RECAP:  This year’s story dates back to the prohibition era and plays off the history of Mayor Henry Joseph arresting people during prohibition and killing them off as their judge, jury, and executioner! He would keep their liquor for his own consumption and even opened a Speakeasy bar to sell it!  His greed found him in cahoots with some hillbillies and a mad doctor experimenting with cocaine and heroin that the corrupt mayor exploited to make even more money!

Inside the Town Hall, an immediate surprise begins the exploration that leads through spider web covered walls and ceilings, creatures reaching out of an old cell, and a smoldering body emerging from within a crematorium!  A murderous electrocution takes place inside the jail, witnessed by a wickedly laughing warden celebrating a condemned prisoner’s untimely death!  Enormous, red-eyed rats and other odd oversized rodents scamper across the floors and between the cells of the neglected prison area of the 124 year old Town Hall!  Progression into a fog-filled, red lit corridor gives rise to the awakening of a secluded monster, and then it's past a wooden, fenced walkway, that leads to an old barn that’s home to a mad dog, a chicken coup, and axe-carrying hillbilly, "Cletus" who storms onto the scene springing out of an old outhouse ready to slice and dice trespassers to bits!  His chase climaxes inside of an old, wooden cabin, as banjo music plays and his cohort Bobo enacts a path-blocking escapade readily looking to inject heroin into an unsuspecting recipient with a sizeable syringe!  "Here, piggy piggy!" lures the route out the back of the shanty and up an old wooden staircase.  There, bookcases tilt of their own volition inside a dusty library that’s inhabited by a vicious, actortronic wolf!  When all seems lost, a claustrophobic passageway is revealed when a large bookshelf mysteriously slides open exposing the previously unseen escape! 

Winding through a hallway of bloody body parts and severed heads discovers a ruthless fiend lunging forward trying to break free from restraining chains that binds him to a wall!  "I want you!"  You smell gooooood!" he taunts, along with, "You're next" and “I'm going to rip off your head!"  Avoidance dumps into a surgical mishap at the office of a demented physician that's busy conducting inhumane drug experiments on a helpless patient strapped to a chair with her chest ripped open exposing her still beating heart and all her internal organs!  Whispered warnings like, "Welcome to your nightmare!" and "Come to me!" accompanying advancement through cramped, shockingly tight spaces of total darkness within the attraction's award-winning, one-of-a-kind tilted maze! 

Still to come is a deadly kitchen confrontation with a discontented, bloody butcher armed with a razor-sharp machete encouraging, “Go piggy go!" as he chops up human remains on a nearby table!  Exit into a cobweb-infested tunnel finds a girl and her pet spider eating humans alongside a bottomless pit that narrows without warning when an adjacent wall begins moving toward the abyss forcing advancement dangerously close to the edge of the endless drop! 

An elaborate graveyard of moving tombstones signals the restoration of life to the undead connects via a fence maze that encases a pair of spark-shooting maniacs into a clown house that induces an unexpected aerial assault bringing the curtain down on The Haunted Town Hall adventure.

ANALYSIS:  The attraction is known for their unique and traditional "haunted" concepts like secret passages, sliding and tilting bookcases, hidden claustrophobia, etc.  Course design is likewise unique, exemplified by the inclusion of a bottomless pit and their unduplicated slanted maze!  Smoking crematorium is memorable and whispers remain an intimidating element coming from an unseen source.  Initial surprise, sparks, animated tombstone monuments, and actortronic wolf are also appreciated. Chained madman and butcher stand out from an acting perspective.  Doctor and acrobatic clown hanging from the rafters also deserve honorable mention, and hillbillies continue to provide a threatening, dialogue-enriched scare.

The Haunted Town Hall never disappoints, and changes are made every year!  Cost of admission has increased by $3 this season (up $1 for VIP), but it’s still among the most affordable haunts around!  Be sure to schedule a visit to Mayor Joseph's Haunted Town Hall! 

There's also a short, challenging Escape Room called "The Speakeasy" that can be enjoyed for an additional $5 when purchased as part of the combo package.  This customer participation event invites guests to search for clues that can be used to complete certain tasks and ESCAPE prior to the expiration of time!  OVH isn't giving away the solution, but give it a try!  Similar experiences are so far-fetched that they're next to impossible to figure out, but this one is logical and makes sense!  We ALMOST had it for the second consecutive season!  Wait till next year!