Bob (louiscyphre)

Very easy to find; just off the main highway, it's a whole complex with a parking lot in front and very clearly marked (how could it not be, I suppose), with a blazing searchlight over the whole thing. 

We got there right when they opened, so didn't wait in line very much, thank Satan, 'cause the lines when we left at 8:30 were wrapping around the buildings, so get there early.  There are huge video screens which were showing Rob Zombie videos (appropro), but then sometimes would show footage of stand-up comedians and SNL and dance videos.  I didn't really understand.  They also have a huge tent and a well-stocked concessions stand, including mini-donuts, which are kind of the (un)holy grail of concessions to this writer.  And, again, points for them; the guy cooking Brats on a grill also had bloody body parts on the grill, in case you were into something more exotic, I suppose. 

Im-freakin-pressive, there is a giant Dancing Baby who danced us out of his room (very cool idea, guys), the autopsy room doctors click and swing a mean scalpel, and there is a really really cool leaf monster in the Haunted Woods (I'm sorry, "Phobia") who came out of a pile of leaves and crawled along the ground and kept following us while making weird hard-to-pin-down noises.  I can't tell you how disturbing it is to have something emerging from the bank of a body of water and just make weird noises and crawl after you in the dark woods.  And, as above, awesome awesome zombies.  Oh, and we llked the vampire lady who does crowd control at the front of one of the haunts.  I wonder if they have a group of college theatre people helping out or something -- ghouls seemed like they gave it kind of an extra something. 

Good stuff; really cool underground tunnel look at one point, some elaborate sets, spooky outhouses, but a little too much dark hallways.  Maybe the dark hallways are one way to space out groups; I don't know. 

Very good -- each haunt took about 20 minutes to go through, and then you wait in line for the next one.  I bet this could get kind of ponderous if there are lots and lots of people, though, so get there early.  But I guess you could enjoy some delicious mini-donuts while you're waiting, so it's not all that bad. 

As above, there's a huge tent and concessions.  You line up outside whichever haunt you want to go through and get to watch videos. 

Dancing Baby Dancing Baby Dancing Baby.  And pretty much all the ghouls and zombies in the Haunted Woods (You too, Leaf Monster!). 

Very easy to find, just follow directions on the website, right off 90/94, in the Waukesha Fairgrounds (hence the pun).  Tons of parking, including actual restrooms and not just porta-potties, which was a big hit with the ladies.  The Haunt is in several buildings on the grounds. 

Very efficient, they line you up in various columns and let subsequent groups in individually.  There's a lot to do while waiting, they have various crowd-distractor games to watch or participate in like that Gladiator thing where two opponents stand on padded posts and try to knock each other off with padded Darth Maulish double-sided sticks.  And it looked like they had some kind of bouncy-boxing thing, too; I wasn't sure if these cost money to do or not (it got kind of confusing).  There were some nicely-made-up ghouls walking around menacing the people in line.  Oh, and the waiting area is in a heated tent, so it was quite comfortable. 

Performances were good, some scenes had some really great little storylines developing (shout out due to the Librarian Ghoul!), and there was one ragged-y guy wandering around who kept yelling that he "just wants to see (my) wife and children!" who was really great, 'cause that's a very different approach to unnerving the customers; someone should ask him what happened....  I also liked the clown who was looking for "Chuckie!" in the 3-D Funhouse; sometimes you would hear him calling this out from other rooms and it would rhythmically line up with the weird music in the Funhouse for a cool effect.  I also liked that the urinator on the toilet apologizes for peeing on you (!).  It doesn't cost anything to be polite. 

Well, there's a lot of hanging stuff that you have to duck, and lots and lots of smelly hemp rope used.  Actually, there's a space where there are all these human heads (severed human heads!) hanging all over and blocking your way, and when you knock into one, it hits a bunch of the others, and then you've got yourself a hallway of swinging human heads on strings to get through, which is even more awkward than it sounds.  There is also lots of fog and strobes and lasers in various rooms, used to varying effect.  And, as above, the 3-D Funhouse is quite cool, but seemed a little lacking in ghouls and scares when we went through; can I just put in another call to stop over-monsterizing clowns?  A clown is creepy and scary all by itself, people, it doesn't need blood-red eyes and dripping fangs and a hook hand and bat wings and a stupid chainsaw.  Just make it a clown!

The giant 3-D illustrations on the walls of the 3-D Funhouse are pretty much a must-see, though they range from boring, overly-fangy horror movie stereotypes ( see above) to cool and creative perversions of childhood iconography. 

Excellent, each house took about 15-20 minutes to go through, and we never ran into other groups, so pacing was really good. 

As above, very well-done, you wait in columns and they let you in a column at a time.  They also sold concessions outside near the ticket space. 

I have to say, having a whole rubbery passage close in on you while also slowly dropping down on you was a bit like being swallowed; never experienced that before!

It's pretty clear that it's the haunted farm from the highway; coming from the north, just take 51 south through Stoughton, and it's in the country right outside the city.  The farm is all lit up and such, and looks suitably atmospheric. 

We had no wait, which was great; attractive little area outside the barn where they sell popcorn and soda, etc, including a little trailer giftshop with cool haunted house supplies and funky halloween black-light esoterica.  Staff was really friendly and seemed to be enjoying themselves  And they had kittens for sale.  Vicious little kittens.

Performances were fine, but don't expect a lot of characterization; this isn't a haunted house where they're necessarily telling a story, and they seemed to be more intent on surprising and intimidating you.  We did get chased by a giant-headed grim reaper-type who did a fantastic job of looking inanimate until we had passed him...Oh, and I must give props to the three (two? I got confused, they seemed to multiply) little ghoul kids who out-screamed our little group of Grade-A screamers.  The lung capacity on this generation -- this is how we keep America competitive, people!

Scenes kind of basic, cemetery, cornfield, etc, but again, really cool atmosphere.  You know what I really liked?  There is some kind of great sound and lighting system all throughout the farm, or maybe just really excellent acoustics, 'cause you could hear all kinds of things, music and thunder and stuff, while walking around outside and then in and outside the barn, so it kind of all hung together and added to the spookiness.  They had the barn rigged for lightning to flash overhead inside every now and then, and a lot of the usual halloween props, like cut-up body parts, etc.  Lightning -- cool.  Cut-up body parts -- not so exciting anymore, but that might just be me being jaded from going to lots of haunted houses over the years.   Anyway, space in the barn is made good use of, and they have a cool vortex at the beginning, which kind of implies that you're going through a portal into another dimension -- of horror!

Really liked the deserted schoolbus, too; where did they get that?

And Freddy Krueger looked like he had real metal knife-fingers; where did they get those?

And they had kittens for sale.  I suppose those came from another cat. 

Very nice length, maybe about 20 minutes, and we kind of moved through it rather quickly after being chased a couple of times. 

No crowd when we were there, 9 PM on Saturday night (but probably very early in the season).  Looks like it would work fine, though, plenty of parking and wait area was sizeable and offered distractions, like the gift-trailer.  And the kittens. 

The view from the top of the hill, standing in the cemetery, looking down over the farm and seeing ghouls roaming about, other patrons being terrified and screaming, and knowing we were going to have to eventually start down the hill ourselves...