SANDYLAND ACRES HAUNTED HAYRIDE: Wascally Wabbits And Bloody Businessmen!
Usually haunts are filled with bizarre looking and hellish creatures-rotted zombies, blood splattered serial killers, malformed freaks, horned demons or fanged undead predators. It's not often that you'll see a girl in a white bunny suit at one. But yet there she was, hopping alongside the Sandyland Acres Haunted Hayride wagon with her long ears blowing in the wind. While it was a surreal sight, observers had to wonder just what the heck Sandyland had in mind when they put THIS scene together. When a scraggly haired psycho suddenly jumped onto the wagon and screeched, "WHERE'S THAT RABBIT?!?! WHERE'D SHE GO?!?!?!", everything suddenly fell into place. This was Otis from the film House of 1000 Corpses, and the 'bunny' was one of his victims he had dressed up for the hunt. Otis spotted her, jumped off the wagon, and began to slice and dice the wascally wabbit-continuing to do so after the haywagon had moved far down the trail. Sandyland had succeeded into springing a surprise on hauntgoers yet again!
Sandyland Acres is in its fourth season and has quickly risen to prominence as the area's best hayride. This is reflected in the size of the crowd lined up this Saturday night to take the half hour ride through the dark woods and cornfields that contain the creations of Gene and Brenda Webb-it's huge, much larger than the lines we've seen at any other haunt this season. The event is running four tractors continuously and the line moves quickly, but seems to replenish itself faster the more people that are taken through. Gene as usual was indulging his love of acting by playing Michael Myers in one of the scenes, but Brenda and Gene's sister Pam (running Sandyland's gift shop at the moment) were more than happy to give us more background on the event.
"Gene and Brenda are either working on the hayride or planning out what they want to do with it all year round," explained Pam, "and the three men driving the tractors own the land. The farm grows mostly tobacco and corn, and as soon as the haunt is over, the barn with the last three scenes will be filled with tobacco (plastic sheeting covers the tobacco that's in there now). The corn fields are larger this year-last year the big windstorm knocked a lot of the corn down right before we opened". The fields play a much larger role in the Hayride this season-claustrophobic corridors have been cut in the stalks, barely large enough for the wagons to get through, and previously barren areas now are thick with corn. Taking the tour, we found the stalks of corn would be lightly brushing our back as we passed-and that the scarecrows perched on wooden platforms above it would be in a perfect position to do some damage. Strategically placed speakers and actors rustling the stalks add to the tension-one can easily imagine a hauntgoer aboard the wagon being yanked off by some unseen thing and disappearing into the corn, never to be seen again.
While Brenda was taking tickets and supervising the loading of hauntgoers onto the haywagons, she discussed the approach Sandyland took for this year's event. "Normally we enter one of the wagons in the Florence Labor Day Parade, but this season Gene and I decided to put all of our efforts into changing scenes and making the hayride even better. We also decided not to bring the corn maze back for the same reason. We've redone a lot of the scenes along the trail, and everyone seems to enjoy them". When asked about how business has been, Brenda says that "last weekend hurt us because of all the rain. We didn't open at all on Friday and were only able to operate half the night on Saturday. Our first weekend was great-our numbers were way up from any other year. I think that with the economy being what it is, people are looking for things to do and entertainment closer to home, and the fact that we've held our price steady at $10 over the years helps too". Brenda's a real fan of the horror genre-if you go into Sandyland's small but cool giftshop, you'll see autographed photos from some of horror's biggest names (like Kane "Jason" Hodder, Gunnar "Leatherface" Hansen, and Doug "Pinhead" Bradley) made out to her lined up against the back wall. She also lensed the 2008 Hayride video you can buy at the gift shop, and the Sandyland calendar (one of which graces the walls of the HOD!!!'s office). You can also get event T-Shirts and a great variety of inexpensive Halloween novelties (we bought a purple and black stuffed snake wearing a witch's hat to send to The Bride Of HOD!!!, Ayame in Japan-it's fun to confuse Japanese people with the concept of Halloween!), and also have an inexpensive photo taken with Mortimer Sneed outside.
