Milwaukee, Wisconsin's - The Darkside Haunted Adventure
By Hauntworld Magazine
Milwaukee Haunted Houses are some of the scariest and best in America! Hauntworld.com rates and review the best and Scariest haunted houses, haunted attractions, and Halloween events in America! The Dark Side Haunted Adventure is located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and has one of the scariest haunted houses in America! Prepare to scream! Sit back and prepare to scream through our review of The Dark Side Haunted Adventure. This Halloween you can't miss the scariest and best haunted attraction in the entire state of Wisconsin, The Dark Side Haunted Adventure. Their attraction features some of the scariest actors, crazies scenes, and amazing set design. Now sit back and read all about the best haunted house in Wisconsin, The Dark Side Haunted Adventure.Dark Side Haunted Adventure is actually in a small town called Lebanon just right outside of Milwaukee and Madison Wisconsin. The haunted screampark features five different haunted attractions at one location making it Wisconsin's biggest and scariest haunted attraction. Hauntworld is set to rate and review this attraction but please share this page and leave your review at the bottom ofthe page. So now get ready for one of the scariest haunts in Wisconsin!
To learn more about Wisconsin's The Dark Side Haunted Adventure visit their websit below:
www.thedarksidehaunt.com
TO FIND MORE HAUNTED HOUSES IN WISCONSIN
In a remote area in southeastern Wisconsin, there’s a 100 acre farm along the Rock River with a very storied past. The farm in the heart of the kettle moraine area of Wisconsin offers a diversity of terrain including a large glacial drumlin, forested swamps, Kettle ponds, pine forests and large fields. Far away from the safety of the city lights, you will find at the end of a gravel road Wisconsin’s Largest Haunted Scream Park, The Dark Side Haunted Adventure. As you emerge from the darkness, you find more than 12 acres of parking with a huge barn and store along with many other farm buildings which make up the farm.
The horrific adventures you are seeking lay just beyond the large glacial drumlin that serves as the backdrop for this scary farm setting.
Once parked you are directed towards the flurry of activity in front of the store. As you approach, you are greeted by a 10 foot tall ghoul and its handler for what will be the first of many photo opportunities throughout the fun-filled, horror night. At the box office, they make it easy to get your haunt tickets, accepting cash, credit, debit cards and online vouchers. The prices reflect Midwestern values. For $20, you get all six haunted attractions which include two massive themed and highly detailed haunted houses. One of America’s most unique hayrides passes along the banks of the Rock River through a forested swamp and dumps you off in the midst of a large pine forest. The next part of your adventure is a haunted trail through the black forest followed by their newest haunt which is a multi-level maze set alongside 2 ponds. Of course, no scream park would be complete without a corn maze. And, you can also purchase entry into their Zombie Expedition which gives you the invigorating opportunity to hunt zombies. When purchasing tickets online, you additionally have the option to purchase their “Terror Treatment” ticket for one of your friends…so devious!
In the store is a large selection of Dark Side Haunted Adventure branded merchandise including tee shirts, sweatshirts and hats along with many other Halloween related items. The snack counter offers the usual fare such as soda, candy and chips, plus hot food options like hot dogs, popcorn & Kettle corn and numerous hot drink choices such as hot chocolate, apple cider and cappuccino. They even offer a themed hot drink called Ghoulish Grog which is a special blend of dark chocolate, spices and whipped cream…excellent!
The queue line is in a large barn adjacent to the store which makes the wait during the chilly Wisconsin nights much better. Excellent queue line actors entertain the energetic horror fans as they wait. While in line the guests are also introduced to a couple of programs. The first being the Dark Side Scavenger Hunt and the Terror Treatment. These unique programs help to demonstrate the Dark Sides staff’s commitment to creating the best haunt experience possible for their guests. Their passion and commitment for excellence make this a best haunted house in Wisconsin!
