Halloween Haunts: The Good and the Bad with Screeemfest and Haunted Overload

What fall brings other than foliage, football, and squamtoberfest is fairs and haunts. Unfortunately for me, for some reason people didn't plan out a day for everyone to go to the Deerfield Fair this year and the day people went to the Rochester fair I was busy. So I only went to the Sandwich Fair. I was a bit bummed out about this, but I was still able to go to some haunts.

I was planning on going to Haunted Overload for the 3rd year in a row, then maybe try The Ghoulag, but the night everyone went to that, I had plans yet again (apparently it sucked this year). I ended up going to Haunted Overload and trying Canobie Lake Park's "Screeemfest." Yes, it has 3 Es. I don't know why.

You may be asking yourself, what the hell is a haunt? Well, it's where you pay way too much money to stand in line for hours, then walk through an area that's decorated to be spooky with people jumping out at you from shadows, screaming at you, making loud noises, etc. It's basically a haunted house, just set up in random places. The goal is to scare you, but what we all love about them is the decoration, ambiance, horror-movie-feel, etc. Some places do this very well (Haunted Overload). A lot don't.

Canobie started with Rich, Josh, Holly and I meeting up with Jesse and Sarah, and Buote and some chick, and paying way too much money. I think it was 27 bucks. And it couldn't have been a colder night. I had on a winter hat, long sleeve shirt, hooded sweatshirt and fleece gloves and I spent most of the night shivering. We wandered through Canobie Lake, walking past rides that were still running and the occasional ghoul walking through the crowd. We eventually found a haunt to wait in line for, and, well, waited in line.

We eventually got to go through 5 or so of the haunts, and I was pretty disappointed with every one of them. There were cool moments, but all in all, this was a pretty bad haunt.

Jesse and Josh lost in the fog

This spot was pretty cool- a house of mirrors with awesome lights:

Someone stuck in a TV!

Jesse posing in a haunted field:

The best part of these haunts was that this tight butthole tunnel was in 3 different spots:

These things were just tunnels made from inflated plastic pushing on every side. So it was very much like a butthole, and you had to push your way through a tunnel to the other side, with pressure on you the whole time and either darkness or weird lighting. I could imagine this would be an absolute nightmare for someone with claustrophobia and they'd have 10 heart attacks in one of these things. For us, it was funny and awesome, and a very weird experience.

All in all though, these were bad haunts though. They felt like I should have imagined they'd be- lazy. Concrete floor, large sections of fence with just corn stalks on them, etc. This is an amusement park that they just threw haunts into, and you could feel the half-assedness of the whole thing pretty easily. It was still generally fun, but every haunt was disappointing, and it all came from lack of commitment. 

The true fun was just walking around and doing the other stuff that was there, even though it was a -348934 degrees out. Here's Rich getting a psychic reading from Zoltar:

Jesse and Rich posing with a weird monster thing:

Jesses dead!

Rich getting shot by a skeleton cowboy:

Some weird dead ninja guy we could pose with:

And Mini-Kiss.

I know that these guys probably have fun doing this. Little kids probably love it. And at the least, it's a paycheck. But come on. I would think if I was a little person and was selling out to perform as Mini-Kiss, I would at least learn how to play an instrument. I would at least be an actual musician. I watched them for 30 seconds before I realized their instruments weren't even plugged in. The drummer was working hard, the singer was doing his best, but the guitarist and bassist were just standing there pretending to play. And they sucked at it! They had solos and poses and the bassist's hand never moved on the fret board! Apparently, to this guy, the bass line to every part of every Kiss song is the top 2 strings on the 5th fret, over and over again. Ughk. This was so bad, I was insulted by watching it.

We ended the night by going on this ride:

Here's Buote and Josh in the back row of the other side:

Buote practicing dance moves?

