Haunted Village

Continuing our Halloween theme over UEA weekend, we went to the Haunted Village up at This is the Place Heritage Park last Saturday night. It was very well done! It was so scary that while we started with Erik and Lenice and their family, after just the first encounter Ellie and all the Paulsens except Lenice and Chandler left and went home with Erik - it was just too intense for them.



The whole thing is like an outdoor spook alley. You start at Brigham Young's home then wander on marked trails through stands of trees and cornfields and through most of the pioneer-era buidings. It takes about 45 minutes to walk through it all. In every venue there is a very scary character who says strange and scary things and/or jumps out at you or approaches you on the trail. Most of the characters wore the obligatory white death-like makeup and played like they were dead or zombies or something like it. At one point we got some comic relief from a character dressed up to look like and who talked like Beetlejuice, from the movie of the same name. Other comic relief came from Parry, who carried on a running commentary throughout, mainly to keep himself from being too scared, kind of like whistling in a graveyard. It may have helped some get through it but it was mostly annoying.

Anyway, we highly recommend it to anyone who likes being scared. Be warned: there is no blood or gore but a lot of startling jumping out by scary looking characters. Not for anyone under 12.