| ANALYSIS: This year's Great American Nightmare is divided into three distinct sections - The Devil's Rejects, Captain Spaulding's Clown School 3D, and 31. The experience begins with customers being blind-folded by donning black hoods, and forced to feel their way along "electrified" walls before transitioning into a world of clown mayhem through a quintuple, downhill spinning vortex, and finally finishing up with a police shoot-out orchestrated by Sheriff John Quincey Wydell and a posse of State Troopers on a search and destroy mission against a decaying Ruggsville County farmhouse belonging to the Firefly family and subsequent abominations recreated from Zombie films The Devil's Rejects and his upcoming release about carnival workers being kidnapped and held hostage at Murder World until Halloween night, entitled 31 . The adventure encompasses maneuvering beyond claustrophobic passageways equipped with shifting floors; path-invading obstructions; drop panel surprises; a horn-honking, near-miss hit-and-run collision; and conflicts with mechanical behemoths including a viciously hungry alligator head, and a glaring-eyed, oversized conflict with The Devil himself, while exposing a variety of barbaric atrocities, and even sexually suggestive clowns. Characters are interactive in nature throughout, throwing balls and cotton candy at passersby in the clown segment, and their delivery is intense from start to finish. Victimizations are second to none, with several being witnessed ranging from strangulations, to assaults with deadly weapons. Subjects are shackled, and otherwise restrained against their will, exemplified by an irate brute threatening an innocent girl with an ax; a maniacal female cheerleader swinging a mallet; a violent foe that turns his attention to customers after finishing off his captive; a vicious fiend holding 2 girls hostage with a sledgehammer while surrounded by hanging body parts and carcasses; and an ungodly individual that compares himself to Jesus Christ, declaring himself as, "The King of the World," and swearing at everyone in sight calling us MF'ers amid other choice profanities! Fog, foul smells, sparks, short-circuiting fuse boxes, tilting hallways, collapsing ceilings, falling barrels, smoking pipes, CGI's, etc. are also present to further complicate navigation, and serve as distractions.
The beginning exploits fear of the unknown and other phobias by restricting sight, then releases you into an atmosphere that remains frenzied for the duration of the experience. A majestic area of broken brick walls that look as though something forged its way right through them makes for a visually impressive sight, in conjunction with loud pounding on walls, villains holding air guns to metal barrels, and assailants that go flying across the path overhead by means of some sort of bungee-like zip line to further inflict intimidation. The attraction cleverly recreates The Devil's Rejects this season coming on the heels of last year's presentation of House of 1000 Corpses, as the former was the 2005 sequel film to the latter. Props are numerous with lots of pneumatic and mechanical scares accompanying the experience. Shock skins are the best you'll experience anywhere, and are energized to their fullest degree! However, sounds occasionally bleed outside their areas and aren't scene-specific at times. Costuming is above-average, but actors don't pause long enough to engage customers in a lot of meaningful conversations - their words are quick and to the point by design in order to keep the lines and crowds moving. It's also one of the most expensive haunts around, people are rushed through at a rapid pace, and its duration is somewhat brief, thus limiting its overall score. Even so, Great American Nightmare is vastly improved in comparison to a season ago, and ranks right up there among the best attractions Ohio Valley Haunts has visited with over 100 actors on hand! And for the second consecutive year, we were there on a night when Zombie was performing LIVE in concert!!! If you ever get the chance to see him in person, DON'T MISS IT!
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