Corner of Chaos has always been one of our favorite Halloween destinations. We have reviewed them before, and their Barbaric Barnyard was possibly one of the best haunted attractions we’ve ever been to.
This year there were some cool things and some surprising shortfalls. Let’s talk about it.
The lines to get tickets were very poorly designed. They had 1 line for credit cards, 2 for cash, 1 for online purchases, and 1 for VIP which I still have no idea what that means.
It took us about 20 minutes to buy tickets. The credit line was backed up and every other cashier was doing absolutely nothing because no one carries cash anymore. Buying online resulted in a service charge of $2 per ticket.
Here’s an idea to haunts – invest in a store that doesn’t penalize your customers for your inability to learn the internet. I have a store. You can, too.
The Wicked Wagon Ride
Last year this was new. At that time it was clearly a haunted attraction that needed some work, but we were willing to grant them a pass in the first year. The great design of the cart with you facing outward was great. No more strained necks! The narrator on the cart was amusing enough to distract from the low-scare and low-detail haunted attraction. It was enjoyable to an extent and that’s all we require.
This year, I am sad to report that literally everything about The Wicked Wagon Ride was worse than their first year.
The scenes themselves did not tell a story and the sets were so sparse that I thought it could have been just put together over the course of a day. “Sparse” actually doesn’t even begin to cover how slapdash the scenes on this attraction appeared. It was like someone’s leftover props exploded in the backyard.
I counted 3 actors who seemed to care. There seemed to be overall less actors in here than last year, too.
Our narrator in the cart didn’t have a microphone this year so no one could hear her. Instead of working each scene like last year she said maybe 30 seconds of words and just sat there the entire time. She wasn’t even in a costume like the narrator last year was. We were trying to figure out the point of her being there. Maybe to prevent people from getting off of the cart?
No one, not even the 13 year old girls were scared on this ride. You know how girls always react to chainsaws? Not here. The entire cart looked bored and in fact many of the girls started joking around. We even started cracking jokes throughout the ride. It was, hands down, the worst hayride I have ever been on in my entire life.
Be like the locals who I saw only buying 3 tokens instead of 4 – avoid this one. Normally I am a completest and tell people to see the full experience. Trust me. Do not do The Wicked Wagon Ride.
The Wooded Wasteland
The Indian guy dressed as a swami who was busting on people was THE FUNNIEST SCARE ACTOR EVER. He was the gatekeeper to get into this attraction and made the wait the best part of the entire evening. I have not laughed this hard for at least 6 months.
“DO NOT PEE IN MY CORN I WILL CALL THE FBI AND GET AN INVESTIGATION IF YOU PEE IN MY CORN I WILL BEAT YOU WITH A STICK!”
The maze itself was good and fun. This one was played slightly for comedy but still had scares which we appreciated. We found the actors to be good and the maze well-designed. This one was worth it for the guy at the front alone. I want to hire him to work at my convention! Corner of Chaos has always had some of the better actors in haunts. Still, we got nothing for a finale. I wonder if the actor was on break or had to leave their post.
Nightmare Machine
This trail was like a “greatest hits” of haunt scenes. I mean that in a good way. It was well done, but we again got nothing for a finale. I think there was supposed to be a chainsaw guy there, but he wasn’t there when we went through and there was what seemed like a fill-in person just screaming at people as they left.
Barbaric Barnyard
The Barbaric Barnyard had some changes to it this year, unfortunately none of them were good. This formerly amazing attraction seemed to have half of the actors in it. The new section in the middle had literally no actors in it for a very large amount of it. OK, maybe 1. It was like a commercial break in the middle of the attraction. I didn’t see the actors tag team together to destroy anyone this year. They must have cut back on hires. If this were my first year experiencing this maze I would have thought it was “just ok”. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. We walked slowly out of the attraction in response to the chainsaw finale instead of running.
Conclusion
Corner of Chaos fell short in many ways this year. It was not up to the consistent quality level we have experienced in the past few years. 1 attraction is awful, and 3 are “just OK” with one of the 3 being a formerly phenomenal attraction redone to be less phenomenal. Simply leaving the Barbaric Barnyard alone and doing it like last year would have yielded a higher rating from us.
Some of the actors are amazing beyond what you see at every other haunt. They even have well done dance shows which no other farm event like this does. Though the singing group from last year is nowhere to be found.
They can and have done better than this. Maybe there were some major issues that compromised things this year (which might explain why they were the only haunted attraction in the country who didn’t reply to my emails this year even though they had in previous years).