RECAP & ANALYSIS:  Walking into the Mohican Haunted Schoolhouse feels familiar. Many folks went to a school building just like this one. The Schoolhouse uses that familiarity to lure you in before taking on a descent into madness. The haunt employs a variety of different tactics to keep you off guard and refuses to let you settle into a comfortable routine. They use plenty of good jump scares while using misdirection extremely effectively. The monsters hid in corners and around turns in a way that have you looking one way while they came after you from another. Panels in walls dropped down to allow for more surprises, and noise had everyone jumping out of their skin.

With three floors plus an outdoor area the Haunted Schoolhouse has a lot of variety. They didn't settle on just one theme, and the haunt moves between scenes such as a doctor's office to a dark maze to a classroom setting with ease. They do a good job of making sure the changes don't come off as disjointed and instead flow together like a variety of nightmares all packed into one experience. It was a little surprising that they didn't use the schoolhouse theme a bit more, but the times that they did were very effective. They also didn't rely on blood and guts for their scares. There was some violence, but some of the creepiest parts of the haunt included bright blacklight art work and vibrant colors used in disturbing ways.

The little things were all well done. The makeup was excellent, the actors followed you and interacted with you personally, and the various sound effects kept you in the experience. Moving from loud areas to eerie silence and back again was a regular occurrence. You almost always were walking through something that was touching you, either cloth or strings or spider webs, just giving you a feeling of something on your skin. And the haunt was spaced out enough where you never ran into the party ahead of you or had someone coming up from behind.

Not every haunt needs to be terrifying and R-rated to be a good time. The scares were exciting, there was plenty of interesting stuff to look at, and nothing seemed canned or hokey. This was a great example of a haunt that would be a little better for a younger crowd without being lame or boring for adults. Even without the blood and guts the Mohican Haunted Schoolhouse still came across as scary and exciting. Highly recommended for a good scare. (J.MO.)