I was born a midwesterner and spent my first 15 years here. As such, I feel like as a child I got a pretty good taste of what Halloween in this country of ours should really be like; a celebration of the season...the weather changing and growing cold, the colors changing before our eyes, the feeling all around us that nothing is going to be able to grow for the many long months ahead.

I left Wisconsin in 1991 and lived in some pretty wacky places since, but returned to Wisconsin last summer...and I have to say that haunts like The Haunted Barn are one of the biggest reasons I came back.

Halloween haunts in this neck of the woods come in two predominant flavors. There are those that are built into an empty mall space and are designed to boo-scare you for 15 minutes or so. These have their place as not everyone has the stamina or desire to make it through the second type, being the full-on environmental experience. These generally require a good drive out into the middle of nowhere and involve parking in a field in the shadow of a big old creepy barn. There might be a dark cornfield on the property or nearby. There may be a highway that tears through the countryside, or perhaps just an old dusty road. But there's going to be a large outdoor component to it and it's going to make all the difference.

The Haunted Barn is just such a place. Just east of the quaint Main Street of downtown Stoughton on Highway 51, the venue is very easy to find, although the signs on the side of the road are very small and difficult to see. Just keep heading due east and it'll be on the right...you can't miss it (in case you do, if you pass Pleasant Hill Rd. you've gone just a bit too far).

Upon arriving, we found ourselves driving through the middle of a typical farm country homestead and I instantly had a smile on my face. My wife was a bit afraid that this event would be 'silly' and to be honest, I was kinda hoping for it to be.

We parked, walked up to a 'plaza' area outside of the barn and noticed an inordinate number of children walking around. They were all dressed up and ready to scare as only creepy children can. :) Then I remembered that these children are all members of volunteer families from Stoughton and surrounding locales; most likely the same children that are involved in the theater activities in town during other times of the year.

After paying our admission (a modest $8 each), we were led inside the barn, given the house rules by a ghoul, and allowed to enter.

Upon the first entrance my first thoughts were of the attention paid to minute details and I think this was because the designers were of the same mind as I was; make an experience, not just a few scares. And an experience it was...

The scares in the house were not very scary, but there were definitely some jump moments and the children in the house did a fantastic job. The two creepy girls who "want to play a game" are something I'll always remember of this place. I always caught myself checking behind me as these scarers liked to pop out from the walls when you least expect them.

The tour takes you through a barn, outside (where we stopped and played with a farm cat), through another barn and then back outside for a fantastic 20 minute walk through a field and forest. Being outside at a haunt has a wonderfully immersive quality that you just can't imitate inside a building. The music goes away, the effects go away and it's just you and the woods...and whatever may be lurking in the shadows. In the forest the usual rules just don't apply.

After the walk, the trail leads you back to the main plaza area where concessions are available and a fun black-lit Halloween gift shop awaits. We enjoyed having a chance to pick up some glow-in-the-dark fangs, glowsticks and a soda while talking to the people who run the haunt. You can tell how much they love doing this.

The tour was much longer than I expected, and after everything; the tour, the shopping, the laughing with the proprietors, playing with the cats, talking with the children...it was easily after 11 when we finally drove away.