The Mycenaean

If you’re one of those people who gets a thrill from being scared half to death, Fear Farm would be a great place for you to visit.

Fear Farm is located in Clayton, North Carolina and was  open all October weekends, a few weekdays, and on Halloween itself. During the daytime, Fear Farm offers pumpkins, hayrides, and family fun. However, at 7:00 p.m., it turns to a dark and frightening haunted park resounding with a symphony of frantic screams.

Fear Farm costs $25 for a wristband that will let you into all of the park’s attractions once. While the price is a little steep, it’s reasonable for the hours of fun that you enjoy.

While standing in line to buy tickets, the terror begins. An evil-looking clown with a chainsaw roams through the ticket line and chases unsuspecting victims — sending them running from the line, screaming.

But it gets scarier. After paying for the wristband that lets you into all six of the park’s attractions, the real fear begins.

I unknowingly chose to go on the scariest attractions first — “A Walk in the Dark” and “The Haunted Hayride”. “A Walk in the Dark” simulates walking through a haunted cemetery where you are followed by its multiple, frightening inhabitants. I was followed by several terrifying figures: they sneered and growled as they trailed us. My personal strategy was to grab my friend’s arm, scream, and run for my life. Of course, this only prompted my pursuers to jump fences and block my pathway so they could terrify me to an even greater extent.

After making my way through a continuation of terrifying creatures, I ran out the exit as fast as I could — shoving my way past a chainsaw-wielding pursuer and an intimidating clown. My heart throbbing and my lungs unable to take in any air, I realized how realistic it was. The setting and the workers were so frighteningly real that I was actually scared for my life.

The “Haunted Hayride” was very similar, but much scarier. I saw the same figures that I feared in the first attraction; however, something was different about this attraction — there was no escape. Instead of having the valuable ability to run, I was trapped on a moving vehicle with the same nightmarish creatures. The workers thrashed their chainsaws around and used bats and other objects to beat violently on the ride while eliciting evil laughter.

My reaction was, once again, to close my eyes and scream. However, this repeatedly proved to be an open invitation for the scary figures to try even harder to frighten me. At one point, one of the clowns got so close to my closed eyes that I could feel him looking at me. I fearfully opened my eyes and, upon seeing him that close to me, screamed even louder and turned so I was facing away from him — after that he decided that he had caused me enough terror and walked away, cackling.

Compared to the beginning, more interactive attractions, the three actual haunted houses seemed really boring. They weren’t as interactive, nor were they scary — at all. Nobody tried to follow me and the effects, while well done, seemed cheesy .

It wasn’t because the houses themselves were poorly done, it was because they were incomparable to the horror that I had just experienced on the two previous attractions. Had I tried to do the houses first, they would have seemed far more terrifying.

Overall, t

he entire Fear Farm experience was awesome. The staff was really engaged — they really got into character and had fun scaring people. The effects were really lifelike too. The entire park was successful because it has just the right amount of terror. Fear Farm really did a great job of making the park fun and enjoyable while still creating everyone’s worst nightmare.