I HATED this ride. As soon as it started going to the highest point, I just wanted out. I was so uncomfortable and sick feeling. I was just clenching my whole body when we hit the top, holding my breath and just hating the feeling to death. I swear our ride was twice as long as everyone else's. I've never been much for carnival rides, but I was quite surprised to see just how much I hated this. I remember loving the Tower of Terror at Universal Studios, where you free fall faster than gravity (since it's pulling you down too). I figured this would be nothing. So either, I'm old and lame now, or the repetition of this just did me in. Probably both.

We then decided we weren't cold enough, and rode the ferris wheel. I think this is honestly only the 2nd time I've rode a ferris wheel, and the first one was the shortest ride ever, since it broke when we got to the top, then once they fixed it, we had to get off after the slowest rotation ever. So this was nice.

It was brutal up there, but neat to be able to look down at the whole place.

We still had a fun night, but the haunts were pretty lame. 

Haunted Overload, on the other hand, absolutely ruled. 

The line alone for Haunted Overload is better than most haunts.

soooooooo much fog

We were supposed to go after getting birthday dinner with Rich, but it was rainy and gross. Everyone planned on going the next night, but I had planned on driving to Cambridge to see Into It Over It. I had also signed on to write a review of the show for a website, so I felt like I really had to go. Over time, I realized that I didn't care about any of the opening bands, and if we went to an early enough time for Haunted Overload, I could somehow do both. Trying this has historically been a problem, but it worked out perfectly this time, with me showing up at the show and the band starting about 2 minutes later. 

And I'm so happy I got to go to Haunted Overload again. The attention to detail at this place is just phenomenal. There are so many decorations and spots with weird lighting. And it's in the middle of the woods enough that after awhile, it really feels like you're just with your friends, wandering through a horror movie. It's only 1 haunt, but it lasts long enough that it's absolutely worth the 25 bucks it costs. Look at the dude who lets you in!

Here's a ghost tree shortly after the haunt began:

Creepiest Teddy Bear ever:

Dead horse ghoul:

Dead Monkey:

Perhaps the most impressive thing there, this giant pumpkin man is literally like 100 feet tall. It's incredible.

And this thing- I think this was new from last year. This is also giant (maybe 50 feet?) and basically the whole side of a building. It's lit perfectly too.

I loved this- this became my "Happy Halloween" instagram easily.

Heidi got scared enough to scream a few times, and they also got me better than any haunt ever has before. I was walking through a small house and there was someone right in the door who started up a chainsaw right when we got there. I was somewhat expecting this, so it didn't spook me, but right as we left the house and the chainsaw stopped, out of nowhere there was a chick on the other side who screamed super high pitched out of nowhere. Yea, that got my heart to jump and a "whooaa haha" out of me. I'll never understand the stupid teenage girls that go through these things absolutely terrified the entire time. At Screeemfest, we followed 2 girls that were literally falling down from fright over and over again- just screaming at the top of their lungs and running in terror from a dude carrying a chainsaw without any blades on it. I hated them so much. Like, really? Do you really think this employee at something you paid almost 30 bucks for is going to murder you with a chainsaw in front of  a ton of people? People are ridiculous. But I'll admit it, I have jumped from these things. It's rare, but that screaming chick out of nowhere got me. I guess I got my money's worth.

It was tough to document Haunted Overload. These places don't want you taking pictures (or at least with a flash) and you have to keep moving so the group behind you doesn't catch up. It was tough to take it in, have fun with friends, try to get in the zone where you might get scared, and take pictures. Obviously I didn't have to take pictures, but there was so much awesome stuff that I wanted to, blog or not. They have an afternoon walk-through for little kids who may get way too scared at night, which I am 100% going to next year, just so I can take in all the decorations and detail in the daylight. I absolutely love this place and am psyched to go again next year. It wouldn't be fall without a trip there.

If any of my friends are reading this and have never gone to one of these things- they may sound stupid, but if you like horror movies and the general vibe of Halloween, you should absolutely go. But from personal experience, don't waste your time with some of the more mainstream ones. Go straight to Haunted Overload. 

currently listening to: Life In Your Way- "Kingdom of Man"