We can still remember our first time visiting Haunted Montrose - the fire from the silo shooting into the sky, the hayride between attractions, and the pitch-black attraction The Raven. A lot has changed over the years, the things we remember most from our first visit are gone now but their mainstays - the asylum, Havoc, and the Old Slaughterhouse (rebuilt in 2017) remain. On this visit, we were excited to see all their new additions.

Haunted Montrose features 5 separate haunted attractions – the asylum, Havoc, Rave, the cornfield, and the classic Old Slaughterhouse. There’s no cohesive story tying them all together, except for the infamous Pigman who seemed to make an appearance everywhere, but each attraction is themed to perfection.

The asylum features some incredibly detailed sets and tons of disturbed patients lurking all over the rooms of this hospital. There was one utterly disgusting bathroom scene. If they added some stink pods it would be so much nastier and more believable!

Havoc is definitely one of the best 3D haunts we’ve ever experienced. This attraction is floor-to-ceiling INCREDIBLE! The art in here is insane and ranges from clowns, shrooms, skulls, consciousness, and everything in between. They have some really cool floors in there that we absolutely LOVE! While the art is spectacular (we could walk through every day and never get bored with it) the music on the other hand… could use a revamp. It’s been the same ever since we’ve been going.

Rave usually feels like a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the air is so thick that you can’t see your hand in front of your face, and the hard-core punk music is playing so loud you can’t hear yourself think. You have to feel around to find your way out while MadMax-esque actors reach at you through the fog. Unfortunately, this time the fog wasn’t heavy enough to provide the sensory deprivation/overload contrast this haunt requires to be successfully scary. Not only could you see where you were going but you could also see everyone else filing through too. Weaving around the fenced in corrals just became very tedious, making us feel like we were in a mamba line. While mamba-ing through Rave, we’d caught up with the group in front of us and the group that was behind us caught up as well. Now our newly formed mass of people ended up in a single file line, exiting out into corn field.

It was nice and dark outside, and the weather was perfect for a corn maze. There was a thin path carved out through the tall stalks, and our single file line continued to file through. There weren’t many actors in the corn but because of our huge group, the actors that were out there weren’t very effective. The ground was surely uneven, and we love the idea of being off balance trying to escape the corn field, but they are much scarier in smaller, more isolated groups.
Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, the biggest haunt-foul happened when the guy in front of us pulled out his phone to light the way. Noooooo…

Managing the flow of people is critical when you get to be as big as Haunted Montrose. It’s great to have hundreds of people show up to your haunt, but you must properly manage that volume to ensure everyone gets through and your customers, especially your avid haunt-goers, have the best experience possible. In our previous visits, we recall being stopped in between the haunts, which really helped with crowd control, but now you just flow from one into the next.

The acting was lackluster, even though in many cases, it was because of the mamba line and not the actors’ fault. Pigman kept just randomly appearing, storming past us like Pyramid Head from Silent Hill or Nemesis from Resident Evil.

Overall, our experience this year didn’t live up to our expectations, but it would still be very hard for us not to recommend Haunted Montrose. Their sets are spectacular, their costumes and make-up look great, and you get a lot of scare for your buck with five attractions in one. With just a few small tweaks, their show will get back on track, so we’re sure if you go later this season, you’ll have a very different and much better experience.