Last year, Carrie (Insanity Lurks Inside) and I attended The Haunt which was held at Kings Island in Ohio. This year, since we were already in Southeastern Virginia for Howl-O-Scream, we figured that we'd see what Kings Dominion's version of the wildly popular event was like. Only an hour away from Williamsburg, in Doswell VA, it wasn't exactly out of our way that much. It was also the first time that Carrie had been to Kings Dominion, so it was fitting that we do something new to start off the weekend.
Again, between the two of us we have 35 years experience in the haunted attraction industry and are notoriously hard to scare. So, we find ourselves at another haunt armed with our cell phones for pictures and the need for coasters and scares, if they can muster up enough insanity to scare us that is.
Kings Dominion's, The Haunt, is a massive undertaking as one can see by the map above. There are not just 4 or 5 houses, but an ambitious 10 of them. Top that off with 6 more scare zones and 5 shows, you have a Halloween event that is truly terrifying in scale, if you're trying to get to everything in one night. Thankfully for us, there was inclement weather and it was the first night of the year for the event so lines would prove to be a non-concern for us. Interestingly enough it was also a student night as well as "zombie night", where people dressed up as zombies got into the park earlier as well as paying only $19.95 for the event. Not a bad compromise if you ask me, even the staff was dressed up to support the festivities which they seemed to love.
Once again, we did things in a completely bizarre manner and over a beer figured out our plan of attack. It would take us from Medieval Macabre to The Slaughter House, a ride on Rebel Yell, then to Toxic Plague and Club Blood before heading over to Grizzly, Camp Killauee, No Vacancy and then a quick shot around to The Doll Factory, Volcano, and Avalanche. I won't write about the coasters, as that's more Carrie's deal but I can say...it's been too long since I had ridden them and seeing her excitement over riding one of the last bobsled coasters in the US was too much fun (so much so that we closed the night out on Avalanche).
Anyway, back to the haunts!
As stated, our first stop...Medieval Macabre.
Short, quick line and a quick entry down into the bowels of this dungeon inspired maze. Everything from your traditional ghouls and vampires to all manner of the dead were lurking in the shadows. The sets inside weren't anything to rave about, but the over execution wasn't that horrible. One thing that we did notice was that it seemed a bit short. When you think about it, there's really no way that they could've avoided this one. At least not without putting a major push in budget or cutting corners elsewhere. Needless to say, it wasn't anything to write home about but it wasn't horrible either. Kind of a "meh" feeling overall with it to be honest.
Another short walk later, and through the Cleaver Brothers Carnival scarezone. Clowns, yep...they're everywhere and literally these folks had gone completely batty. While typically we don't like clowns, this crew made a slight case for us to consider adding to them to the extremely short list of places that are allowed to have them at all. However, it wasn't enough and they should crank up the insanity a bit higher if they want to do it right.
Right on the other side we found ourselves at The Slaughter House. Which, as you can guess was ripe for a gory little stroll filled with nightmare fuel. Again, definitely short. The scenes inside were pretty generic but the actors definitely had hopped up on pixie sticks and coffee before they went on shift in here. They had a ton of energy and while they were few in number, they made up for it with a lot of over the top performances.
Again though, a bit of a trend going on in here...two houses down and both were short and not really stocked up on actors. Set design wasn't exactly anything to write home about either. Was this a sign that things were not up to par with other The Haunt events at Cedar Fair parks? Only time would really tell here, still plenty more houses and scare zones to hit as we refused to be deterred from our quest. Granted it was trying to rain on us at this point but we still were optimistic about things.
I'd be lying if we said that we weren't a little disappointed by the length of the houses, we were. The actors here weren't nearly as energetic as the last crew either, but they did give some semblance of effort to scare the group we were with in the house. That combined with the somewhat haphazard theming going on in the house, it was a fairly confusing experience to say the least from our end of things. Again, I wouldn't say it was bad but it wasn't nearly that great either.
Right around the corner we found the line and entrance for Club Blood. Now, I know we'd heard the name before (of course we had, it was the club at Howl-O-Scream Tampa a few years back) and figured that with the line as long as it was that it was most likely one of the more interesting houses at the event. Our hopes were definitely up as we weaved our way under the tracks of Hurler (shut down for the event) and made headway to the entrance.
Inside the house it was pretty clear what was going on here, we were in some kind of Japanese/punk themed night club which had obviously been around a while. The vamps inside started off dressed more like K-Pop/visual kei stars and then slowly adopted the look of the traditional vamp that we all know for the most part from various books and movies.
