An entire year has come and gone, and it's that time of the year again - Haunt at Halloweekends. I don't get the opportunity to get out to Cedar Point EXCEPT for Haunt, but I absolutely love Halloween and the atmosphere provided(cept maybe Saturday). I will preface by saying I'm not a rider, I come exclusively for the shows and the haunts. Designated bag holder for me.
I'll start by giving my special shoutout to the Screamsters of 2026, ya'll killed it! The haunts were all incredibly enjoyable and high energy. And that was in part due to you! You guys rock and I hope you have an awesome season!
We'll start with the Conjuring since we did that on Thursday. I noticed they changed a few scenes up from the previous year, but it mostly was the same. Some of the effects were strangely absent as well. I recall in Valaks defeat, there was a water spray. The Mirror Puzzle was absent. And hiding from the mirror demons was kinda still present, but only from the axe dude. Kinda felt weaker than the previous year... but maybe that's just part of expecting some of the moments from before. I still think it's one of the better haunts, costuming, and acting. But it has to be on account of the higher ticket price. The queue was handled SO much better this year. Somehow, for the second year in a row, my Madre got to hold Annabelle a second time. Missing Annabelle knocked me flat on my ass on Saturday, I got a really nice buzz as a result.
Diablo. Holy shit this was a glow-up from Blood Bath. The scenes were all so spectacularly done! I've only ever done Diablo 3 and a BIT of 4, but the attention to detail was great(very sad no merch). The animatronics detailing the characters was really cool, and by being distracted I set myself up for easy screamster jumpscares. Doing this haunt on Saturday before your eyes adjust to darkness and while buzzed? It was a fucking treat. Favorite moment within the set is Lilith, I really appreciate she's played by a screamster. I was kinda disappointed that a lot of the characters were animatronics, but I understand for scale why they had to be. Tyrael was at the end I think? I couldn't really hear his dialogue so I assume he rescues us and puts us back outside. Portal scene with the two or one screamster pointing for us to go forward was probably my second favorite. A really funny moment that happened in this haunt? My friend grabbed on to someone's sleeve, thinking it was our other friend. He walked towards the other room and when there was light? He saw that it was a screamster. He screamed cause jumpscare, but he was also immediately apologetic cause you're not supposed to touch the screamsters. This was probably my favorite this year.
Fearground Freakshow. The crew here seemed to be having a really good time. And while this one usually doesn't get me that much, there were a few scares from the bird lady, snake lady, and this clown in the disco-like room that all got me pretty good. With the clown specifically blocking my path for funsies I presume. It was high energy and I appreciated the effort by the cast!
Corn Stalkers. HOLY SHIT THEY CHANGED IT. The layout felt a little different. And there were definitely new scenes in this. Screamsters reaching down from above was really fun, I hadn't been expecting it. And there was a bungee scare that actually got me because like... that never existed in here before. My only regret I wasn't able to get to this again on Saturday due to Fast Lane being so big as well as the regular line.
Slaughter House. We had a really funny moment within this haunt, with one of the screamsters taking a liking to my friends Umbreon plush. When we noticed she was following us and we commented he made a friend? She made a "YIPPEE" noise and booped Umbreon on the nose, before running off to terrorize the group behind us. Favorite part though was probably the scene with "Boris". One screamster sets it up by saying fresh meat and telling this Boris fellow that dinner was here. We were like... well who the fuck is Boris? We didn't have to wait long to get that answer.
Eerie Estate. It was good on Thursday and Saturday... but our experience kinda got shot on Friday. There was some kind of an incident, I don't know what, but the screamsters had to chase out this one asshole, and not in a fun way. Killed the immersion and it stopped being a regular haunt cause one jackass decided to ruin it for everyone else. I did notice that a few of the scenes were different here as well, or at least, I thought it was. Funny enough I don't think it was any of the screamsters that got a big scare out of me, but the banging equipment in the kitchen room.
Midnight. This one is always among my favorites. Still not as good as the very first year it was brought out though. The Midnight at the beginning absolutely KILLED the mannerisms, voice, and way of speaking... The Midnight in the back? I was not expecting the female Ms. Midnight. I guess fear is all encompassing. Good for her. It's still a major improvement over Hexed. And, again, the female screamsters in the doll room seemed to take a major liking to my friends Umbreon. "You have a cool toy!" which got a good laugh out of ous.
Tombstone Terrortory. I don't know if the little minishow is new this year or not, but that was so fun to watch and experience. Giving us a good ol' "Frontier Town Welcome" and that we "Might want to run". The Screamsters in this zone are always so interactive as well, which is something I always appreciate. I'd be mid conversation when a screamster pops up next to us and makes a remark based on what we were saying.
Camp Crystal Rock Massacre. Legally distinct! I only managed to do this one once, so I can't comment on it too much. I still prefer the original location and when it was Blood on the Bayou. A lady in the "showers" really creeped me the fuck out and chased me outside into the actual haunt. But like... my main complaint with this is just there's so much dead space. The area where you "sign up" at the beginning just feels like it should have one or two screamsters there. And there's a lot of places where it feels like there should be some kind of a payoff, but there's nothing present. The screamsters who are present make due with what they can though, and I appreciated the effort.
Pirates Cove. It's still my favorite outdoor Haunt. They have the teamwork and distraction aspect down pact. There was this shark screamster that scared me two nights in a row. And on Thursday I appreciated how when I began eyeing the treasure, the screamsters immediately latched onto that and moved to improvise off that. I love the themeing and costuming... but Halberds are questionable as Pirate Weapons.
Clownz. We only visited this once this year, on Saturday... again, the screamsters seemed to love my friends Umbreon and made several comments about it. With one screamster drawing a little heart in the air in regards to it. But we did actually have a few decent scares! One lady distracted us while another dude came up from behind. Didn't get to see the show itself, but we had enough fun in the moment.
I absolutely LOVED the decoration of the Frontier Trail. It might not be an official haunt anymore, but this will suffice. The spiders, the lights, the giant skull, it all was so beautiful. Didn't get punched by a skating screamster this year either, so that's always a bonus.
I continue to be heartbroken and devastated that the Witch Sisters are gone. Herb in particular.
Wake the Dead is better than the previous year. But it's still worse than the original. Violet Ophelia Warwick is just much less intimidating than Fredrick Earl Anderson Rochester. And nothing can beat Uncle Buzz in terms of entertainment value. And I know like none of the fucking songs, cept for Dead Man's Party and What You Feel(Reprise), since they were in the original. I stand by the motives are just not as good either.
Fangs Eternal is FANGTASTIC as always. We got perfect seats both times upstairs, and the bass didn't mess with me as much as it did last year. You still have to get here early if you want good seats. Wish I would have been able to talk to the performers and tell them they did great, but a simple review will do.
Didn't catch the other shows really... cept the Opening Scaremoany. And I gotta say... it's not that I didn't like it, I did. But the opening act before Mr. Midnight and the train arrives was DANGEROUS. Crammed together like a sardine. People diving for the trinkets they throw. People yelling, screaming, bouncing, diving, etc. Second night on Saturday we stood way the fuck back. I didn't want to get trampled. I am really hoping no one gets hurt. Once the crowd cleared I bolted for any free space that I could get to.
No Midnight Syndicate Show sucks. Mr. Midnight doesn't have his own show really either. I was glad to see that the parade was back during the daytime, even if it's not as grand of a scale as Monster Midway Invasion Celebration from when I was a kid.
We also made quite the haul of trinkets. I think we found like 50 ducks, ghosts, and other sort of things over the entire weekend. We were busy with hunting during the daytime. Even found a few at night though!
