ThrillRide! Special Features

"Yul B. Next!" BWUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sure, this is a HorrorVision-tinted photo, but the Fountain of Blood and Skeletons and General Halloween Nastiness was just about as red as it appears here. Can't they leave it this way all year long? For me? No?

Evil clown giving me the stink-eye, YAY! So here's the deal: this year, a V.I.P. wristband giving you front-of-the-line access to all five mazes was only $30.00, a steal. There were a few free scare zones; we went through Cirkus Berzerkus, the one with clowns, and it was good for a quick thrill. But the mazes are where the real action is...

...for the most part, anyway, because I'm sorry to say that Scrapyard of the Dead was almost entirely devoid of Dead when we went through. A lot of Scrapyard, though. I can imagine that this might have been okay if there were some scareactors in there; it was a long maze, with a bunch of switchbacks, loud music, sound effects. But it's also completely open-air and right in the thick of the front section, so you're always able to look up and see roller coasters and other happy things, which brings the scary down a notch or two. Had the opportunity been available, it would have been worth trying this again; we clearly hit a shift change or something. Next year.

Massacre Mine was far better. This one went through the entire queue of the park's whitewater raft ride and it was good and DARK through much of it. A lot of this one is also open-air, but it's at the back end of the park where there are almost no towering rides to brighten the mood. There were some animatronic goodies in here and we missed a couple of big ones going off, but for a pretty simple set-up, this maze delivered healthy doses of chills and screams. As stated earlier, giant spiders are scary.

This is Craig Appel, awesome dude, who led us through a daytime tour of Massacre Mine and also played a zombie in it. He snuck up and got a solid yelp out of me at the end. Well done, sir!