Haunted Attraction Reviewed: Kim’s Krypt Haunted Mill
Website: www.kimskrypt.com
Location of Attraction: Spring Grove Pennsylvania
Date of Review: Sunday September 23rd 2018
Total Number of Attractions Available: SIX!
Overall Haunted Attraction Rating: 6
Entertainment and Food Rating: 7
Atmosphere Rating: 7
Overall Costume and Make Up Rating: 6
Overall Cast and Crew Rating: 6
Overall Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 6
Overall Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 6
Overall Feedback: Kim Yates, owner of Kim’s Krypt Haunted Mill, is in her 25th year of providing scares. Kim bought the mill at auction during August of 2014, after the previous owner of the mill passed away. Kim, well known for her haunt in Essex MD for many years, quickly brought her high-energy and love for Halloween up to the Haunted Mill. Kim worked her magic and quickly restored the haunts fun and spooky atmosphere. Now in her fifth season at the Haunted Mill Kim has grown the scream park to SIX attractions spread across 62.5 acres! The nice thing about Kim’s Krypt Haunted Mill is the length of each attraction. Many times when haunts have 4+ attractions each experience only takes 5 minutes max. That statement does not apply to Kim’s Krypt. All of the attractions, except for Dark Despair, are a solid 10-15 minute experience. Therefore if you choose to complete all six attractions you’ll definitely have a nights worth of spooky fun! Our squad of reviewers arrived around 6:30pm on Sunday evening. The skies were grey and a light drizzle fell from the sky. This gave the atmosphere an eerie vibe for the evening. As we waited for the attractions to open we enjoyed watching the roaming actors. These actors were engaged with the customers providing a great mixture of laughs and scares. They were definitely some of the best midway actors we’ve seen thus far in 2018. There isn’t too much to do at Kim’s Krypt in regards to the entertainment area; a small concession area, gift shop, hearse rides and a few games round out the entertainment/midway area. To begin our evening we headed for the House of Eyes. This attraction relied heavily on old school, low-level props and simple scares in an old two story building. We were a bit disappointed with the cast and crew encountered throughout this attraction. For the most part the actors were lifeless and utilized the standard “what are you doing here”, “hey!” or “get out” lines. The actors overall simply failed to engage with our group which significantly impacted our scare/thrill factor rating. Most of the motion activated props were triggered by the first few individuals in our group so the individuals bringing up the rear in our group witnessed mostly props re-setting to position. The most effective scare/thrill factor this attraction possessed was the utilization of air cannons. To say the least, we were ready to move onto the next attraction just moments after entering House of Eyes. Next up we headed for the Haunted Mill. Like the House of Eyes, the Haunted Mill possessed a large amount of old-school and low-level props. The Mill itself is downright eerie and truly has a perfect atmosphere for a Haunted Attraction. Unfortunately we did not feel that the actors capitalized on this opportunity. The acting was definitely a step up in this attraction compared to the acting in House of Eyes… but it was still far from fair/average. The few quality actors encountered were unfortunately few and far between. This attraction really relies on the actors to bring it alive and with mediocre at best performances our experience was displeasing and failed to put forth much of a scare/thrill factor. As we headed for our third attraction of the night we hoped Horror of Menges Mill would provide the experience we were looking for. It only took the opening scene for us to realize we were in for a good experience during this attraction! The actors delivered a much more energized performance which really impacted our overall experience. Our squad absolutely loved the actor in the asylum/prison section - his love and passion for terrorizing guests was clearly seen. We felt much more engaged as a group and received several hair-raising scares. The set-design featured a mixture of old and new school props/animatronics. We absolutely loved the large creatures at the end of both Horror of Menges Mill and Haunted Mill - these things had several of our members running out of the door! Everytime we thought we were nearing the exit we stumbled upon more scenes and scares. Horror of Menges Mill definitely turned our night around and gave us hope that the other attractions would deliver the same frightening experience. Kim’s Krazy Maze was up next and one of our members was not looking forward to this by any means. Kim’s Krazy Maze is primarily a clown based attraction. Like the actors in Horror of Menges Mill, the actors in Kim’s Krazy Maze were energized and ready to scare their victims. The set design, props and animatronics were all simple but effective. Many maze like and dark pathways made for a thrilling experience. Our only complaint was the lack of actors. We encountered several stretches of dead space which really