Haunted house number five for the 2006 season was the Night of Terror at Creamy Acres Farm in Mullica Hill, NJ. Maggie and I tried to attend this one night last year, but they were shutting down due to rain as we arrived. So we figured we'd give it another shot this year. Four attractions were available - a haunted house, a 3D house, a hayride, and a corn maze. We arrived and were horrified to see a few hundred cars in the parking area and expected fantastically long lines in our very near future. Fortunately, it appeared that at least half of the client base were teenagers who desired only to mill about in the overcrowded concession area, leaving the lines to the attractions fairly empty. "A stroke of luck at Creamy Acres!" we thought as we approached the entrance to the first attraction - the 3D House. But alas, that's when the true creaminess began. The walk from the front of the line for the 3D House to the actual entrance to the house was about 50 yards through absurdly slippery (creamy) mud. We donned our paper 3D glasses, entered the house, and were immediately shocked by the incredible loudness. At times, it was fairly comparable to a Manowar concert. But rather than awesomely head-splitting heavy metal, we were subjected to intensely loud sirens, smashing of sheet metal, and yelling. I walked through much of the house with my fingers in my ears so my hands weren't free to cover my eyes - and oh, how I wish they had been. The "3D" designs were haphazard at best. They basically applied their 2 color scheme totally at random, so your view through the glasses was that of a multi-hued diarrhea extravaganza with no legitimate dimension to any of the objects or designs on the walls. Believe it or not, the last two rooms of the 3D house got even worse. One was filled with an overabundance of frothy suds from some kind of soap machine - making the already muddy and moist floors far worse than they were to begin with. Upon leaving this room, we ended up in a bathroom setup with a few stalls, filled with corpses of some kind. As we walked past one of the stalls, we were sprayed in the legs with a concentrated stream of water, soaking our pant legs. At this point, I remember Maggie shouting something like, "Ahhh, what is going on!? This is awful!" She was correct. The exit from the 3D house was the only satisfying part because not only did it signal our welcome egress from that load of crap, but it sent us through one of our beloved tubes of spinning disorientation. After the 3D house, it could only get better, right? Well... we had to walk through about 200 yards of creamy mud after exiting the 3D house to get back to the entrance to the other attractions. I briefly considered suggesting that we just leave, but we'd spent $25 each, so I figured we may as well try at least one more attraction before bailing. We chose the regular haunted house and kept our fingers crossed in hopes that it would not be so loud and terrible. The second house was, quite fortunately, rather good and made us feel somewhat redeemed. It started with a very creative and shaky ride in a fake elevator, and continued through a series of dark rooms with some nice props and not a lot of unnecessarily loud noises. A few of the actors were rather unprepared, but we didn't mind that much because there were a lot of imaginative and original setups - a room where large sections of the floor were filled with red-lit water that looked vaguely like lava, a lycanthropic football player, and yet another wonderful spinning tube of disorientation! This tube, however, turned counterclockwise. Which seems like not-that-big-of-a-deal, but when you've been through as many tubes as I have and ALL of them rotate clockwise, a counterclockwise tube is even more disorienting. Our spirits were lifted from the quite decent showing at the second house, so we decided not to go home. Additionally, we didn't have to walk through mud when leaving that attraction, so that was an added bonus. We decided we'd skip the corn maze (since it was guaranteed to be extraordinarily muddy) and moved directly on to the hayride. After another fairly short wait in line, we boarded a hay cart which was unfortunately already quite covered in mud. The organizers of this event should really consider "You can't escape the creaminess" as a new slogan for next year. In my experience, haunted hayrides generally have a peak value of "Suck". This hayride, however, was a notable exception. Four things stick out in my mind that made this hayride stand out compared to all the others I've been on. First, there was a large, impressive, animatronic horse being ridden by a headless horseman. Second, there was a guy in a skull mask perched in a tower shooting a machine gun at us. It definitely caught most of us off guard and the gun also shot fire, which was sweet. Then we passed another animatronic wonder - this one was a 6-armed dragon-beast that was clutching bloody, severed deer heads in two of its hands. And finally, there was a pond with a full-sized pirate ship in it - also equipped with some nice flame-throwing mechanisms. The hayride ended and we were looking forward to leaving on a high note. But then we discovered that the hayride dropped us off in the middle of a field and we had to complete the corn maze to leave. The maze was not only even muddier than we had anticipated, but it was actually a maze. Even if they call it a maze, I usually expect a straightforward path through the field. But no, we had to wander through a disgustingly muddy mess of a maze to gain the privilege of getting the hell out of Creamy Acres. We decided to just stay towards the outer edges, and our strategy worked, allowing us to get out of the maze in just a couple of minutes. But the speed didn't make it not be really annoying. |