“In this place, darkness has been trapped, placed in this purgatory on earth, 20 acres of living hell. For those who are brave enough to enter, the souls of the damned will be waiting. This October, don’t fear the darkness, fear what lies within it,” recited the tiny 10-inch television that sat in a black box at the outskirts of the Woods of Terror on Church Street.
The Woods of Terror truly embraced the concept of Halloween. It scared me, made me laugh, and when I was too afraid to walk, I began to run but tripped and planted my face into the dirt. I was being chased by Jason. It was the ultimate fear-fest. I nearly peed my pants. The Woods of Terror proved to be a terrifying night out.
The fear began when my tour group of seven entered a little black box and listened to the low monotone voice speak from the television screen while the sound of live drummers on African drums hammered in the background, creating the sound of quickening heart beats.
I looked at my wristband and realized that I was about to enter one of the scariest haunted attractions in North Carolina. As my friend led me through the woods, my stomach turned and I wanted to simply turn around and go home.
The forest was pitch black with hints of luminescent lights, the sounds of screaming guests and chainsaws triggered in the darkness, radiating through the October night air. “Don’t lose your face,” warned a man in black as we entered one of the 15 attractions.
The Woods of Terror is spilt into 15 sections with different horror characters and themes. The first few attractions are mundane and simply there to instigate fear for what lay ahead. By the third attraction, however, my eyes watered because I kept squinting.
A ghostly chill shot up my spine as the group turned each corner to see decapitated body parts, bloody knives, trampled cornfields, haunted buses, crazy mazes, mutilated people, dead brides, and eerie figures that popped out as we walked by.
There was a cornfield maze with an abandoned school bus in the middle. A character banged on the top of it as you walked through. There was a Redneck Hayride where stereotypical rednecks were made into horrific cannibals. Within the woods, film characters such as Michael Myers, Audrey Rose, Bloody Mary and Jason hovered around each bend in the woods to jump out as people passed by.
By attraction seven, we all screamed our heads off, wishing we could just go home. Half way through the tour after sprinting across a wooden bridge, Shauna Hamilton, a junior at NC A&T, said, “It’s real exaggerated.” She whispered: “(I’m) a little scared. After all the pop outs, it’s a little too dramatic for me. I like it so far. I don’t know if I’m going to make it all the way to the end after 15 of these stages.”
“It’s great. I haven’t laughed this much in years,” chuckled Mike Vickery, a Greensboro resident. It depends upon your tolerance for scary stuff.
“It was a lot of fun,” said Bryce Bjornson, a first-year at Guilford. “A little too scary for me, but definitely a realistic Halloween thrill.”
Later, we learned that the Woods of Terror got its name because of a legend from the Great Depression years. It was believed that the spirits of evildoers were bound by a local priest to a plot of woods 12 miles outside of Greensboro. However, due to rough times, the land was sold and became a junkyard. The spirits of the woods rearranged the junk. And so, the Woods of Terror was born.
The Haunted Woods of Terror is open every weekend in October and the first weekend in November. General admission is $25, but discounts are available at their Web site (www.woodsofterror.com). If you like to be scared, take a trip to 5601 North Church Street, Greensboro, and have yourself the thrill of a lifetime.
At the very end, you may be able to meet someone famous. The weekend of Oct. 14, Kane Hodder, more commonly known as Jason from such horror movies as “Jason” and the Friday the 13th collection, visited the residents of North Carolina. “I like scaring anybody,” comments Hodder. “I don’t care if you’re little kids or an old la