Who's this Mortimer guy? He's Sandyland's new host and is responsible for indoctrinating new arrivals into the lore of the haunted hayride. Hailing from Whitechapel and speaking with a British accent, he somehow seems to be on a first name basis with murder and carnage-and that first name might be Jack! Sneed also points out the Line Of The Dead-the line down the center of the haywagon that the living must not cross. Well, actually, the line is pointed out for the benefit of Sandyland's actors-having the hauntgoers stick their feet into the aisle isn't much to the liking of the actors boarding the wagons in the dark. Mortimer presides over an event that includes, among other scenes, the Bates Motel, the Werewolf's Corn Cribs, Jeepers Creepers Cornfield, the Darkwoods Asylum, The Hills Have Eyes, Friday The 13th, Motel Hell, the Death Truck, Graveyard, House Of 1000 Corpses, the Headless Horseman, and the Horror Barn. The Horror barn is an annual highlight of the HOD!!!'s haunt season-it's always fun to anticipate just what classic movie scenes will be played out inside. This year you'll see Halloween 2, Hostel, and a Klown Circus. These are annually the best scenes put together for the event with the most detailed sets, with video presentations being used to further set the stage. This is the part of the tour where owner Gene likes to hang out, usually as Michael Myers, but he's done other characters too. It's not too often you'll see a haunt owner doubling as an actor, but Gene's daughter told us he probably put the hayride together just so he'd have a place to hang out and be a monster! Sometimes the scenes here are so extreme they even get to the Sandyland crew, like the Exorcist room from a couple of years ago. Well worth a mention is the young lady playing the part of the Klown springing up out of the Jack-In-The-Box. Not only was her mimicry of a 'clown on springs' perfect, bouncing from side to side as well as up and down, but she kept it up until the wagon was long out of the line of sight. Even more impressive, she never changed her somber expression once while the scene played out-making her performance as a living/dead prop for the violent Klown's amusement utterly convincing. Equally good was her compatriot in the Hostel room who had her leg sawed off-she remained slumped over and 'dead' throughout the presentation of her scene and the Klown scene-not coming 'back to life' until the wagon was long gone and the house lights turned out.
While the event is known for its use of scenarios from popular horror films, they also have a lot of traditional hayride scenes-most noticeably the Death Truck, the Graveyard, and the Headless Horseman. The Death Truck patrols the open field between the Dark Woods and the Graveyard, roaring up out of the blackness behind the haywagon in an attempt to ram it. It then pulls off to one side and turns in a circle to butt the wagon from the side, narrowly missing-but it seems to fear pursuing the group further and risk encroaching on the unhallowed ground of the Sandyland graveyard. The Headless Horseman this season has a somewhat more difficult task than years past-rather than gallop across an open field, he's chosen to follow the group down a narrow corridor cut in the corn. He and his horse present a striking silhouette against the darkness, and on a moonlit night is the very embodiment of Halloween.
Sound is something that Sandyland uses to particular advantage, both in creating ambience and in setting up scares. Soundtrack music from the movies being 'played out' perfectly complements the action, and the video taped message playing in the Michael Myers room helps to set up the long wait for the inevitable appearance of the masked maniac. As previously mentioned, the loudspeakers with crow calls in the corn work wonders at creating tension and misdirecting the attention of those aboard the wagon. The scare here is further set up by having the wagon pass under a scarecrow on a platform-where nothing happens, setting up an expectation that the scarecrows are just for display. When the sound goes off underneath another scarecrow, no one seems to notice that Jeepers Creepers is stationed right above the crowd on the other side…And then there those instances where direct sound is used to startle and threaten the crowd-the buzz of a chainsaw, the diesel roar and load horn of the Death Truck, or the unexpected blast of a shotgun wielded by the rejects from "The Hills Have Eyes". When combined with actors who not only run full tilt onto the wagons but leap over the sides and take flying jumps off of it, it makes for some very effective startle moments!
Movie monsters are something that every haunt used to do, but very few did well. Shoddy costuming and makeup, using child actors to portray them, and failing to capture the essence of the characters all conspired to lessen the impact of the characters that many hauntgoers were very familiar with. A Freddy Krueger with a rubber hat and plastic glove or a 5' 6" Jason that weighs less than 100 pounds and spouts dialogue just isn't getting the job done. Happily, that's not the case at Sandyland. Their movie characters look and even act just like the ones from the film-and are set up in scenes that are straight out of the movies. Costuming and masks/makeup are all of the best quality, and they go so far as to use the most current version of the character. While last season Sandyland used the Jason Voorhees from Friday The 13th Part VII (with bones sticking through rotted clothes and decayed skin), this year they're using the 'Derek Mears' version of Jason from the 2009 remake. Likewise, Michael Myers is sporting the bloody mask from the Rob Zombie Halloween II. The actors playing them have all studied the body language of the characters as well, displaying little mannerisms that fans of each franchise will notice immediately. While speaking with Gene and Brenda recently, they stated that Sandyland likes to have some scenes from newer horror movies that the younger crowd can relate to (like The Hills Have Eyes remake and Hostel) along with classics for 'the old people like us' (Motel Hell and Psycho). Identifying what movies certain scenes are from is half the fun of the hayride!
The designers were even able to send the HOD!!! to the video store to rent a copy of the film Hostel after seeing the grisly scene inside the barn where the Dutch Businessman saws a girl's leg off at the knee. Having a healthy knowledge of horror movies past and present will definitely add an extra layer of enjoyment to the Sandyland tour, but even a neophyte to the world of horror will find it a thrilling ride. Under the capable hands of the staff of Sandyland, even wascally wabbits and bloody businessmen become objects to be feared!
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