Zombie Farms has been practically in our backyard for years, but this was our first time checking them out. WTF! When we arrived, we had no idea what to expect… it felt like we were visiting old friends as we pulled into what looked like a driveway and drove up to the family home. As we continued past the house down the rutted driveway, we realized that this family home was nestled on a HUGE piece of property! We were led to a parking area in a field, and it was packed!
It had been raining pretty hard in GA for the past few days, but tonight the weather was clear and beautiful… perfect for an outdoor trail! As we walked down the entrance path, we stopped to talk to several of the groups that had just experienced the haunt and they all had one thing in common – EXTREMELY muddy shoes. One group had worn their Jordans and they were DESTROYED. You gotta know better than to wear your fly J’s to a haunted attraction, especially an outdoor one!
The path led into a little midway area centered around a giant old tree all decked out for the Halloween season, and the whole space was glowing with green light to match the Zombie Farms logo. They also had a building selling snacks and merchandise. We were directed to the queue line that snaked back and forth up to their ticket booth. The line was bordered by picnic tables on both sides, and they also had an inviting fire-pit. Zombie Farms was putting out the fall vibes hard!
The first attraction was a rope maze. This was literally a rope pulled between posts leading through dense trees. The rope path would break off and lead in different directions forcing us to choose which way to go. There wasn’t anything out there in those woods - just us, the trees, and well, the rope… until we started running into other people. We saw people on other parts of the rope path that said they’d been lost out there for at least an hour. Luckily, we mastered this maze in less than 20 minutes with only needing to backtrack once.
The rope maze directed us into a small outdoor museum of cursed artifacts, where the very gracious curator told us that we would next be meeting the storyteller.
But before meeting the storyteller, we were led into yet another area, this one with a TV (that turned out to be just one of many). We watched a video that introduced us to Zachary, who needed our help with rescuing a young boy from someone called the Shadow Collector. We were quickly beginning to realize what a production this backyard haunt really was!
After this intro, we got to meet the real storyteller. This is the kind of guy you want telling spooky stories around a fire; he really knew how to pull us in. He eloquently gave us some more detail about Zachary and the Dimension of Shadows that we would have to travel into to rescue the boy. The realms in the Shadow Dimension, the storyteller explained, were memories but like shadows were dark and distorted.
Once we arrived in the Shadow Collector’s domain we traveled through ghost towns, creepy deserted playgrounds, mine shafts, and orphanages. Each of the scenes at Zombie Farms started with a TV monitor that played a quick video of the storyteller telling us a little bit more of the story of Zachary and the boy we were supposed to be rescuing from the Shadow Collector. SUPER COOL!
In addition to these storytelling monitors, the lighting and sound were so detailed you’d expect to see them in an indoor haunted attraction not outside along a trail. The sets were extremely well done even though the most common materials we saw were pallets, tarp, and skeletons. Simple and effective!
The conditions on the trail were muddy, exceedingly muddy in some areas, and that really prevented the actors from moving around or doing much more than attempting to help people through the damn near ankle deep mud. The actors in the enclosed sets were more effective and you could actually see the costuming. They used a lot of familiar characters like the Nun and Interview with a Vampire-style vampires, but also incorporated some original characters and costuming.
Zombie Farms is no backyard home haunt despite being, well, a haunted trail in a backyard; they are a full-on haunted production! They change their theme and sets every year, many times with their stories carrying over multiple years. This year is the first of their Neverland trilogy. Get it? “Shadow” Collector, lost boy… These guys are INCREDIBLY smart and communicate their story exceptionally well! This ABSOLUTELY is a haunt to see… just make sure to check the weather before going!