put a damper on the thrilling atmosphere this attraction had going at times. Overall we were pleased with this attractions’ offerings. Next we headed for Dark Despair, by far one our groups favorite attractions from when we visited in 2016! Dark Despair has a simple and effective design with only one (silent) actor. Guests enter one at a time and are spaced about 1-2 minutes apart from the guests ahead of them. Whether or not this experience is scary or irritating is entirely based on how you feel about dark disorienting spaces. For many haunt goers, Dark Despair can be legitimately terrifying. We can genuinely say that this was the most scared some of our members have been all season. Dark Despair takes you inside your own head using the most simple set design possible, darkness. Music blaring in the background makes for a disorienting experience and at times you can hear your own footsteps echo on the floor, and every sound makes you wonder if someone else is there. As you make your journey through you start to wonder if you took a wrong turn as you question why it’s taking so long to escape. At just the right moment the one actor this attraction possessed delivers a high startle scare! Dark Despair is such a simple concept, with no actor engagement or props, makeup or animatronics, that we can see how people could view this as just a money-grab gimmick. But rest assured, we feel this attraction delivers a spooky fun experience! To wrap up our evening we headed for Terror Trail. Before beginning our evening Kim Yates, owner, spoke briefly about the major changes and updates they’ve made to Terror Trail. You begin the attraction by stepping into Kim’s building of collectors items from over the years. There was an abundance of awesome toys and props to be seen. Terror Trail was voted by far our squad’s favorite attraction of the night! The set designs were all very unique and possessed some pretty awesome props and animatronics. This attraction perfected the distraction technique to deliver several spine-tingling scares. Perfectly placed props grabbed our attention as the actors setup and geared up to deliver their scare. There were several instances where props and animatronics delivered high quality scares. We had zero complaints with our experience on Terror Trail. After completion of the six attractions we got to speak with Kim Yates, owner, and two dedicated actors Trixie and Cookie. They shared with us some exciting events they have coming up: Light’s Out Night - September 30th, Anything Goes Night - November 1st, Kim’s Kryptmas - December 2018 and Kim’s Krypt Kampout - June 22nd 2019! We as a squad spoke quite a bit regarding the value of Kim’s Krypt and their ticket pricing. We collectively as a group feel $48 is far to high for the experience provided. Yes Kim’s Krypt provides a solid 90+ minutes of in attraction time but the experience received is very hit or miss dependent on the attraction. We feel they’d be far better off at $35-40 and feel they’d attract more guests. But any who… Kim Yates is definitely a passionate owner, she can be found each night roaming about the grounds and scaring her guests. We across the board definitely felt Kim’s Krypt had a major shortage in actors, hopefully some of this was just due to it being opening weekend and a Sunday evening. For the most part the props and animatronics were dated and provided little scare factor and element of amazement. Costume and makeup was very hit or miss. Some actors had believable makeup while others possessed sloppy and unprofessional makeup. Kim’s Krypt Haunted Mill could easily be a solid 8/10 haunt in our eyes but first they need to up their game in the House of Eyes and Haunted Mill. Hopefully we just attended on an off/poor performance night as we expected a far better experience from Kim’s Krypt. Here’s to hoping they return to form quickly and better their experience for the remainder of the season.
Individual Attraction Review:
Attraction Name: House of Eyes
Overall Attraction Rating: 5
Cast and Crew Rating: 4
Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 6
Attraction Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 5
Attraction Name: Haunted Mill
Overall Attraction Rating: 6
Cast and Crew Rating: 5
Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 6
Attraction Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 6
Attraction Name: Horror of Menges Mill
Overall Attraction Rating: 7
Cast and Crew Rating: 8
Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 7
Attraction Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 7
Attraction Name: Kim’s Krazy Maze
Overall Attraction Rating: 7
Cast and Crew Rating: 8
Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 7
Attraction Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 7
Attraction Name: Terror Trail
Overall Attraction Rating: 8.5
Cast and Crew Rating: 8
Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 8.5
Attraction Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 8
Attraction Name: Dark Despair
Overall Attraction Rating: 8
Cast and Crew Rating: n/a
Props, Animatronics and Set Design Rating: 8
Attraction Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 8