I love Hallowe'en attractions, and am especially charmed by smaller ones; those in the middle of nowhere put on by people who just truly love doing it. They may not be the scariest or most original attractions you'll ever visit, but I usually enjoy them the most, because they're having as much fun as I am.
The one we went to tonight is pretty close to where I live, at a place called Greendell Farms. It's actually a massive property with acres upon acres of corn fields and man-made lakes and woods and such. Every year they put on a "Haunted Corn Maze", but I (for whatever reason) have not gone until tonight. Earlier this week my brother and I talked about going, and tonight turned out to be the perfect night for it. So he, his girlfriend Emily, and I hop in my car and head over. We drive way back into the property, past a fence covered in jack o' lanterns, and park. It is quite dark, and after some confused looking around, we spot a sign that reads "Tickets ->". We walk up to a shed which contains a small space heater and a lady dressed like a witch. She takes our money and tells us that we'll have to wait for "Humphrey, the creepy British tractor-driver" to take us to the maze. They'd built a small fire next to the barn along with a trailer selling hot cider, cotton candy, hot dogs (I think) and other such warming foods. So we wait around, bundled up and breathing condensation, warming ourselves by the small fire. Then, after about ten minutes, Humphrey arrives:
Hum⋅phrey [huhm-free ]
fri
–noun
- A 30-something-year old Mooresville local dressed in a long black coat, gloves, and top hat; shovel strapped over his back; carrying a stuffed rat; wears black makeup to hollow the eyes and accentuate the cheek bones; speaks in a pseudo-British accent.
So Humphrey talks to us for a bit, asks us to hold his pet rat, and then asks if he could offer us conjoined burial plots. We say "sure", so he then tells us to extend our arms so he can take our measurements (presumably for coffin sizes). He appears to be satisfied with my and Emily's arm lengths, but seems displeased with my brother's. After trying with moderate success to guess our respective weights, he tells us to "step lively, but not too lively, of course" onto a giant flatbed cart hitched to the back of a tractor, along with a father-mother-daughter group, a large gaggle of junior high schoolers and regular high schoolers, and a guy who seems to be by himself. It's filled with hay, for comfort, and we all sit Indian-style along the perimeter. Humphrey comes to the side of the cart and asks me who the "smart one in the group" is. I point to Emily. He has a joke to tell us:
Humphrey, addressing Emily: "Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?"
My brother and I become giddy. We know why the skeleton didn't cross the road. Emily looks at us, searching our faces for the answer. She does not know why. She says so.
Humphrey: "Because he didn't have the guts. Heh."
Without another word, he turns to the little girl of the family group and asks her to "mind the rat so [he] can drive".
So we take a small cruise through fields, by lakes, through trees, and finally arrive in a sort of clearing. My attention had been grabbed by some cars in the distance, but when I turn and look in front of me, I see a surprisingly ominous setup: a bridge crossing a small river, lined with oil lamps painted black so all you could see were the flames. I am impressed. It looks like a scene from a horror movie. We all step off the cart and gather in front of the entrance to the bridge. Humphrey speaks in his silly, but charming accent, "Follow the lights, then go to the right."
"What if we go to the left?"An outspoken junior high schooler inquires.
Humphrey's razor sharp wit bites back, "You don't want to know."
The rest of the groups seem timid, so I take a step forward onto the bridge.
"You guys go first," says one of the female high schoolers.
I look down the length of the bridge. I cannot see the other side.
"I imagine someone is going to jump out at us on this bridge," I posit, turning to my brother.
I am wrong. We cross the bridge without being jumped out at. At the end of the bridge I begin to turn right, but after having my curiosity peaked by all the "no left turn" talk, I look to the left. There is an orange port-o-john illuminated by another oil lamp. I must admit, it looks majestic in the lamplight. I still probably wouldn't pee in there, but it's certainly the first time I wasn't immediately repulsed by the sight of one.