The under lying theme of the haunt is a story about generations of the previous farm owners and their eventual demise, a history of hauntings. Throughout the evening, they unveil the stories of all the tragic things that have befallen the owners and guests of the farm. There are subtle things throughout all 6 haunts that tie them all together and serve to draw guests deeper into the haunted world created for them. To highlight these things, there is a banner in the queue called the Dark Side Scavenger Hunt which has many questions about the previous inhabitants of the farm you are encouraged to answer after you have completed your adventure.
The second program victims are introduced to is the Terror Treatment. This program which is exclusive to The Dark Side Haunted Adventure allows a guest to purchase the Terror Treatment for a friend or family member in their group. The way this program works is when a guest purchases the terror ticket online they receive an e-mail in which they answer somewhat personal questions about their victim. They are then issued a victim code which they bring to the box office which allows their victim to be electronically linked to their information. During the course of the evening when victims pass by certain areas of the haunt, this information is displayed to the actors for use in personally terrorizing them. In fact, the victim’s first encounter with this program is in the queue line just before starting their haunted adventure.
The adventure begins with a story about Charlie Murphy and his family, the first inhabitants in recorded history to mysteriously disappear from this haunted land. After the story, the group is taken up the hill to an abandoned mine shaft which is the perfect setting for the first haunted house called The Descent. The dimly lit mine entrance with eerie low-lying fog rolling out offers the perfect beginning to the evening’s horror entertainment. Once inside, guests make their way through the rock caverns, constantly descending deeper into the earth. The Mine offers animatronics and meticulously costumed haunt actors coming out of everywhere. Survivors of the mine will experience areas of Closter phobia and disorientation before emerging on the dark side of the farm. Once outside again, visitors will find a complete mining scene with actors, miner’s helmets and props made just for pictures. The attendant there will snap your group’s picture with your smart phone so guests can immediately post to their social media site of choice. Your group then gathers around a fire for a couple of minutes to wait for the next wagon to arrive to continue the adventure.
The second haunt is called Twilight Nightmare and is the haunted hayride part of this incredible night. As soon as the wagon pulls up you realize you have never been on a haunted hayride like this before. The black wagons are custom designed to look a bit like a horse drawn hearse but are essentially a moving theater with their rows of bench seats all facing forward. When the wagon stops, eerie blue lights reveal steps along the entire side of the wagon for boarding. In only seconds, 40 terrified souls are on board, and the story of the Wilton family begins. The wagon moves in sync with an original soundtrack along the ghostly banks of a river, through a wooded swamp, across fields, next to ponds and into a pitch black pine forest known to be haunted. Along its path are movie quality sets, energetic actors with detailed costumes and makeup, huge animatronics, loud sounds and tons of pyrotechnics. The wagons have design features which allow the actors to interact with the guests like you have never seen before. In one of the scenes, the wagon passes through the Midwest’s largest vortex tunnel. The illusion of an entire wagon full of guests flipping over is nothing short of incredible. If the creepy outdoor setting, the actors coming at you from all angles, and finding yourself on the edge of your seat is not enough, the Dark Side engineers have designed into the wagons a number of tricks that send their guests into sensory overload. This 4D haunted experience is nothing like anything you have encountered before or will again.
As guests disembark the wagon in the midst of a pitch black pine forest, they make their way towards a small fire where they are greeted by an old woman who tells the story of the history of the woods. The story is about Grandma Townsend and her group of mutant children that lived in and still inhabit the woods. This third haunted house is called Backwoods Revenge. Guests now have a chance to encounter the community built by these children separated from the rest of the world. This haunt features highly detailed scenes including a toxic waste dump, butcher shop that specializes in meat from travelers, a hunting cabin, and a great grave yard scene with low lying fog, thunder, lightning, wind and of course actors with impeccable timing.
