Haunted Attraction Reviewed: Bennett’s Curse
Location of Attraction: Baltimore Maryland
Date of Review: Friday October 13th 2017
Total Number of Attractions Available: FIVE
Overall Haunted Attraction Rating (scale of 1-10): 7.5
Entertainment and Food Rating (scale of 1-10): 7
Overall Makeup and Costume Rating (scale of 1-10): 8
Overall Actor Rating (scale of 1-10): 5
Overall Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating (scale of 1-10): 9
Overall Scare Factor Rating (scale of 1-10): 7
Overall Feedback: Bennett’s Curse went through some unfortunate luck in 2016 and ended up not being able to open their doors for the 2016 season. Headed into the 2017 many haunt goers were eager to see if Bennett’s Curse would be back in action. Sure enough, a few weeks prior to opening night an announcement was made that Bennett’s Curse would be back and ready to scare for the 2017 season! In a brand new location at the Eastpoint Mall in Baltimore Maryland the Bennett’s Curse build team had just a short six week build time. At Bennett’s Curse you’ll experience five different attractions to make one massive haunted attraction walk-through! It’s safe to say that they must’ve worked around the clock to have this haunt ready by opening night! The detail in each of the scenes would’ve lead us to think they had an entire offseason to build some of the sets/scenes. Something Bennett’s Curse has always been known for was their rather fearsome animatronics. It was great to see that some of those said animatronics made the trip to the new location. The set designs and animatronics surely didn’t disappoint as we were thoroughly amazed with how they turned a vacant building in the mall into a upbeat and spooky haunted attraction. We continually kept thinking back on how the heck they did it all in six weeks… simply amazing work in terms of the set designs, props and animatronics. It is unfortunate that we have to mention the poor performance by the actors but we’d be lying if we said the actors were anything near good. For the most part, each scene either featured an actor yelling at us to “get out” or an actor asking us “what are you doing here?”. There were clearly zero skits and certainly none that correlated with the various scenes. From our perspective, it felt as if the actors were just doing as they pleased and some just didn’t seem to care. There’s nothing worse than walking into a scene and seeing all the actors disperse into their spots as we walked in on their apparent social time. We by no means believe that this poor actor performance is of the standard set by the Bennett’s. We’ve heard phenomenal reviews in the past about the quality of acting at Bennett’s Curse but they most certainly didn’t live up to that standard when we visited. There were some outstanding actors but they were unfortunately few and far between. We surely hope this careless and truly disappointing actor performance is just a one night fluke or was overlooked due to the very quick six week build time. A range of movie ready to satisfactory makeup, masks and costumes were encountered throughout our journey. We did appreciate the correlation of makeup and costumes to the set designs so no disappointments there. Scare factor was really tough for us to rate in terms of our own personal experience. As a group we are tough to scare due to our experience in the industry and sense of knowing where the scare typically is. In order to rate scare factor according to the typical haunt goer, we often speak with other customers and/or watch to see how the other customers react throughout the haunt. After speaking with a few groups and witnessing some in front and behind us throughout our journey, we got very mixed reviews in terms of scare factor. Some felt the haunt was downright the scariest haunt they’ve been to and others begged to differ. Thus we felt an average score in terms of scare factor was suitable for the experience offered at Bennett’s Curse. Although, we will say they could easily up the scare factor with better performances by the actors! Looking back on our experience it's clear that we didn’t catch Bennett’s Curse at their best. We were amazed with all aspects of the haunt except for the most important one… the actors. The props, set designs and animatronics certainly make a valid reason to visit Bennett’s Curse… and if the actors step up their game you’ll surely be pleased with your experience! It’s definitely worth mentioning that even though we highly disliked the actor's performance we still had a really fun time at Bennett’s Curse! So if you’re in the area and looking for something spooky and fun to tack onto your night then Bennett’s Curse may be the place you’re looking for!