Hanna Haunted Acres 2012 Review

Hanna Haunted Acres (Indianapolis, IN)
“Indy’s Eerie Escape”
By Noah Wullkotte: Jollypumpkin@aol.com

Hanna Haunted Acres is one of the most popular destinations in in Indianapolis this time of the year. It’s hard to find 6 haunts in one location and Hanna Haunted Acres is ideal for those who aren’t wanting to drive all over to visit multiple attractions. Flames shoot high into the air and laughter and screams can be heard hundreds of feet away. We weren’t surprised that it was packed because Hanna Haunted Acres offers so much from food to haunts.

Hanna Haunted Hayride is the premier haunt at Hanna Haunted Acres. About 30 people are allowed on the hay wagon at a time. There are quite a few new scenes and props this year. One of my favorites is the train station that has a loud surprise. You’ll be confronted by the headless horseman, a winged demon who’s standing in a wrecked vehicle, escape an intense combine chase, out run a tarantula attack and there are many new and exciting scenes. The addition of stuffed moose was a great idea and added a bit of realism to the haunted hayride. The hayride is around 15 minutes long with very few dead spots and the main highlight is of course the amazing animatronics. The girl next to me ended up in my lap because she was so scared of everything that she saw. It was pretty funny.

Carnevil is a 3D adventure where paintings jump off the wall and wicked clowns are hiding. You’ll enter another realm while spinning around and around in a vortex tunnel and you’ll be lucky if you survive the polka dot room. The haunt has great artwork and impressive props like a clown with its faced stretched out and a giant jack in the box. It’s a pretty neat attraction, but it’s very short. You’ll be out in 3 minutes.

Scarecrow’s Revenge is a confusing corn maze with twists, turns, loops and dead ends. There are monsters hiding in the cornstalks and you may see a chainsaw maniac that is ready to cut into your flesh. We were out in 20 minutes, but it depends on how good you are at navigating through mazes.

Medical Malpractice is a tour of a hospital seen in your worst nightmares. There’s a laboratory, an x-ray examining room, a white sheet maze and many crazed patients that are dying for your help. My favorite part of the experience is walking through a real ambulance. You’ll be out in under 5 minutes.

Enter a realistic doll house at Hide & Seek and become a kid again. This is a realistically designed haunt where possessed dolls are your best friends and you’ll enter rooms that are part of a large doll house. Lights flicker and ghouls are hiding. It’s a 4 minute haunt that plays on your fear of dolls.

Twisted is twisted. It doesn’t have an exact theme, but we were fine with that. There’s lots of eye candy along the way like a tree creature busting out of a tree, a rabid alligator, hungry werewolves, slaughtered animals, a large animated spider and lots and lots of detailed scenes. You’ll enter a junkyard with Jason Voorhees and a long haired freak, a laboratory with a Frankenstein monster, a war zone with a tank and more. It’s a quite enjoyable haunt that lasts around 10 minutes.

Hanna Haunted Acres is a very popular scream park. There are 6 attractions, plenty of concessions, an air brush tattoo station and a warm bonfire. There are plenty of areas to stay dry and it’s a great place to bring your family and friends.

The acting could be better. There are too many actors we saw wearing regular street clothes instead of costumes and there weren’t enough that had scripted lines. They would either scream, say hi, or ask us where we were going. The haunts are also pretty short with the exception of Hanna Haunted Hayride, Scarecrow’s Revenge and Twisted.

We were at Hanna Haunted Acres for an hour and a half, but the total combined length of the haunts is around 1 hour. This could be longer depending on how stuck you get inside Scarecrow’s Revenge. Hanna Haunted Acres made some big improvements this year with new animatronics, added detail and better themed haunts.

It can be a little confusing where each haunt is. Giving each customer a small map would help a lot. Small electronic signs set up throughout the park could also help with confusion.

Hanna Haunted Acres is $27 for a combo ticket (all attractions), Fast Pass is $40 and a single pass for Carnevil, Hide & Seek, Medical Malpractice, or Scare Crow’s Revenge is $12. Please visit www.hannahauntedacres.com for more ticket information and to sign up for a combo ticket coupon. If you purchase your tickets online then you don’t have to wait in the ticket line at Hanna Haunted Acres. Your ticket is scanned at each haunt, so please be sure to hold on to your ticket or you might not be able to tour each haunt. Hanna Haunted Acres has one of the best ticket systems we’ve seen and it’s very convenient for customers.

Please Note: We are not rating each haunt separately because they would score rather low because of how short quite a few of them are. We are reviewing the haunts as one event. The total tour time is around an hour, but it would be unfair to rate it a 10 in length since there is a lot of dead space in Scarecrow’s Revenge and Carnevil. 3 of the haunts are under 5 minutes long. When we combine the tour time of each haunt and average it, it ends up being around 10 minutes long which would score a 7 in length. But if you consider how long someone might be inside Scarecrow’s Revenge then it could average well over 10 minutes. This is why the score for length is an 8. This was a very hard category to rate for Hanna Haunted Acres.