As guests claw their way through the pine forest, they come upon an old rickety wooden bridge. Those who dare to cross the bridge emerge from the forest high in the air only to find themselves deposited in the middle of the Dark Side’s newest haunt, Mephistopheles Lair. The fourth haunted house of this terrifying evening features a chamber with more than a dozen doors most of which take you on a confusing adventure that eventually ends up once again in the chamber of doors giving guests the opportunity to make a wiser choice. The evil spirits move freely about the maze shocking visitors with their presence. To raise the anxiety level to new heights a twist has been added to the Lair. The maze changes so routes that once worked for escape bring you back to the chamber and a new door will allow you on your way if you can find it. Not to worry, the “I QUIT” door always works.
Those who escape the lair find themselves standing before a large rusty corn crib inhabited by something unhuman. This is the entrance to Schizophrenia, the fifth haunted house of the night. Here guests find their way around ten foot tall corn stalks encountering all sorts of farm related props and farm hands that appear out of nowhere. A unique feature of this haunt is a sense of chaos created by the farm hands yelling to one another and engaging guests with their suggestions of how to escape from the corn. The poor souls that heed these suggestions often find themselves back in the middle of the maze only to be badgered once again. Victims of the pandemonium have a great time interacting with the farm hands until one of them appears out of nowhere and scares the hell out of them. You know you are close to escaping the chaos when you come upon a cabin set on the edge of a swamp with an old man on the front porch hurling insults at intruders as they walk across his old wooden bridge.
The huddled groups that escape the corn maze embark their final destination. Foxglove Nursery is a series of greenhouses, but here the plants are in control. This highly detailed, Closter phobic haunted house will raise your anticipation to a fever pitch, because the plants and the gardeners are only inches away from you with each attack. This haunt features lush green foliage, water features, smells, sounds and fog. The environment allows actors with impeccable timing to get nonstop scares from visitors. Foxglove Nursery is also one of many attack locations for the “Terror Treatment” victims.
The last stop in the adventure is at the exit interview tent where guests can find the answers to the scavenger hunt questions and receive a free gift for participating in a poll aimed at improving the haunt.
The evening isn’t over for everyone. Those guests with upgraded tickets to the Zombie Expedition are directed down a long corridor through the corn to themed, covered, double deck wagons outfitted with seats, paintball guns and a themed soundtrack. Guests then embark on a nearly half mile trek through seven meticulously built scenes from America’s favorite Zombie show. On their hunt, they encounter animatronics, pyrotechnics, and over one hundred and fifty attacking zombies that drop when shot in the head. Forget about those zombie shooting galleries you have seen before. This is 15 minutes of high energy, adrenaline pumping fun.
The creative teams at The Dark Side work tirelessly year round on a schedule two years out to bring guests the best haunted house experience in Wisconsin. The procurement group shops at auctions, flea markets, garage sales, thrift shops and online year round for props and costumes. The engineering and construction team prepare scene design worksheets which include prop lists, construction specifications, actor requirements, purchased materials lists, pictures, sketches and layouts. Props are built in the shop all winter, and when the Wisconsin weather permits, new scenes are built and old ones revamped.
With innovative guest programs like photo opportunities in every queue, the Scavenger Hunt to encourage the seasoned guests to concentrate on the meticulously crafted environment thus taking their mind off the next scare, and of course the “Terror Treatment” program where guests are electronically connected to semi personal information that the actors use to terrorize them, it’s clear these people are passionate about what they do. With a neurotic attention to detail and a strong commitment to the guest experience, The Dark Side Haunted Adventure staff produces a show that has been voted “scariest” haunted house in Wisconsin two years in a row and receives the annual approval of thousands of energetic haunt fans from across the upper Midwest. No list of top scream parks across the U.S. would be complete without The Dark Side Haunted Adventure. Every haunt enthusiast in the upper Midwest should have The Dark Side on their short list of haunts to visit this Fall.
The Dark Side Haunted Adventure is located at Glacier Rock Farms, N1255 Hoard Rd, Ixonia, WI 53036.
Check out their website www.thedarksidehaunt.com
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