Haunted Houses

The leaves on the trees are starting to change their colors again. Fall is in the air which means one of my favorite nights is upon us... Halloween! I didn't go to any Haunted Houses last year, because I have always been sadly disappointed in the scare quality. This year I am going to as many as I can, so I can rate them for you, my readers.

Last weekend, two of my friends and I went to Death Valley Haunted Woods and Monster Mountain. Both are located north of Nashville.

Death Valley Haunted Woods ranks the best between the two. In terms of fright factor, ease of navigation, and uniqueness, Death Valley kept all three of us happy throughout. There were actually a few spots where I was afraid the REAL pic-axe could have slipped out of the actor's hands and hit me. It didn't, but it could have and I hope that actor has good skills with the axe. Everything else seemed mostly safe if not totally freaky at times.

It took us a total of about 45 minutes to get through Death Valley, which includes two pitch dark mazes that are legitimately hard to navigate out of, tons of ghouls, and great sound effects. In terms of entertainment value, it is, hands down, the best haunted house I've seen.

None of that is to degrade Monster Mountain! It was a good haunted house. The special effects at this place were incredible. Much more time and money was spent to make this place look the part of a haunted mining town. The burning house we had to walk through was "off the hook" cool, the 40 foot suspended monster, the caverns, and old town were really well done. The frights were good, but the navigation left some to be desired. I enjoyed the openness, but the ghouls had to keep telling us where to go. Another thing I really liked about Monster Mountain, was that it was in the middle of nowhere. It made me feel like something bad could actually happen and no one would ever know. In total it took us about 25 minutes to get from start to end.

Overall, both houses were great fun and worth the $15 admission price. If we had gone to Monster Mountain without seeing Death Valley, it would have been the best in my life, but Death Valley was unanimously the better of the two.

This week we hope to hit a couple more, so look out for the reviews.