Haunted Attraction Reviewed: Frightland
Location of Attraction: Middletown DE
Date of Review: 10/16/2016
Total Number of Attractions Available: EIGHT!
Overall Haunted Attraction Rating (scale of 1-10): 7
Entertainment and Food Rating (scale of 1-10): 10!
Actor Rating: (scale of 1-10): 7
Makeup and Costume Rating (scale of 1-10): 8
Props Rating (scale of 1-10): 7
Overall Scare Factor Rating (scale of 1-10): 7
Overall Feedback: We attended Frightland on Saturday October 15th and arrived shortly before 10pm. Frightland is currently in their 20th year of business and has been featured as a top 10 scariest haunted attraction in the country by Travel Channel, Forbes and Huffington Post. Frightland was beyond busy when we arrived Saturday evening! The parking lot was jammed full and an exciting vibe was in the air. The lines for most of the attractions were quite long, we definitely encourage you to purchase the VIP Frightpass which includes access to all eight attractions, the carnival rides, and it limits the wait time for the haunted attractions! Due to Frightland being awful busy, our group elected to purchase the VIP Frightpass. Something we picked up on while waiting in the long long line for the hayride was the distribution of customers being put on the wagon. The staff would load one or two groups of VIP customers (probably around 4-8 people) and would then load the rest of the wagon with regular admission customers (probably around 12-16 people), this became frustrating for some of the VIP customers as the regular admission line seemed to be moving much faster than the VIP customer line. This was a minor flaw that wasn’t really an issue in any other attraction line, was just something noticed at the hayride. Something unique that Frightland offers is a full sized carnival onsite. The carnival features tons of carnival rides and games and of course all of the wonderful carnival food! On top of the carnival Frightland offers EIGHT haunted attractions! These attractions include Horror Hayride, Ravenwood Cemetery, Fear, Zombie Town, The Attic, Haunted Barn, Idalia Manor, and Zombie Prison. Within in these eight attractions there is a lot of good but also a lot of things needing improvement. Across the board at Frightland they seem to try and provide an equally fun and scary experience to all of their customers. We liked seeing the staff ask customers how things were going and being broken into small groups when walking through the haunts. By far our groups two favorite attractions of the evening were Horror Hayride and The Attic. We choose not to do individual attraction assessments for Frightland as we feel it will be easiest to do one large overall review. Let’s start off with the positives of the evening. Horror Hayride was truly a sensory overload! As soon as you hit the first scene, there is literally nonstop customer and actor interaction. The actors you encounter on the hayride were truly vicious and deranged, coming on board the wagon to truly give you an up close and in your face experience. The hayride featured many large scale scenes with a lot of top notch props and special effects. Our group really liked the carnival scene on the hayride which included a ferris wheel and a functional roller coaster! The other high point of the night was “The Attic” attraction. The Attic was truly a walk through a pitch black dark attic. It definitely had a bone-chilling and sinister feel to it. As you're walking through The Attic, you get quickly develop a fearfulness of what might be lurking around the next corner! Frightland could honestly have ZERO actors in this attraction and it would still have the same eerie and terrifying feel to it. But having creepy and strange actors makes this attraction much more horrifying! Overall, the Horror Hayride and The Attic were the scariest attractions of the night, tons of screams and shrieks were heard throughout these haunts! The Haunted Barn, Idalia Manor, and Zombie Prison all were enjoyable but not exactly frightening attractions! All three featured some unusual and one of a kind scenes! Props were all really intricate and featured a lot of detailed work! Each attraction had some gotcha/pop scares! The actors for the most part did well in these three haunts but were often lacking the intensity of the actors on the hayride and in the attic. The Haunted Barn, Idalia Manor, and Zombie Prison could all be just as good as the hayride and attic with the addition of more crazed actors! The biggest letdowns of the night were Ravenwood Cemetery, Fear, and Zombie Town. These three attractions were completed directly after completion of the hayride. As we got off the hay wagon our adrenaline was pumping and we were very excited to see what the next few attractions would bring. Little did we know the next three attractions would quickly bring our adrenaline rush to a dead stop. These three haunts were all completed within minutes and by minutes we mean three to five minutes a piece. All three haunts also did not have much prop wise and the actors were very lack luster and did not have much energy. We found ourselves just walking straight through these three attractions. We also struggled to follow the theme of these three haunts as none of them really stuck with the same theme throughout the entire attraction. Something that could really turn these three attractions around would be to possibly turn all three smaller haunts into one larger haunt. This would make for a much longer and enjoyable haunt. Frightland could also carry the same theme throughout all three of these attractions. Frightland could possibly make these three haunts into one large zombie themed attraction as two of the three are already somewhat zombie based! In this case, we feel Frightland would be better off to offer six outstanding attractions then having a handful of great ones and three bland attractions. Across the board Frightland definitely has some great things going and a very fun atmosphere and energy! The overall actor and props rating can definitely sky rocket if Frightland makes some adjustments to the Ravenwood Cemetery, Fear, and Zombie Town. With just some minor improvements and changes, Frightland can without a doubt become a premier haunt in the area!! Our group thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and each of us definitely had our fair share of jumps and screams! A huge bonus for Frightland is the family friendly atmosphere! Frightland is truly a place that you can bring the whole family too! We absolutely encourage all haunt enthusiasts to come check out Frightland for themselves. We are positive that you will have a fun filled night full of scares and laughs for the entire family! When you visit, make sure to tell them that York Fright Review Squad sent you their way!