So this is normally my week off from work for an HHN vacation, but here we are in 2020 and the world had other plans. I try to hit up a few central/western/upstate NY haunts every year before vacation; I've managed to see 3 so far this month, hoping to check out a couple more this coming week.
1. Frightmare Farms in the Fulton/Palermo area, just south of Oswego, has been a pit-stop the past 2 years and they've always been such awesome people to my friends & I! The remote-ish location gives FF a great "upstate" flavor, not technically the expansive wilderness of an Adirondack park, but still enough of that crisp, woodsy trail setting that we all love up in that region. We previewed Frightmare during their Summer Scream event a little over a month back and I have to give a lot of props to their COVID contingency plans. Pulling into their parking lot, their attendants would advise any patrons to stay in their vehicles until their scheduled walkthrough was ready. Then, the owner of the park greeted us at the queue and answered all of our questions and then some while the previous group was wrapping up the preview house. A few minutes after they exited at the other end of the house, we were cleared to enter and everything felt super sanitary/safe.
Their main event a couple of weeks ago was a little busier in the park, but lines were still distanced and something I appreciated was that the roaming actors constantly enforced the distancing guidelines in-character! Super cool. The standout highlight for me was the "Winter Harvest" twist on their standard Estate House. The effects were fun and there was so much detail in each room/corridor. The hayride was new for this year and while I enjoyed the experience, we definitely noticed that we rode it during what was probably a shift-change, since some boo-holes/doorways weren't used during the course of the voyage. It happens, and I'd love to try it again if they bring it back next year!
Frightmare Farms's website:
Frightmare Farms Haunted Scream Park
2. I also got the chance to experience an inaugural year for a haunt within Howe Caverns. Tucked between Herkimer & Albany, Howe is a fairly popular tourist destination for New York families, but they haven't done anything for Halloween quite to this scale before. I really respect the effort they've begun to take with this; I think it was still maybe a little overpriced for what you get, but I see a lot of potential once capacity & other restrictions are eventually a thing of the past and I really hope they stick with it. Having not been back here since I was very young, the trip was great just for a little nostalgia and a chance to see the beautiful limestone caves again. The haunt definitely played to the strengths of the unique setting, with plenty of near-pitch black sections of the walkthrough and effects to enhance the feel of how deep you were descending.
One of the few issues was with distancing. The walkthrough starts with a standard on-foot portion but features a small boat ride halfway through, followed by another on-foot trek partly through the same way you come from. This means that during our first third of the experience, we often ran into other groups returning from the boat ride, meaning we had no choice but to cross paths with them, sometimes in fairly narrow spaces. I did my best to keep my distance as often as possible. Otherwise, the on-foot portions were great! Definitely will benefit from more actors in the future, as I previously mentioned. The boat ride was somewhat disappointing, featuring only a few props and 1 giant budget-devoted animatronic at the end before the boat turns around. However, this was likely just another case of bad shift-change timing, as we did actually see actors starting to wade out past us as our boat returned. That could be an amazing experience with enough scares from within the cavern's waters!
The final third of Howe was easily the standout favorite for me. Where the returning path split to a new area, there was a really engaging and fun actor who chatted with us for a bit in-character before sending us deeper into his realm. Then, we walked through a very narrow and claustrophobic portion of the caverns, themed around a devious leprechaun(s?) who were luring us further in as it promised us gold. Not sure if this was 1 scareactor or multiples playing the leprechaun, all appearances were super similar looking with great costuming and makeup (skewing more towards a female demonic elvish/impish take on the mythical creature that worked great) and I still can't tell if it was one actress peeking out behind corridors and then taking backdoor routes to other popout points or multiple talents well-hidden in the crevaces of that passage. All-in-all, that area was the clear winner of the walkthrough for me. Great staff again and a cool little gift shop/cafe with outdoor seating to satiate us after the long trip!
Howe Caverns's website:
Howe Scary
3. This past weekend, we knocked one off my haunt bucket list and took the train down to Poughkeepsie station for Headless Horseman Hayrides & Haunts in Ulster Park. Staying in Kingston on the Hudson River during fall is a great experience to begin with, and in gorgeous weather too! Endless shout-outs to HH for how helpful they were. The event featured a drive-through instead of a hayride this year, which then takes guests into the park where the haunted houses await them. However, having made the trip by train, we didn't have a vehicle and I messaged the park's facebook page to find out if we could still enjoy the houses at least. They were more then happy to accommodate us and even on a sold out night, offered to let our uber driver take us through if we were willing to pay for his admission. We offered, and our driver sadly declined, but they still let him take a bypass route & drop us off right at the park gates! I heard great things about the drive-through and am bummed I can't review it, but I will say that the park itself is definitely a must-see in New York. I think the houses suffered a bit this year from staffing/capacity limitations, but the entire walkthrough is so long and every room in each themed house is intimately detailed, gory, and gruesome. The few scareactors that were present go all-out and hit their marks impressively. I usually see everything coming from actors/boo-points, but I give a ton of credit that Headless Horseman made up for the vacant boo-holes by hitting us with some scares that were not telegraphed at all and definitely impressed me. Makeup & costuming is a big highlight here too. Here and at Frightmares, I saw some absolutely stunning costume designs. I do caution that if you're looking for max COVID safety right now, entry into houses were pulsed but queue lines were still packed in and decently long.
Sidenote: First ever time I had my greatest haunted house anxiety happen to me and I embarrassed myself in the mirror room by accidentally starting to go the wrong way out the staff passage. The tall actor was messing with us and held his arm across a walkway and I thought he wanted us to walk under it lmao. I tell folks all the time that my own stupidity & social anxieties are my only true fears in haunts. >.<
Additional shout-outs to all the awesome people we met in the Ulster Park/Kingston region. We had an absolutely incredible uber driver on the return trip from the park back to the hotel who tipped us off on Kennedy Fried Chicken, which was a delicious spot for lunch before we left the next day. And she helped us out big-time by taking us back to the train station off-the-clock a day later, so ridiculously kind and helpful. Plus the people at Uptown Coffee were awesome too.
Headless Horseman website:
Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses in New York
Hoping to get a few more in on Friday! Maybe Field of Screams NY (on Route 49), Fright Nights or CMC in Syracuse, or Trail of Terror near Fulton? Depends on if we really get snow/rain on Friday like the forecast is predicting right now.
