Haunt Review – Creepy Hallow Halloween Fun Park: Frankfort, IL.

Creepy Hallow Halloween After Dark Fun Park – Frankfort, Illinois (Review)

Visited on Sunday, October 20^th, 2013

Location: 24405 S. LaGrange Road, Frankfort, IL. 60423

Creepy Hallow Halloween Fun Park is a mixture of environments both indoors and out. For inclement weather, you might want to take extra precautions and dress accordingly.

Hours: October 4^th – October 27^th Fridays & Saturdays 6:00 pm – 11:00 pm / Sundays 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Halloween Week: Wednesday, October 30^th 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm / Thursday, October 31^st 6:00 pm – 11:00 pm

Admission Price: The Blood Shed Haunted House – $25 / Terror Trails Hayride and Haunted Cornfield – $20 / Zombie Hunt Paintball – $18 / ScaryLand After Dark – $6

Parking: Free (There are plenty of parking spaces on site)

Length: The Blood Shed Haunted House – 6 minutes / Terror Trails Hayride and Haunted Cornfield – 25 minutes / Zombie Hunt Paintball – 10 minutes / ScaryLand After Dark (varies on how long you look around)

Fright Factor: The Blood Shed Haunted House – Medium / Terror Trails Hayride and Haunted Cornfield – Low / Zombie Hunt Paintball – Low / ScaryLand After Dark – Low

Review:

There are four separate attractions at Creepy Hallow, spread out in the park, which is located on a working tree nursery. I attended on a Sunday evening when the weather was a little rainy so there was an average crowd milling around. There was no noticeable wait line entertainment mainly because the crowds were relatively low and I didn’t have much of a wait time for any of the attractions. I was told that normally, there would be a couple of costumed actors entertaining the guests who walk through the park.

I decided to enter the Blood Shed Haunted House first. The haunt is located in a nondescript building on the park grounds with signs leading guests to the entrance. Once inside, the wacky queue line attendant instructed us to enter through a door to the haunt proper. The first room consisted of a desk prop and a standing open coffin with an actor portraying a casket maker, asking our group which one of us was the slowest. One of the kids in the group raised his hand and the actor promptly measured the kid with a tape measure meant to suggest the measurement would be for his coffin. We were then told that we had to sign in to the guest register on the desk. This room had an extremely effective jump scare that I will not ruin for those who haven’t attended yet.

From there we followed dark hallways with hanging pipes into more rooms, some with better detail than others. Many of the rooms consisted of fairly simple scenes with actors sparsely hiding throughout. There were some interesting animatronic props including a very cool werewolf that lunges at you through a window and a tall skeleton to greet you before you leave. There was an Exorcist themed room featuring a possessed girl floating above her bed. There was a clown room which was nicely decorated with glow paint and black lights with a couple of creepy clowns stirring about. Another interesting room consisted of several unknown doors with numbers on them. Guests had to pick the right door in order to find the passageway leading out of the room. Some of the doors featured spooky props behind them waiting to frighten whoever opened the door, while other doors led to dead ends. This room reminded me more of a fun house type scenario. The final room of the haunt featured a large cemetery that was decorated well with tombstones on both sides separated by a fence. There were some actors waiting in this room to give the guests one last scare before exiting the house. This room also contained the large animatronic skeleton that was pretty impressive.

I next checked out the Zombie Hunt Paintball. This was a fun attraction for all ages where guests sit on a long hayrack trailer with paintball guns attached to one side. You are towed past four separate scenes where zombies come out of their buildings and shamble towards the trailer and you are invited to open fire on the bloodthirsty zombies. The zombie actors were well protected so you could shoot them wherever you wished until they fell to the ground. The ride lasted about 10 minutes, if you ran out of paintballs you could purchase more for $ 7. While this was extremely fun, each of the scenes was pretty dark and with all of the other guests firing at the same time, it was hard to tell if you were actually hitting your zombie target or not. This was the highlight of the park in my opinion.

The Terror Trails Hayride and Haunted Cornfield was next for me. This ride consisted of a covered hayrack wagon that went deeper into the back of the park. The hayride went past some small scenes with actors in them, some of which entered onto the hay wagon for some more in your face frights. It stopped at the entrance to the Haunted Cornfield maze. In this section, groups were split up into smaller parties and sent into the corn maze separately. Once in the cornfield you had to follow the rope lights on the ground through the maze with costumed actors and some static props jumping out at you in dark corners. Upon exiting the maze, we got back on the hayrack ride and returned to the beginning. Overall, the hayrack ride featured a very low fright factor; it would be suitable for all ages. The Haunted Cornfield maze had a slightly higher fright factor with actors trying to jump out and scare you, making it a little frightening for smaller kids.

For the final part of my visit, I entered into the ScaryLand After Dark attraction. This was really aimed more towards children, meant to be a something a little less frightening they could go into on their own or with their parents. It featured some interactive displays where you have to push a button to get an animatronic prop to work or step on a pad to turn a display on, that sort of thing. But what I really liked about this attraction was the sheer fun of it. It was filled with very cool horror props and some wonderful picture opportunities that families could use to take pictures with their kids. There was an electric chair prop that turned on for great photo ops. I really enjoyed the 7 foot tall Frankenstein’s monster prop that would make a great photo with the kids. This was a very enjoyable part of the park. I have a six year-old son and it’s nice to know there are places that cater to the entire family.

Overall, the Creepy Hallow Halloween Fun Park is a real gem for haunt enthusiasts, not necessarily for high end scares but as a wonderful place that families with children of all ages can come and enjoy with their parents. It was very refreshing to see that the owners and people who run the park really stress a family environment. They don’t allow cursing on the grounds, nor horseplay, or any other activity that would take away from having a good time in the park. There is a concessions area with family friendly pricing on all items.

On the downside, the admission prices for all attractions, even with coupons are still pretty pricy, if the prices were a little lower, more families could enjoy the park. So if you have the money, I would highly recommend the entire family visit the Creepy Hallow Halloween Fun Park, it’s a place where even the kids have a place to get involved in some good creepy Halloween fun!