With that being said, I turn right. About ten meters in front of me is the gate (entrance) into the maze. It too is lamp-lit. An older woman in grim reaper garb is there to take our tickets. Behind her sits a small child dressed in black with a goblin mask. The rest of the groups stand behind us, and the reaper-lady gives us the rundown:
"Turn your cell phones off. No running. No swearing. No smoking. No touching. "
She looks at me. "No touching," I smile. She smiles back.
"You'll go through the first maze, then the graveyard, then the second maze, then through the woods and into the Trailer of Terror, then the third maze," she says, collecting our tickets. Reaper-lady looks at us, "You three go in first."
Trailer of Terror?! Wow. I had no idea there was a Trailer of Terror. I am excited.
I can tell by the look and smattering of nervous voices of the adolescents behind us that they were hoping everyone would go in at the same time. Oh well.
I am the first one to step over the threshold and into the maze. The lighting is amazing. The Greendell Farms website actually calls it their "By the Light of the Moon Corn Maze." This is accurate. There is just enough moonlight glowing and artificial light leaking in from the distance so that we could see where we were going, but not quite make everything out. This makes it difficult to tell when someone is going to jump out, which is ostensibly the point. Also, the wind is rustling the corn stalks in a very eerie way, and every once in a while my brother's big coat brushes up against one and makes me turn my head.
The first scare comes about thirty seconds in. A good time for a first scare. A small child darts out of the corn at us, yelling, dressed in a black robe and skull mask. It is a good scare. The placement of scarers is quite impressive, actually. Most of the time they are spaced apart just enough to where we start talking again, and begin thinking about something else, when YARGH!, we recoil or quicken our pace, bouncing forward. At one point we are chatting back and forth, something about a movie, when a freaking fog horn goes off behind us. It is an uncomfortably long report, and I feel miserable all over. All three of us start laughing and panting, the crap scared out of us. Other than the live scares, there are some neat little set pieces, too:
- Strobe light on corn stalks (very disorienting)
- Skeleton mounted on wood
- Strobe light and assorted colored lights illuminating what appears to be some sort of witch's altar
- Strobe light on corn stalks
- A small rickety bridge that sways back and forth
- A gruesome scene involving an operating table with a Frankenstein-like body on it and crazy lights all over. To me, it looks like there's a severed leg coming out of the torso. I ask my brother if in fact there was a severed leg coming out of the torso, but he laughs really hard. "A leg?" he asks. I'm left to assume it wasn't a leg.
Then a curious thing happens. It is commonplace in haunted attractions to have a scarer, after scaring you, follow you for a brief distance, just to really let you have it, to secure their scare. And so I think nothing of it when it happens here at the corn maze. However, shortly after crossing the small rickety bridge that sways back and forth, I realize that someone is following us, but he appears to be dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. What's more is that he's wearing a mask that looks like Senator John McCain. My brother, Emily, and I all stop out of morbid curiosity.
"Vote for McCain," says McCain-boy.
My brother says something that sounds like "Hmm...What?"
"You should vote for McCain, and here's why," replies McCain-boy.
We are attentive.
"Taxes are high, and I'm going to lower 'em," he claims, then points to himself. "McCain."
McCain-boy then begins to emit a weird beatbox tune, and does a boogie in a style that looks like some sort of "Walk Like an Egyptian" dance perversion.
I chortle at the absurdity of it, a preposterous political chat in the middle of a haunted corn maze with a kid in a McCain mask. He walks off, and we stand, looking at each other, bewildered.
On we go.
So we finally come to the graveyard, the first milestone in our journey. There is a purple-lit casket with a skeleton arm hanging out of the side. Fog is rolling from behind the tombstones scattered around. There is another strobe light, maybe two. I turn to my company and grin. We are having a good time, to be sure. I assess the scene, and once again I venture (in a whisper), "Someone is going to jump out at us in this graveyard." Again, I am wrong. It isn't until we get to the other side of the graveyard that a young girl jumps out and goes, "Wah!" before disappearing into the corn stalks. In front of us, it opens up into another small clearing. The path is set by thick white barricade tape, right into the woods. Emily doesn't like the dark, and the woods seem several times more sinister than the corn does. So into the woods we go.
