety guidelines. Even with these changes a great night was still enjoyed at Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres. The two attractions running for this season are The Hollow and The Field.

The Hollow (the mansion) starts off the night. Regardless of the length of the line, there are midway actors to keep customers occupied and entertained. When entering the Hollow, the actors greet customers with courtesy and dark humor before walking up to the mansion. A short stint in the mansion is just a taste of what’s to come as the scene leaves no details untouched. The Hollows starts off Victorian themed and transitions to a stellar medieval that has an eerie feel of death after castle siege.

On the other side of the farm is The Field. A corn field that meanders through different scenes with different creepy themes at each turn. With each corner of the path, there is the ever present fear of a ghoul popping out of nowhere. Without giving away anything, we need to give a shout out to Sylvia and her handler because she probably gave the biggest scare to anyone in our group. It’s not often when someone in our group gets a big enough scare that they end up trying to run backwards while still in the air from jumping so high. Well done! Both attractions have misdirections and distractions everywhere, which make the scares unpredictable.

If you are anything like our group, you appreciate the details put into the costumes, scenery/decorations, and acting. Before leaving, we had the opportunity to speak with Pierce, who is one of the creative minds of the haunt. While speaking with him we learned that most of the sets and costumes are designed and created by a small group of them. While store bought items aren’t particularly bad, creating their own items to use really give their attractions a uniqueness that you won’t find anywhere else. That is a talent you don’t always see utilized at all the haunts. Pierce also mentioned that each year they pay particular attention to one of the attractions where they will make the most changes. They typically start brainstorming and designing ideas in February to get ready for the next year. Get ready for some big changes to the hayride next year. It will be exciting to see what changes they come up with for next year.

Whether you have a short drive or a long drive to get there, you can easily make a night of going to Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres. In the midway area there are concessions, bonfires, and entertainment. Grab a bite to eat and head over to the large bonfires to dance and listen to the music. Every Friday and Saturday night there is a live band playing to keep you entertained while waiting if you get there before your time slot or just not ready to go home after going through both attractions. You can check the haunt’s website if you are interested to see who will be playing each evening. Huge shout out to thezoneband.com for rocking the house on our visit. Across from the stage and bonfires, the Freaks on Fire were putting on their fire performance. Between them and the three bonfires it is easy to get warm on the cool nights.

COVID restrictions are in place so make sure you purchase your tickets ahead of time through their website and choose your time slot. Their tickets are very reasonably priced from $24- $28 depending on the night. Be sure to bring some cash with you as well. There is a $2 parking fee per vehicle, which goes toward the preservation of the farm. Don’t forget to wear your mask while at the haunt. If you are interested in knowing more details about their health safety plan for the season, you can check it out on their website.

We truly enjoyed our time at Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres and highly recommend you visit them this season. Head on over and see for yourself what’s lurking around the corners waiting to scare you.

Hotel of Horror 2020 Review

It was the second weekend of our haunt review season and four of us from the HRC made our way to the Poconos Mountains to the Hotel of Horrors. It’s a few hours drive away but it was worth it. Hotel of Horror is inside of an old hotel and has a haunting history. There are two attractions within the hotel. Hotel of Horror takes over the top floors while Altered Nightmares takes over the bottom floors. Be prepared to walk up and down all those stairs. Due to COVID-19, this year they have closed the Theater of the Damned, coach coffin, and iPas. No concessions this year either. Tickets are sold in time slots this year, so you will want to go online to purchase your ticket voucher. You will still want to go to the box office to redeem your voucher for the physical tickets. You can then head over to the line for an entertaining night of haunts.

We went on opening night for Hotel of Horror. There was already a short line when we got there. Word of warning… Once you are in line, expect a slightly longer wait than the lines would indicate. This is due to groups being spaced out nicely so customers are not bumping into the groups ahead of them. While you wait in line, there are a few actors who will try to sneak up on you if you aren’t paying attention. Once in the haunt, we were able to get through both attractions within an hour, so you may not have to make a whole night of it.

