Hayride of Horror Review 2023
Hayride of Horror Review 2023
Hayride of Horror is located 199 Woods Dr. Lockport, IL.60441. General Admission is $15 allowing entry into Hayride of Horror or Curse of the Bayou, Combo Pass is $25 allowing entry into both Hayride of Horror and Curse of the Bayou, and Speed Pass is $35 and takes you to the front of the line for Hayride of Horror and Curse of the Bayou. For group rates, please visit their website. https://app.hauntpay.com/events/hayride-of-horror/event_times/1333808
Starting off the night, we were joined by Honk the Clown and Witch. Spent a good minute talking to a few old friends at the entrance and getting to know our newest friends. I somehow have now been officially dubbed honorary clown by Honk cause that is the energy I give off. Takes a special person to bring out my chaos, and I had an amazing night clowning around and fitting right in while interacting with the actors that night. (Thank you, both of you!) In the line, we were entertained by the Ring Master and the Magician. Ring Master and Witch get on like two angry bees. It was hysterical watching them bicker about who had more talent when it came to magic…meanwhile the Magician is a few feet away just cutting someone in half in a box and there are guts spewing everywhere.
A few things I want to talk about on the Hayride that were the most memorable to me were the girls dancing around the vine covered pole, and the rebels from the glow tunnel. I remember everyone on the hayride naming all the characters they recognized like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. When we passed the girls, a few people were trying to think what they were from and I think we finally just decided it was just ring around the rosie when they all started falling to the ground and retching in the dirt. A few…there aren’t rooms in an outdoor haunt so I will say “sets” down from the girls, we passed by some thug like guys carrying bats and stuff. They reminded me of Lost Boys til we hit the black light tunnel and they lit up with UV paint. The one talking to me and trying to get me to sing I think had a green skull painted on him, and like always, I was just staring at the bright pretty colors. The last thing from the Hayride that got my attention was, being the furthest back on the cart, I had often been looking back. Leaving the scene with clowns, I turned around to see a clown that had to be about 8ft tall with glowing red eyes lumbering quickly after us. How we went past him and none of us noticed, I don’t know, but when I saw him I just automatically called out to the rest of the group because I was about to start freaking out if that thing had climbed up on the cart with us.
The second half of the haunt was Curse of the Bayou. There were a couple of good scares that happened here. One was what happened with one of my cousins. At one point on the trail, you step through a doorway of this little half shed, and there was an actor that must have popped out cause I saw my cousin take two steps to try to run and I just saw her disappear in a tumble of arms and legs as she tripped right in front of me! I STILL don’t know how she fell like she did, but we were laughing so hard a few of us in our group were crying. That is the first time someone in our group got spooked and fell like she did. Another one was just barely up the path, where my other cousin had gotten ahead of the group, and there was someone crawling around on all fours growling while a light overhead flickered. He backtracked so fast trying to get to the back of the group, he slammed into me and almost threw me to the ground because we collided so hard. I also want to mention the maze we went through. This maze is hands down the best maze I think I have ever been in! I still don’t know if we looped around on ourselves a few times, or it legitimately just all looked the same, but it felt like we were in there forever, and I passed the same 2 to 3 actors almost 4 times each. One of them knew the pathing cause they were darting back and forth to get from one pop out to the next and we bonked shoulders twice and had to hold on to one another so we didn’t go to the ground. It had me laughing and smiling and I kinda want to go back to keep exploring the maze til some kind of path makes sense!
All in all, I think everyone in my group had a good night that night. Between seeing some of our favorite characters, to the first hayride most of them had been on. The pants being scared off a few of us, to laughing at actors silly antics, and just enjoying an experience unlike any other haunt I have been to yet. If you have not yet been, I highly recommend Hayride of Horror and Curse of the Bayou because there is bound to be something for everyone to enjoy!