It smells wonderful in there, like rain and leaves. Like fall. In the distance I can see some weird orange lights set back in the trees.
"They're like eyes watching us," observes my brother.
They really are. The woods are much darker than the corn was, and I'm wringing my skeleton hand gloves in anticipation of a scare. There are more neat set pieces here: hanging ghosts and skeletons, a large bat with a purple light underneath, a spooky monster head, and plenty of cobwebs. We pass through another witch's altar. This one includes a table with all sorts of strange knick-knacks on it, and a large illuminated cauldron, spewing fog. Behind the fog there is a woman dressed as a witch. She startles us by banging on the side of the cauldron.
"What are you doing in my woods?" she inquires, angrily.
We say nothing.
"Eyeball stew," she hollers.
At first I'm confused by this remark, but then notice that there are two pretty big eyeballs floating on the surface of whatever's in that cauldron. I quicken my pace a little, mostly out of concern for another phrase like "Eyeball stew."
Emily makes a comment about how, with all of the adrenaline pumping and blood flowing faster, it doesn't feel cold out at all. I agree. This is a good observation.
Another very creepy thing I can see in the distance is a dimly-lit wooden structure. The only thing I can make out is a fairly realistic severed head hanging from a branch in front of it, tied up by its hair. As we pass, it's suddenly illuminated and is revealed to be a giant body held up by a wooden cross-type construction. It's not a crucifix-looking thing, which is what it probably sounds like, but just a weird prop. It's quite ghastly with the lighting and that severed head leering at us.
Then, up a hill is some sort of black tunnel.
"Oh, look. It's the Tunnel of...Fear," I say. There is a brief moment in which I legitimately think the reaper-lady had mentioned something about a Tunnel of Fear, but quickly realize I've made it up. My company is nice enough to let this one go.
The so-called Tunnel of Fear is constructed from lots of PVC pipe and that black material you lay down in a garden to prevent weeds from growing (I guess Greendell Farms would be the place to construct a Tunnel of Fear out of that material.).
Incidentally, while that material proves great for building Tunnels of Fear, it sucks for actually keeping weeds out. Believe me, I know.
The Tunnel of Fear has some more cool lighting, a strobe light too. Some corpse props and a big mounted corpse prop at the end. In a third offense, I again assume someone's going to be jumping out at any time. I mean, how can you have a Tunnel of Fear and not fill it with live spooks? It seems like an ace in the hole. I'm clearly wearing this assumption on my face as I turn to them behind me, giving a look. All tensed up, we slowly walk through the Tunnel of Fear and out the other end. Nothing. You'd have thought I'd learn my lesson. I'm sure without the constant, acute alertness of waiting to be scared, I'd have looked like quite a fool. Oh well, onward through the last bit of woods.
So after turning the last corner, I realize what lies ahead. I feel a rush of warm elation as I lock eyes on the Trailer of Terror. There is a lady standing at the top of the small set of stairs that lead to the door. She isn't really dressed up save some tattered "Bog Hag" costume remnants, and she's holding a gag chicken. She squeaks the chicken intermittently.
"Welcome to the Trailer of Terror," she cries. Squeak squeak "Are you brave enough to enter?"
"Oh, I'm brave enough," I say. Squeak
"Well you can always take the chicken path!" She gestures to the side of the trailer, where there is, in fact, a small trail labeled "Chicken Path" for anyone not feeling adventurous enough to tackle the Trailer of Terror.
Squeak squeak My brother really thinks this is funny. "There actually is a Chicken Path!"
The lady looks at me and I say, "We're ready."
She squeaks one last time and opens the door. It is black as pitch inside. I quickly glance to Emily, and she's making a face.