The layout of the hotel is not huge, but the space is well used. Since there are two attractions in one building, expect tight corridors leading from scene to scene with rooms packed full of props which gives the well trained actors unexpected hiding spots throughout the Hotel. They did a great job utilizing the space they were in. The actors didn’t just go for the scare with the first person in the group either. It did not matter where we were in line, the actors got us plenty of times. There were not a ton of scare actors the night we went, but each of them were quality actors with a distinct trademark noise or action. It was obvious that they practiced their tag lines or their trademark sound which gave the room its own unique personality. The attention to details in the scenes is amazing. At times we were so caught up in checking out the details that we did not notice what was moving until it was too late. Sometimes it was an actor while other times it was a prop that got us. Some of the best ones were when we were not certain if we were looking at an actor or a prop in a scene.

Overall, the four of us from the HRC had a good time at Hotel of Horror. Remember to get your ticket vouchers online and pick your time slot before you go. Sunday tickets for Hotel of Horror (single attraction) or the combo ticket (to go through both) are $5 off. This is an indoor haunt, so going at a time when the sun is still up is not an issue. The lines were longer when we came out compared to what they were when we went in. There is no doubt that the lines will continue to get longer as the season goes on. If you want to skip to the front of the line, you can upgrade your ticket to the VIP line jumper pass for an additional $10.

Field of Screams PA 2020 Review

It is 2020 and it is official... The haunting season has already begun for some attractions. With everything going on these days, this haunt season is not going to be exactly like any that we have seen in the past. Our annual visit to the one and only Field of Screams in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was a Covid success. They have taken all the correct measures and safety precautions necessary to keep all of their visitors safe. You need to purchase tickets online and select your time slot. This is a great preventative measure from having hot spots throughout the night where everyone comes in at once. Masks are required as well while at the attraction unless you are eating or drinking.

 All of us in the HRC were looking forward to our visit at FOS and they did not disappoint. We started our evening by going through the Frightmare Asylum before heading to the Den of Darkness, Nocturnal Wasteland, and finally the Haunted Hayride. The shows were modified to take precautions and to prevent cross contamination in the scenes. By doing this there are also some changes to the route the guests take in each of the different attractions. This kept us on our toes a bit because we were not certain where we would end up after each scene. This created new spots for actors to be hidden in until the right moment to reveal themselves. This would usually get at least one person in our group, if not more than one, to jump in surprise. Couple that with some personnel changes and the teams worked tirelessly to ensure that the changes went unnoticed from an excitement standpoint.

 The highlight of the evening was the Nocturnal Wasteland. A number of changes and a few upgrades were made in the attraction. From almost the very start, we noticed changes in the path as we went through the attraction. In one section of the path you actually cross over part of the route the hayride takes. Having the scene cross over with the hayride allows changes to do double duty. With the changes to the route, Nocturnal Wasteland practically felt like a whole new attraction. There seemed to be more nooks and places for the actors to hide. Nocturnal Wasteland got each of us good more than once. There may have even been some running in place at times with how good they got one of us. The most notable upgrade is something that is subtle, but increases the customer experience and safety. Travelers don’t need to worry about watching their step as much while navigating through the path with the addition of cement walkways and steps in certain spots. It may not seem like an addition that makes it scarier but when eyes are looking at the scenes instead of looking for uneven terrain, it helps the experience.

 It wouldn’t be an HRC review if food wasn’t mentioned. Stop and take a break to grab a bite with multiple food truck options available. Rich had a mac & cheese with pulled pork and some fries, which he thought was delicious. The most pleasant part about it was they did not skimp on the pulled pork. Pizza, snacks, burgers, corn dogs, and refreshments are just some of the options available. With the variety of food trucks and vendors that they have, everyone will be able to find something that they will enjoy.

 Remember, if you’re planning to visit Field of Screams, you will need to buy your tickets online ahead of time and select your time slot.  Don’t wait until the day of to try to get tickets, as they sell out quickly. For those with younger members in the family, enjoy the day with FOS at their family friendly Corn Cob Acres park as well. Go check it all out and support your scares!