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Halloween & Haunts

It's one of my favourite times of the year, and I've also noticed that many members share the same love of the Halloween season that I do! Do you do anything special for Halloween? Did you carve a pumpkin? Did you decorate cookies? Did you have a horror movie marathon? Did you visit any Halloween haunts? Post pictures or reviews here! I figure this is also a good idea for haunt enthusiasts overseas to maybe get an idea of how some of our haunts work over here and vice versa. I know you guys have a lot of unique ones over there, so I'd love to hear about them!

I haven't carved my pumpkin yet, but I'll probably get around to that tomorrow night after work. I plan on trying one of the ones where you don't carve entirely through, but layer the skin to make a face of some sort. It'll probably fail miserably, but it's worth a shot.

I did get around to decorating cookies though! Some of them are pathetic, but the ones I made are obviously the fab ones (yes, I even get competitive over cookie decorating, which is really disgusting of me). For the first batch with the pumpkins, bats, cats, and ghosts, we actually made our own dough and stuff which was kind of exciting. The skeletons were a kit, and mine look pretty sad, but whatever. They tasted good.

My pumpkin is the bottom one.

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Not sure why my ghost has a fall coloured dress on and spikey hair, but it does.

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I realized that there's not too much creative liberty with Halloween cookies, at least not as much as there is with Christmas cookies.

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As far as horror movies, I had a mini marathon a few nights ago of the Woman in Black, the Conjuring, and then I went to see Annabelle at the movies. All of them were good Halloween entertainment, particularly the Conjuring which is one of my favourite horror films. Woman in Black has an awesome olden day atmosphere which really makes it extra fabulous.

I went to the pumpkin patch with my mom, sister, grandma, and boyfriend as well. Picked out some pumpkins and then walked through the corn maze. I guess they're doing a haunted one this weekend so I'm gonna go to that for sure.

As far as haunted attractions, that's my favourite part of the Halloween season. Sadly, I didn't get to go to any amusement parks for Halloweekends. I could probably go this weekend if I wanted to, but the ones around here leave a lot to be desired. I'm not a massive fan of the way they run their haunted houses, because they let massive groups in at a time, which is irritating. I always try to get to the individual and independent haunts around the metro Detroit area, because there are tons. Sometimes just the areas they're in are scary enough alone! This will probably be my final year doing the haunts around Detroit and this part of Michigan because I've basically done all of them. There are so many though, it's disgusting.. I have a magazine that advertises them all and there are about seventy professional ones and a lot of home ones. Gonna have to branch out to Cleveland or something next year!

For those who really know haunts, I went to Erebus again this year. I went last year and this year, and way back in 2006 and I'd probably say last year was the best. We went on opening this year and it seemed like they were still working out some glitches as far as spacing the groups going in. There wasn't a long wait which was awesome, and we didn't have to pay $30 each thanks to a young couple in front of us who had two extra tickets. It's in a sketchy area (a man was getting arrested just outside, and we went to a black person's bar where everyone was dressed as 1920s flapper folks; it was strange), but not as bad as Deadly Intentions/the Deadlands off Nine Mile road. I feel like it's a good mix of scares, creativity, and theatrics. They reused a lot of the main bits from last year, like the "buried alive" part, so the shock factor wasn't there like it was before. They have a lot of big props and stuff, and it takes about 40 minutes to get through. I believe it's one of the two longest indoor haunts in the world. They need to stop upping the ticket prices and should have their **** together on opening day, but overall it's great and it has kept me coming back. Don't think I'll go next year though. Maybe in five years when they change it up some more.

My very favourite haunted place I've been to so far is Night Terrors at Wiard's Orchards. For an extremely reasonable price of $30, you get admission to the Haunted Hayride, Zombie Paintball, and four walkthroughs: Alien Caged Clowns, Mind Shaft, Haunted Barn, and the Asylum. I was a little bit underwhelmed by the hayride this year, mostly because the other side of the car got ALL the action and we just sat there like, wtf? But it's still a very well done hayride. Not as good as the one at the Haunted Farm of Terror or Scarefest Screampark, which have insane hayrides (consistently rated the best in Michigan), but still entertaining. I was really disappointed that they didn't give out full cups of cider at the end like they did before, but you still get a sample and a donut <3 Splattertown paintball left a lot to be desired. A few zombies walk up near you and you get 40 paintballs to shoot them with. It literally lasts like, a minute. They really improved Alien Caged Clowns from 2012, and it's a unique haunt unlike any I've been to before. It only takes maybe 7 minutes to get through, but it had a lot of jumpy parts and a creepy aura as well. It's mostly a combination of fog, cages, and clowns, but it's done in a way where you can't see more than a few feet away from you. For someone who has a fear of clowns, I expect it would be terrifying. The Barn and the Mind Shaft are my two favourite things there, and they didn't disappoint this year. Again, they're short haunts, taking no more than 10 minutes to get through each one, but my goodness there is not a dull moment. I disliked the way they allowed all the VIP people to continuously jump the queue (it should've been staggered), but that was the only issue of the entire night. They let you in two at a time in all the haunts here, which is great. I fell flat on my ass in the Mind Shaft after nonchalantly walking through what I thought was just another "swamp room," and having an absolutely massive prop shoot out at me. I have no idea what it was, for some reason it scared me so bad I didn't even pay attention, and I just fell down. Fairly sure most of the actors as well as my boyfriend were deafened by me; I screamed a lot! I think both of those walkthroughs are very, very underrated. Short, but sweet. The Asylum is considered the best thing there by most, and although I think they paid more attention to detail in it, they let too many people through at once (six or seven), so you're not always getting the brunt of the scare. They had a few rooms that were really cool, one being a massive white room with strobe lights and a really cool audio track, and also some unique things I haven't seen much in other haunts.

This weekend I'm suppose to be doing probably four more haunts. I plan on doing the Amherstburg haunted walk, which is not really a haunt but somewhat informative about the ghost stories of the town, Boneyard in Stockbridge, MI which is a haunted hayride, sideshow, corn maze, and forest, the haunted corn maze at the pumpkin patch, and another one which I've yet to pick out.

So let's hear about your Halloween season so far!
 

GuyWithAStick

Captain Basic
Re: Halloween & Haunts

I have a place about 30 min from my house that has a huge corn maze, a giant 30 foot slide with no rules, a zipline, a giant tower you can climb, fab Apple donuts, and a bunch of other stuff.

Another place near me is similar, but also has a bunch of transportable rides, one of which is a Go Gator! +1!

My uncle is a Halloween mask maker, so we get a bunch of free rubber masks! We ended up putting some over our house lights! :lol: We also decorated with the classic tombstones, spiders, etc. But one of our neighbors goes all out on Halloween and Christmas. Take the Griswolds from Christmas Vacation's extent for decoration, and turn it all into Halloween stuff.

Pumpkin Carving will probably start within the next week or so.

My home park is Six Flags Great America, and I've been to fright fest a few times already. I didn't really take many pics, so here is a Pepto Bismol promotion the park did:

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I guess here are a few pics I took during fright fest:

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And I'm not too big on horror movies.

But I do like going through the kiddie candy trail with my 3 yr old brother and eating everything he doesn't like. :grin: Which is pretty much everything. :grin:

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