I go in first, and I feel my jacket bunch up in the back. Emily's grabbed a fistful of it, and she has my brother by the arm, pulled close. The door closes behind us, and I can see nothing. After groping around for a solid minute, my fingers latch onto some thin, rubbery strands. I try to walk forward, but can't. Then, suddenly a light flashes on and I'm face-to-face with a horrifying creature. It's just a prop behind these rubber strands, I can tell, but the light is flashing and there's some horrible noise happening, and I jump back involuntarily, right into my brother and his girlfriend. The light goes off, and I get back to groping around.
"We're going to be stuck in here forever!" says Emily.
Then I give the wall a push and a door opens up. Blacklight pours into the room from the hallway. Paints of all neon colors are splattered, blood-like, on the wall. Into my mind flashes the episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? where a huffy teen boy goes into a scary funhouse and steals the nose off of the ride's main attraction, a giant mechanical clown named Zeebo. It's a good thing.
The Trailer of Terror is littered with these sort of scares: pitch black hallways where lights suddenly come on and someone is behind something and noises are happening. There are also a lot of blacklights and strobe lights, and more cool set pieces, some of which have more people hiding inside to jump out at you. At last we find the exit, and descend the stairs back into the corn. Personally, I am very pleased with the Trailer of Terror. My company is impressed, too. They say so.
"Wow, that was great," my brother offers.
"Yeah," replies Emily. "Oh, more corn."
We're finally on the last leg. Next to the corn entrance sits a kid in a ghoulish getup. I'm not sure if he's going to do anything at first, but after I pass him he jumps up at my brother and Emily. It also seems worth mentioning that, at this juncture in the corn maze, was another port-o-john, set back in the corn a meter or so. I suppose it was there for people who had the pee almost scared out of them by the Trailer of Terror.
So we skedaddle a couple meters into the maze once again, and resume our normal pace. More well-placed scares. One girl in particular pops out of the corn at us, long hair, brown robe, skeleton face, shrieking wildly. She has a particularly bloodcurdling scream, reminiscent of Fay Wray, even. I make a note of it. My brother and Emily shudder and say "Ugh."
So again we walk for a while without being jumped out at, and we get to talking about something. Probably another movie, or who knows? Anyway, right in the middle of a sentence, we are blasted with an incredible rush of air, the compressor hissing loudly through the corn. This, right here, is probably the most intense scare of the evening. We have to stop in our tracks to regain composure. I feel there's no way for me to adequately express here the ferocity of that blast of air. It was a force.
It happens again later on, another gust of air. It too freaks us out and takes us off guard (this one comes from underneath us, though), but not quite as much as the first. Plus, we could see the sensor on the ground. Soon after this, I notice another monster following us. He stands next to Emily, grumbling something about following us and that he would "get us at midnight". After he falls behind, I turn to them, "Another presidential candidate?" I joke. It is well-received.
The rest of the maze goes on at a leisurely pace for the most part. There are a few more scares of note:
- A girl jumps out at us with a big blade and starts reciting the sing-song from A Nightmare on Elm Street, "One-two, I'm [sic] coming for you; three-four, better lock your door; five-six, grab your crucifix; seven-eight..." This is where she trailed off.
- What sounds like a young boy wails loudly from somewhere behind us. It's actually pretty unsettling.
- A guy is sitting back in the corn all ghoul-costumed. I notice him as we approach but he doesn't even move. Nothing. It was great.
- A large gallows-pole sits illuminated from underneath. There is a body prop hanging from it, and it's swaying gently in the breeze.
"That's a bummer," I say.
Emily asks, "What?"
"That chainsaw guy," I reply.
"He couldn't get the chainsaw to work," my brother explains.
Emily is confused. "Wait, there was a chainsaw guy?"
Then, suddenly we hear the chainsaw scream to life behind us, but it is too little, too late. We are already at the exit.
"Oh, I hear the chainsaw guy now."
