Tis the season. Aside from running my own yard haunt going on 16 years now, I love going to haunted attractions. They are staffed and run by my people. I may not always agree with design choices or how they’re run, but the goal is ultimately the same. We all want people to have a good time being scared.

Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses is a series of 10 haunted attractions in Ulster Park, NY. What’s unique about Headless Horseman is the dedication to storytelling. Each year, the attractions get a revamp to connect them to the overarching story of the haunt.

Your experience at Headless Horseman always starts with the hayride. This year’s theme is simpler than some they’ve done in the past. You’ve signed up for the Old Crow Hollow Ghost Tour. Your host leads you through the various locals and legends who seem to have dedicated themselves to the Old Ones through human sacrifice and dark rituals. Headless Horseman constantly upgrades their scares with new haunt technology, so even large displays you might recognize year to year—a glowing dock with fisherman, a covered bridge with the Headless Horseman following you—always have new wrinkles. This is an aggressive hayride, with plenty of jump scares, chainsaw wielding scare actors, and gory props and gags to encounter.

This is a dark series of attractions by design.

What I will say about the 2018 iteration of The Hollow is I had issues with the lighting. Headless Horseman had a major lighting upgrade since the last time I saw it in 2016. The newer colored LED lighting systems have super saturated colors, which allows for some great design work. They also incorporated more directional lighting elements, shifting focus of the narrative when you’re surrounded by live actors and scare scenes. LED lights give you stronger colors, but the actual lights are not as bright or focused as traditional bulbs. I’ve never had success with just using LEDs (in theater or haunts) and always back up with traditional filaments to guarantee the best visibility.

For me, I would have preferred more lights overall as there were scares with what I know are highly detailed sets, props, and costumes that were reduced to shadows moving towards you. Maybe that was the intent, though some of the live action scenes clearly started or finished without the lights turned on. Running this kind of event is a highly technical exercise, especially at this scale, so I don’t hold it too much against them for some switches not being hit at just the right time. I will always be on the side of more lights being better. A scare achieved with clear lighting is far more terrifying than one that relies on darkness to hide the seams.

Darkness is definitely a major player in the haunted design this year. Each of the nine walkthrough haunts featured a room so dark that I, personally, had to rely on my group to guide me through. I do have low light visibility problems, so I know some of the rooms I struggled with are not an issue for other people. Still, there were moments this year that I just couldn’t appreciate as much as I would like to because the lighting was so dim.

The lighting is my only real area of complaint. Headless Horseman gets everything else right this year. Three of the major haunts featured a host to get you in the mindset of what to expect from the story. The Lunar Motel had a meeting with the front desk clerk explaining all the renovations and policies under new management. The Glutton’s Diner had the waiter walk you through the house specials and take any dietary needs into consideration while maintaining distance between groups. Dr. Dark’s Side Show stopped you at the entrance gates as an emcee interacted with the crowd trying to get us to reveal our names for the scare actors to use against us in the clown haunt. These are wonderful moments that made the experience all the more immersive and memorable. The scare actors clearly have a script to get through but are trusted enough to actually interact and improv with the guests to personalize the haunt. They also reduce the crowd size for better control and timing of the scares; you can’t regulate how fast or slow people walk through a haunt, but you can find creative ways of spacing the groups out to minimize heavy traffic and bottlenecks.

Headless Horseman features incredibly detailed props and set pieces throughout the property. This is an abandoned truck outside of the Lunar Motel.

Changes are made every year to Headless Horseman even if the physical structures of the haunts remain the same. Scares and props are shifted between houses to throw off expectations for returning guests. The vortex tunnel is always the vortex tunnel, but there’s no guarantee that it will appear in one haunt over another. The claustrophia walls (squeeze rooms) will eventually force you to go through a section of the haunt blind as you gently squeeze your way through flexible air-filled walls, but this year Headless Horseman’s design experimented with just using the lower half or even one wall (not two) to misdirect you right into a scare. They have a wonderful set of werewolf animatronics that shift location every year (though I am not a fan of one scare where the werewolf blocks the path in a dark room—I got hit with it because I physically could not see the prop until it made contact with my body). I’m especially impressed with how often the scare actors were left to hide in plain sight rather than rely on false walls and drop panels. The drop panels and cracks in the wall are still visible, but again, they are used to lore you right into the location of the real scare.

Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses always have wonderful, friendly staff to guide you through. There are plenty of security guards and even police officers on sight to keep everyone safe and take care of troublemakers. There’s a good variety of affordable food options (cash only) and plenty of bathrooms and seating for when you need a break. Accessibility wise, there are ramps in more haunts than not, a few moments where the floor will move funhouse style (always with railings to hold), and you do have to sit with your legs hanging over the edge of the flat trailer bed for the hayride. Also be aware that there’s no place to stop in between series of haunts. The hayride leads to the first rest area before you do six more attractions in a row. Those six drop you off at the next rest area that, in turn, leads you to the next two haunts. Only after completing nine of the 10 attractions do you get a chance to walk around on your own, grab a snack, and unwind before the last haunt. It’s really well laid out, but you will be doing a lot of walking before you get a chance to unwind or rest.

Headless Horseman Hayrides and Haunted Houses runs Fridays through Sundays through 28 October, with an extra Thursday night on 25 October and a final night on 3 November.

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