By William Sokolic
Goblins and gremlins and ghouls – oh my.
Oh my, indeed. It’s Halloween season and while pumpkin patches and pick-your-own pumpkins and hayrides are great attractions for the young, older youth and adults with healthy hearts often seek something with a little more oomph, a bit of hot sauce. Scares and thrills in other words. And to show there’s no hard feelings, we included some family-friendly fare in our sampling:
Let’s begin with the Night of Terror at Creamy Acres Farm in Mullica Hill.
With a name as quaint and pleasant as Creamy Acres Farm, you wouldn’t expect such a frightening destination, named one of HGTV’s scariest haunted houses. This place gives you a smorgasbord of nightmare inducing options. Visitors to the 100-acre park – billed as the largest Halloween space in New Jersey – will come across zombies; attack dogs; chainsaw-wielding maniacs; and killer clowns, among other grotesqueries.
What more is there to say? The haunted paintball ride speaks for itself. Participants spend 15 minutes battling with paintball guns against live actors dressed as zombies and intricate moving props in a host of scenes. Other attractions include the Ride of Terror, the Harvest, the Playground and Dark Dreams.
Night of Terror at Creamy Acres Farm
448 Lincoln Mill Road, Mullica Hill
https://www.nightofterror.com/
(856) 223 1669
Through Halloween, weekly hours are Thursday from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 6:30 to 10 p.m.
Spooky Speedway, Glow’s new Halloween attraction, welcomes all ages, with no real jump scares. A light show takes you through “Route 66,” but with a spooky twist: “glowing pumpkins, friendly ghosts and whimsical witches” created by synchronized illumination. The drive-through runs for a mile and tells a story through lights dancing in perfect harmony with music you can tune into on your car radio.
Ready Set Glow: The Spooky Speedway
217 Berlin-Cross Key Road, Sicklerville
https://www.visitglow.com/Halloween
(856)-205-GLOW
Hours are daily through Nov. 2: weekdays from 6:30 to 10 p.m., Sunday from 6:15 to 10:15 p.m. and
Friday and Saturday, 6:15 to 11:15 p.m.
Ride the Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres hayride, a mile and a quarter through acres of dark woods and fields, and discover the secrets of a farm plagued by tragedy. You’ll come across burning mines, a gothic graveyard, lawless back lands and a sideshow of the bizarre. Glide past the ruins of a bewitched village populated by ghosts of the outcasts and outlaws that resided there in the 1800s.
Explore the old Malfate Manor, also known as The House in the Hollow, quite possibly the most haunted house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. View the abandoned village of The Field. Walk into 17 ghost-troubled rooms that take you deep into the winding crypts and catacombs beneath the manor. An expansive cemetery provides frights everywhere.
Sleepy Hollow Haunted Acres
881 Highland Road, Newtown, Pennsylvania
sleepyhollowhayride.com
(215) 860-6855
Hours through and on Sunday are 6:30 to 9 p.m. and 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
BloodShed Farms Fear Fest in Columbus is labeled “an immersive, terrifying, Halloween experience.” From the safety of your vehicle, you encounter twisted creatures and menacing characters while journeying through theatrical sets full of terrifying displays and special effects. Tune your radio to 88.3 to hear the soundtrack while driving through.
If that isn’t enough, a Psycho Pass upgrade allows actors to get more up close and personal by adding a touch component as they interact with all passengers in a vehicle. Hand out items or squirt water on you and your vehicle may get foam and fake blood on it.
BloodShed Farms Fear Fest
2919 Route 206, Columbus
https://bloodshedfarmsfearfest.com/
(609) 784-5788
Hours are Friday to Sunday through Nov. 2, between 6:30 and 10 p.m. depending on the date.
The tour is based on the stories in the Haunted Haddonfield books written by Bill Meehan. He spent decades gathering the haunted stories and led the tour for more than 20 years.
“With the blessing of his family, we have continued the tours and offer a slice of Haddonfield’s spooky history,” said Jessica B. Lucas, of the Haddonfield Historical Society. “Bill was an accomplished researcher, writer, and public speaker with several published books and magazine articles. As always, it is possible to order Haunted Haddonfield Volume I and/or Haunted Haddonfield II from our online store or from our office in Greenfield Hall.”
Haunted Haddonfield walking tours are fully outdoors and mostly taking place in the Haddonfield Baptist Cemetery. Each tour lasts about an hour.
Haunted Haddonfield
Historical Society of Haddonfield
Greenfield House, 343 Kings Highway East
(856) 429-7375
Open through Sunday, Oct. 26. Tours start at 7 p.m. from Greenfield Hall.
Halloween House in Freehold falls somewhere in the middle of the scare meter. No jump scares. No actors. No gore. “Our goal is to give you an amazing Halloween experience, not scare you to death or make you uncomfortable,” says the website. “No fear, just fun.”
Halloween House bills itself as a completely immersive, one-of-a-kind experience where you are transported to an all-Halloween world. Each room has a different, very detailed theme, such as the “Beetlejuice” Illusion Room. Other areas include the Spiderweb Light Tunnel, the To Fright Show, a Trick or Treat room, the Glow in the Dark room, a “Nightmare Before Christmas”-inspired room and a graveyard movie theater.
Halloween House Freehold
3710 US 9, Freehold Raceway Mall.
halloweenhousefreehold.com
(848) 358-9512
Open daily through Nov. 2, with tickets available from 5 to 8 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday.
There you have it. There are additional haunts in southeastern Pennsylvania and central New Jersey from which to search for scares. But better hurry, time’s running out.