We assess our condition, our surroundings. Forty minutes have passed since we went through the gate into the maze. The exit is cut a full fifteen meters or so from the entrance. Quite a large group has accumulated at the front gate into the maze.
We are satisfied. Despite being in a haunted corn maze in the middle of a small town, it's been an epic quest. This is how Jennifer Connelly must have felt at the end of Labyrinth.
We walk back across the bridge to wait for Humphrey. In the meantime, we stand, suddenly cold again, chatting about the experience:
"Oh, I couldn't believe when the air shot out at us."
"What about the part when we saw that severed head in the woods?! Or the foghorn?!"
"I really like the Trailer of Terror. That was probably my favorite part."
"Yeah, definitely."
"It's too bad about the chainsaw guy."
Then, in the distance, Humphrey's lights blaze with a fury through the fog that's rolling in off the lake. It's a welcome sight. A boy waiting for the tractor (with whom I assume are his grandmother and mother) asks me, "Were you one of the scaring people?"
"No," I say, "I just went through it like you."
"Wasn't it scary?!"
"Yes, it was very scary."
"Remember the-" He spots my skeleton hand gloves. "Hey, you were scaring people!"
"No, I promise! These are mine. I got them from Walgreen's!"
He turns towards the approaching tractor. I'm not sure he believes me. Humphrey dismounts to see the newcomers off. We head over to the cart, and Humphrey recognizes us.
"Oh, no. You guys survived!"
"Barely," I reply, jokingly.
"Are there any more like you?"
"I doubt it."
"Phew. That makes me feel better."
We climb onto the hay and relax. The ride back is peaceful for a while, then the junior high schoolers and regular high schoolers start telling the family in the cart that they saw Obama in the maze and that he "said the 'F' word to them." The family shrugs it off. There is another story shared about how a "big guy in a clown costume fell down as he was scaring [them]". I try to tune it out and concentrate on the other sounds. The hum of the tractor, the symphony of insect-speak, the rustling of things in the wind, the wind itself. My brother is whispering something to Emily. It is a wonderful moment all in all, with Humphrey driving us back to our car. I look at my brother, and he rolls his eyes at the silly, unappreciative talk going on. The three of us have a discussion of how it was to be in high school, and how incredible it is that moments like this can be perceived so differently by two people at the same time. That, being fourteen, fifteen years old, it can be so exciting just to be somewhere, anywhere, just because it's someplace. And when you're out in the world, it feels so good to introduce yourself to it, because you are someone new that the world has never seen before. And we're all right about that in a big way, I guess, but it takes some time to realize that adding something to the world is to work with it, not against it. It's also very much about appreciating these moments, and all things. Little or big. Little and big. Then we talk about how crazy it is that there's actually an entire holiday devoted to that which we love so much: horror. We say something about giving the Druids high-fives for it. Then my brother says, "Well-done Druids. Good show." In context it is very funny. I laugh, and mist comes out and disappears above us.
Anyway, the ride's over, and we step down off the cart. We head towards the parking lot, past the trailer with the hot cider and cotton candy and, like I said, I'm pretty sure they had hot dogs, too. A teenage boy walks by us with some girls and he asks my brother, "Was it good?"
"Yeah, it was good," my brother answers.
We pass the little barn with the witch-lady and the space heater. A rent-a-cop was there now, too.
Witch-lady sees us pass. "Did you have a good time?"
"Yeah, it was great!" we yell back.
"Thanks for coming, and remember us next year!"
We nod vigorously, wave, and turn around. The place is pretty crowded now. I'm glad.
We get back in my car and Joanna Newsom starts singing;
Press on me: we are restless things
Webs of seaweed are swaddling
You call upon the dusk
Of the musk of a squid
Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
I pull out of the parking lot and back on to the gravel road, past the fence full of jack o' lanterns, and out onto the street.
The last activity of the night was to see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D, which for my brother and I has been an annual October tradition since they started doing it in 2006.
Needless to say, it was fantastic.
Woo hoo.
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