Terror Town-“Evil Comes To Town”
Genre: Haunted House
Location: 1406 Key Street
Maumee, OH 43537
Runtime: 25-30 min
Website: www.terrortown.net
Year after year, Terror Town is one of my favorite haunts in the state of Ohio. This is one of those haunts that knows how to impress its customers with amazing decor and things you won’t experience at other haunts in the Buckeye State.
This is City Blood’s 2010 review of Terror Town.
What’s Good About The Haunt?
This year Terror Town has combined 3 different attractions into one haunt known as House of The Dead. In previous years, there was House of The Dead and a few other small side attractions. But this year there is little downtime between sections and the entire event feels much longer. Since the experience feels longer, customers get more for their money. The price of admission has been reduced by $3 and is now only $17 for one huge entertaining event known as “House of The Dead”.
Your journey into terror begins when you enter the main haunt “House of The Dead”. You’ll be greeted by the keeper of the house that forces you to watch a gory CGI video of a zombie feasting on its victim. Suddenly the zombie runs towards the window before He gets his head blown to bits by a hunter. Spraying water simulates the zombie’s brain matter hitting you in the face. This impressive revolutionary prop is from Pale Night Productions and is used perfectly as an introduction into the haunt. Most haunts don’t use this prop to its full potential and customers don’t even give it a second look. This is far from the case with House of The Dead.
House of The Dead is Terror Town’s showcase haunt and for good reason. This haunt is action packed with an amazing amount of high startle animatronics and high impact scares. Almost every scene has some type of animated scare like steps that move by themselves, massive monsters that are ready to attack, a Night Fright’s CGI Ghost Bust that comes alive, an axe weilding maniac, The 13 foot Imapler and more. The first part of Terror Town is modeled after a run down house that’s been taken over by the dead.
After exiting House of The Dead, you’ll wait in line a few minutes before entering the new fence maze that’s protected by a hunter fighting off the dead. This is a pretty straight forward maze with nothing out of the ordinary. This year Terror Town has added a jaw dropping graveyard featuring large lit tombstones, a horse drawn carriage and some massive animatronics. Props from the old House of The Dead queue line have been added to this new area of the haunt.
One of the newest additions to House of The Dead this year is the basement. Your tour of the basement begins with a ride on “The Hellevator”. The Hellevator simulates being on an elevator that has malfunctioned. You’ll experience violent shakes, lights flashing on and off and sounds of the elevator breaking down. It’s a neat experience. The new basement portion of House of The Dead is dark and intense with gory props, well hidden actors and some surprises you won’t expect for a minute.
Terror Town has always prided itself in having some of the most impressive props the haunt industry has to offer. This year is no different. You’ll come face to face with a towering Pumpkin King, a winged serpent, a skunk that sprays you in the face, a corpse of a fat man, a wall that colapses, objects that move by themselves and of course the brand new 120 foot vortex tunnel (AKA The Black Hole).
Terror Town’s vortex tunnel has to be the largest of its kind and one of the most effective. About midway through you’ll begin to feel a bit nauseated from the fast movements of the tunnel. Prop companies featured at Terror Town include Scarefactory, Unit 70 Studios, Pale Night Productions, Night Scream Studios, Night Frights and others.
Terror Town may have some incredible props, but they also incorporate the element of smell. This haunt utilizes what is known as Sinister Scents. Sinister Scents are odors that are released into rooms by using a small fan to dispense them. I won’t give away too many details, but all I have to say is that once you enter the sewer area of the haunt you’ll really appreciate Sinister Scents. They make a scene more realistic and quite disgusting depending on what scent is being used.
What’s Bad About The Haunt?
Terror Town can be a little too reliant on animatronics. There are too many scenes where an actor would be just as effective as a high end animatronic. Many of the animatronics are just incredible, but the speaker system most use can be seen the majority of the time. This is very apparent when you’re near large Scarefactory monsters such as The Impaler. The speaker systems need to be hidden better. The lighting is great at Terror Town, but there were quite a few animatronics that weren’t lit very well. This was obvious with the large animatronics. Why spend thousands on a prop when people can barely see it?
Terror Town has made some big changes this season, but not all of them are great. The new chainmaze is too easy to find your way out of and needs to be replaced or improved greatly. The actors could also be more effective inside Terro Town. There were a few times when I would walk through a room, the actor would jump out at me and then smile while breaking character. A couple of the actors need a little more training.
House of The Dead has always had one of the most impressive queue lines, but this year many of the impressive props that once decorated the line are abscent. The horse drawn carriage has been removed and put in the new graveyard and many of the zombies that decorated the queue line are gone. Hopefully next year the queue line is brought back to its glory days.
Customer Service:
Terror Town has a variety of concessions such as food, drinks, T-Shirts, hoodies, beanies and more. They are also one of the few haunts that offers RC Cola instead of Coke or Pepsi. As I said earlier in the review, Terror Town has decreased its ticket price by $3 and is now only $17 per ticket. This is a great deal for 25 minutes worth of terror. Please don’t forget to use City Blood’s Killer Coupon for a $3 discount. On certain nights the haunt has Kiss, Black Sabath and Alice Cooper tribute bands play near the queue line. Please visit the Terror Town website for details.
Final Thoughts:
Terror Town is a state of the art haunt featuring high end animatronics and one of a kind scares. The acting could be improved, but I’m sure this will be corrected in the future. Since it’s now one large event, the haunt feels much longer and there is little waiting in between. Terror is one of the best haunts in Ohio that you can bring the entire family to. Evil comes to town at “Terror Town”.
Length-10 Design–9 Props/Animatronics-9 Acting-8 Scare Effect-9
Official Score – 9.0
Fun Facts:
* The Vortex Tunnel at Terror Town uses LED lighting and is made up of 6 tunnels that have been attached to each other.