Overall it wasn't bad, the actors were clearly in their roles and the warmth inside of the house gave them a lot more license with the costuming. The gradual progression of the sets from a punk/visual kei club into the darker underworld of the vampires that inhabited the place was definitely nice as well. Once again though, it did seem a bit short and that was unfortunate, they should've gone all out with this one since it was popular and easily could've been their signature haunt.
No line at all here and after a little confusion about getting to the entrance due to that, we found ourselves at the back of another group which had stumbled across the ill fated camp ground as well. At first the path was restricted by what I assume was the exit ramp for their log flume. This made things a little strange and kind of put the actors at bit of a distance from us. They did do a fairly decent job of trying to make up for this barrier though by reaching through the spaces in the rail and other tactics. One of them being that one poor unfortunate camper decided that she was going to follow us, singing randomly and quietly. I can't say that it wasn't a bit unnerving and I wasn't sure where it was coming from at first...but I applaud her for a job well done. It really did add to the atmosphere and I did look over my shoulder a few times at that...
All things considered, it wasn't a bad attempt and it's a theme that you don't see very often. If you've got limited time and the lines are short I'd definitely say check it out if you're around the area in the park.
Quickly moving on we wound our way through another scare zone, this time it was The Lair and right towards the end, we found another house...with yet another extremely short line (yay for bad weather!). No Vacancy was the name and after a bit of confusion in the line (again, this time due to the fact that there was a show right next to it) we managed to get up close to the entrance. Interestingly enough...this one was being held in an actual theater type of building. The premise for this one? Pretty simple...we're guests to a hotel of some kind and inside the ghosts of servants past await our arrival. Sadly, these weren't the Disney's version. There was no "Be Our Guest" or anything else happy go lucky in this weekend getaway. Instead we were treated to a bombardment of dead chamber maids, scullery wenches and butlers.
The costuming and acting in this house was so far the best we had seen. Every actor took to their roles like a fly to shit and really did their best to scare us, from every angle. At one point one maid even came out at us from under a table. The theming throughout the house was extremely detailed and consistent with the overall atmosphere. They even tossed in a security room filled with cameras showing actual footage of not only us going through the haunt, but other groups after us as well. It seemed as if things had turned a corner for event, they definitely had nailed this one and everyone working here did as well. Sure, it was a bit short but was easily overlooked given the attention to detail by the set designers and actors inside.
If there's one house at The Haunt that is a must see, it's this. The outside looked rather unassuming with very little theming but seeing two girls, literally all dolled up strolling about the outside line and then disappearing, only to do it over again was mysterious and alluring. As we got closer to the entrance we quickly found out what these two macabre dolls were up to...they were escorting the groups through the house from the back. Quite the interesting twist. Their perky and bubbly nature was almost contagious as they seemed to revel in the darkness that awaited inside.
The acting and sets inside this haunt were definitely not something we expected, around every corner was something new and the infectious delight of our two guides (who happened to be between us and the rest of the group...leaving us at the back) was too much fun to ignore. Nearly every scene was a new spin on things and incredibly dark. The workers in the factory had a sinister uniformity to them and the dolls that were being made? Oh yes...they were once real live humans. Finally...a house that was pushed things a bit further than normal for these kinds of events. This is the kind of thing you expect to see at an edgier theme park haunt like Univeral or Busch Gardens Tampa. Once outside, our demonic doll guides waited for us all to pass and then walked behind us, hand in hand until we had exited fully...only to go back and do it again with a demonic giddiness.
It was gorey, primitive and everything that the namesake should've been. It was also rather nice to be able to wander through and just snap pictures as we desired without having to worry about fog, actors or crowds as well. This combined with the great experience we had had in The Doll Factory (along with some great closing rides on coasters) really left the impression that it was well worth the admission price. Sure, it rained on us a little and about half the houses weren't that great but we still managed to have a great time despite it all.
Yes, the park needs to focus on the length of actors, number of actors and overall intensity but one thing to consider is that this was their first night of the season and that can be a bit lackluster when it comes to these things. Some actors and houses just mesh perfectly right off the bat, some others take time and some manage to never pull it off during the season. Though, with the sheer number of houses at this event? You're bound to find a few that really hit the mark like we did and have one helluva nightmarish time.
In conclusion, The Haunt at Kings Dominion needs quite a bit of help to even get to the level of the other Cedar Fair "The Haunt" events throughout the country. However, given that we were only an hour away and the prices were just right? It was a perfect fit for us. We not only managed to enjoy some of the top rides in the park, but we also managed to get in over 75% of the Halloween events that they offered. Sure, the rain didn't hurt in our ability to do all this but if anyone is within an hour or a little over, you should definitely check it out as Kings Dominion offers up some world class coasters with a few truly great scares.
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