As a horror movie junkie, and fan of haunted houses, I finally checked out Trail of Terror. If I had to rate it, it would be about a solid four out of ten. In comparison to Valleyscare, it was much better, but it had its pros and cons.

The location was far more ideal than Valleyscare. It was isolated, as you had to drive five minutes on a dirt trail to arrive, and the whole operation was surrounded by woods. To my surprise, Trail of Terror was more than just the haunted trail walk. It ended up being somewhat of a mini-festival. Upon entering you could see that there were two main haunted houses: Hotel 666, and the Trail of Terror itself. On top of that there were bean bag tosses, a mini-bazaar, and countless bars. The price for admission was surprisingly expensive.

If smoke bothers you, don’t go because about 70% of the people there were smoking, and I had to wash my clothes just to get the smell off.

There was also karaoke, albeit mostly monopolized by 12 year olds, but karaoke nonetheless. In fact, one of my favorite moments of the night was watching a group of 12-year-old boys attempt to sing “Real Slim Shady”, only managing to know the first word of each sentence followed by a chorus of attempted singing and mumbling. The MC himself announced, “I always tell kids to stay in school, and especially when you can’t read like these kids I hope that’s true.”

Hotel 666 is the indoor haunted house. The only way I could possibly describe it is all of the haunted houses at Valleyscare combined into one long continuous haunted house. Unlike the state fair haunted house or your average haunted house, Hotel 666 lasted for a long time. Room after room showed up, the constant corners and turns you made while walking completely disoriented you to how close you were to the end. The actors were good, but there was a low actor density throughout the house.

Another complaint I had was the excessive strobe light use. It seemed that almost every other room had strobe lights, which instead of adding to the fear factor gave me a headache. It was far better than the average haunted house, but there were many areas they could have improved, such as suspenseful music to add to the atmosphere. Another suggestion would be more surprising hiding spots, as there were a lot of places in which actors could have easily jumped out of the walls or out of the dark, but unfortunately did not.

The Trail of Terror itself was a lot better than the haunted house. It felt more realistic being isolated in the middle of the woods at night. While I will not give away the hiding spots of the actors, they were far more creative and surprising. The Trail of Terror itself was a long walk in the woods, dimly lit with actors wandering about. Not as long as Hotel 666, but still longer than the average haunted house. Also, the lack of strobe lights made it far more pleasant. It actually felt as if you were wandering around in the woods alone, and felt as if you were simulating a horror movie yourself. Not sure if it’s worth the admission but it was better than Valleyscare, and the admission is less.

Overall, it wasn’t as thrilling as I thought it would be, but comparatively Trail of Terror surpassed all of my past haunted house experiences. I did not regret going, but there’s not much more than two hours of things to do. If you are scared by the State Fair or Valleyfair, I would recommend this as a step up, but don’t forget to bring some Advil for the strobe lights.