Darkness had just descended upon the neighborhood as I got into my car to head to the outskirts of Fulton to go to the Trail of Terror. The drive started out normal, but it quickly turned into its own version of a haunted house. The way I drove was mainly back roads, and they were absent of streetlights, so it was pitch black, and it had rained all day, so this lead to massive clouds of fog swallowing the road. I have always heard the saying about fog being so thick that it could be cut with a knife, but this was the first time that I had truly experienced it. It was like driving in a whiteout. I had to seriously slow my car, because I felt like I could not see much more than a few feet in front of me. It really felt like a scary movie, and that at any moment, a ghostly figure would appear in the middle of the road causing me to swerve out of the way and crash. I have seen it happen so many times in scary movies, and the setting was truly perfect for it to happen. Thankfully towards the end of the drive the fog disappeared, and I realized that I had been super bent over staring intently out of the windshield, so I straightened my back out and finished the drive.
Thankfully the parking lot was not that packed, so I quickly found a spot, bought my ticket for the trail, and went and met those waiting for me. The ticket was $15 for the trail or $25 for both the trail and the house, and we were just doing the trail, but $15 a person is not too bad. Basically the cost of a movie, but this is a much more immersive of an experience than a movie. The line for the trail was under a decorated pavilion. The line was not too long, and we stood there and waited for a while before they let in the first group. They had The Shining playing on an old tv, which set the tone nicely.
The first scare of the night came when the guy who let people onto the trail banged open the door, and then some kids screamed. It was only scary because of the loud noises, but it got the heart pumping. It was like a warmup for a run, it was a light scare, before the real scares started to happen. While we were waiting in line, we also realized that we had no phone service, which also seemed like a good tone setter. We were in the middle of nowhere, so it made sense, but I also would not put it past a haunted house to buy cell phone jammers just to mess with people.
The first group got let in, and then it was just a short wait, before the door was being slammed open again to let our group get started. In front of us, there was a family of four, a dad and his sons of varying ages. Our group consisted of Jared and Lauren, Emily and Mark, Kristina and her son, and me. Seven of us on the seventh of October, a good omen! There was a range of comfortability amongst us with the idea of a haunted trail, but I think I was the most excited and eager to get in and get it going. So I offered to go first for us.
It began with us entering a dark old dining room with a long table. Sitting at the end of a table was an old woman, who looked like a psychic. She was sitting back from the table, and she was so still, I could not tell if she was real or not, and I was staring hard to see if she would blink or slightly move, but I noticed nothing of the sort. Once we were all seated, she did move and talk, she was in fact real, and she asked us to all join hands, and I was sitting closest to her on our side, so I had the supreme privilege of holding her hand to create the séance circle.
While she was speaking and summoning spirits, various objects around the room started to shake and clatter. A dresser drawer slammed closed, a picture on the wall started to move, the chandelier was shaking, and then the psychic let go of my hand, and the circle had been broken, and we were yelled at to get out!!! I feel like sense I was the person where the séance circle was broken that means that I am more likely to get haunted, and I did hear a weird noise in my apartment this morning that I have never heard before, so maybe it is starting.
Then we were out on the trail. It started out in a tunnel made of wood that had slats, so you could see the woods, and it made me wonder if something was out there, but no arms came jutting out at us. Then it opened up and felt more like a trail, and off to the left, there was a wall, and there was a person standing there, peering out from behind the wall not moving, and again I could not tell if it a person or a statue, and I never found out, but it was still unsettling anticipating the scare.
Then it was dark, and a light shined to the left off the trail upon a werewolf, that was chained to a tree, and then the light flickered, and the werewolf was gone. Then the silhouette of a werewolf appeared further ahead on the trail, and then it was running at us. Do not worry, we survived the werewolf, and we kept going into a haunted graveyard where a friendly ghost pointed us in the right direction.
There were three parts of this trail that were the best, and they all had the same concept. We walk into a place that is more enclosed, and our way through is blocked, and then people come from the side or from behind and try to scare us. These parts were the most effective to me. Out in the open, it takes a lot for me to get scared, but when I start to feel trapped, that is what gets me, enclosed spaces. I do not get anxiety or panic attacks, but recently I flew in a middle seat on an airplane, and I had to seriously work on calming myself down because I felt trapped. Something so simple, but apparently is the scariest thing to me. None of these spaces were that enclosed, but the feeling of being trapped was definitely present.
The one that I think got our group the most scared was the bridge. We got up into the middle of a bridge, and then we were stopped, and then the sound of chainsaws boomed in a close vicinity started, and then very quickly they were up on the bridge with their chainsaws in our faces. It was a nice fake chainsaw, and I felt it upon my chest, and it created some serious vibrations, and the feeling on my chest stuck with me for at least a couple of minutes.
Another good part came from this flashing strobe light. Not only did it distort motion, so it was like each movement was a frame-by-frame animation, but it was also blinding. So now it was hard to see, and we were disoriented, and again our path was blocked, and some clowns came in from behind us, and we were pinned up against the wall with no where to go, and this was the last scare, so they chased us with their chainsaws out into the field, but not before having what sounded like a cannon go off in the woods next to us, which was just a noise scare, but it was the second time that this happened, and both times, it scared me good. It was not safe out in the field, there were still clowns roaming around, and there was a layer of fog placed over it as well, so after Emily got harassed by the clowns a couple of extra times, we scouted over to a safer place and took some pictures.
My favorite part of the trail was when we went into a small shed, and we were stopped again, and then they started to play the theme song from John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is my favorite, and then Michael Myers crawled in through the window with his butcher knife, and then someone dressed like Jason, from Friday the 13th came in too. It was not scary, but I love both horror franchises, so I enjoyed this part greatly! Earlier on the trail, there was a guy in a pig mask, and in the Saw franchise, there is a guy in a pig mask, who will kidnap some of the victims, so I wonder if that was supposed to be an homage to Saw.
Overall, the trail was not too scary, but it was very fun! I had not been to a haunted house in years, and I had been craving it, so I was excited that Miles and Macros decided a haunted trail was a good team building activity. It was funny, because multiple times behind me, I heard someone get scared, and then say I keep thinking Attilio is one of the people! I think this is fitting, I am tall and lanky, and I feel like I could be a spooky presence, more of a Slenderman type figure. I also got points for being brave, which reminded me of my favorite quote from Game of Thrones, that the only time a person can be brave is when they are afraid. It also reminded me of what my best friend said about me one time, that if there were a killer behind him, that I would just kind of nervously laugh and not say anything, which is probably accurate. I love the initial scare, and then try to just laugh it off. I have said this many times in my scary movie reviews, being scared is fun, but it is even better experiencing the fear with others!
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