Haunted Attraction Reviewed: Elysburg Haunted House
Location of Attraction: Elysburg Pennsylvania
Date of Review: 10/14/2022
Total Number of Attractions Available: 1
Overall Haunted Attraction Rating: 9/10
Entertainment & Food Rating: 9/10
Atmosphere Rating: 10/10
Overall Costume & Makeup Rating: 8/10
Overall Cast & Crew Rating: 9.5/10
Overall Set Design & Special Effects Rating: 9/10
Overall Scare/Thrill Factor Rating: 8/10
Overall Feedback: Elysburg Haunted House located in Elysburg, Pennsylvania is easily one of the longest running haunted attractions on the east coast! It’s 2022 and Elysburg Haunted House is back for their 46th year of providing a frightfully fun experience! We last visited these folks in 2020 during the chaos of the Covid pandemic. Despite all the craziness of the pandemic & the Covid protocols they were required to follow at the time, they still delivered a spooky fun experience that absolutely blew us away! What makes Elysburg Haunted House such a gem of a haunt is their passionate cast & crew, who were deserving recipients of our “#1 Best Cast & Crew Award” for the 2020 Haunt Tour!
We arrived on the property shortly after 8pm on a chilly Friday evening. As you make your way towards the midway area you are immediately immersed into the upbeat and spooky fun atmosphere. The midway area featured at least half a dozen food trucks to satisfy any and all of your hankerings & cravings, ample seating areas, upbeat music, and numerous roaming spooks! Don’t forget to swing by the merchandise stand to snag some Elysburg Haunt memorabilia.
For those who are unaware, Elysburg Haunted House is a fundraiser for the local fire department(s) in the Elysburg area. Despite not having a large budget for construction and marketing purposes, these folks have crafted a truly legendary and must-see haunted attraction experience! For just $15 you’ll receive a solid 35-40 minutes of legitimate in attraction experience, by far one of the best bang for your buck haunt experiences you’ll ever encounter! All proceeds go to a good cause, which has even helped the Elysburg Fire Department purchase a 1-million dollar fire engine!
Once ready to experience Elysburg Haunted House you’ll hop into the queue line. Be forewarned that this place draws in massive crowds & can develop a rather lengthy wait in a hurry (2+ hours at times)! No fast pass option available here, so if you’re looking to minimize your wait visit these folks early on in the season OR arrive early on the night you plan to attend. Eventually the queue line will lead directly past the ticket booth where you’ll snag your tickets and head forth to the opening scene. A lovely witch character read us the rules of the attraction and then sent us forth on our journey! These folks are truly masterful at their line management, as even on their busiest of nights you’ll never encounter a conga-line through Elysburg Haunted House.
Elysburg Haunted House consists of one large massive indoor walkthrough smack dab in the middle of two lengthy outdoor trails. Be prepared to encounter literally everything and anything along your journey, ranging from a Satanic Church to a Skunk House (good luck making it out without being sprayed - EWWW!) to a Witches Hut (super cool ambiance & incredible “hosts”)! From start to end we were thoroughly impressed with the originality of the scenes at Elysburg Haunted House! All of the sets and its contents were clearly handmade and delicately crafted. While you won’t encounter massive high-end animatronics or loads of special effects, Elysburg Haunted House has plenty of special tricks up their sleeves that are sure to startle even the most experienced haunt goer! Stationary props came to life, walls converged to trap guests, trick doors, and many other unique tactics were utilized to disorient guests. We were blown away by two of the new scenes to the Elysburg trail. The “War Zone” scene featured an army fellow hollering “fire in the hole”, a crashed plane, & realistic audio effects to immerse you into a high-intensity battleground. We ventured below deck on the pirate ship & encountered a slew of irate pirates, accusing us of stealing their treasure & providing quite a few startle scares. Not to mention there must’ve been rotting corpses on this ship, as the odor was horrendous! A forest of Christmas trees possessed a few ghillie characters that were cleverly hidden & would provide quick startle scares. Objects that didn’t appear like they should or could move fooled us several times, catching us off-guard providing more spine-tingling startles. Heck, even a remote control car was disguised as a massive spider that came chasing after us, such a frightfully-clever idea!
The multi-story house walk-through looks deceiving from the outside, but be forewarned, it’s not for the faint of heart! Brother-Billy greeted us out-front of the house & engaged with us for a bit. We eventually stepped into the elevator and took an exhilarating ride to the dark and eerie depths of the cellar. You’ll then slowly traverse through the 2-story house, receiving countless spine-tingling scares along the way! The spooks throughout the house are sneaky & appear literally out of nowhere to deliver startles. At one point we were “dancing with Satan” as we ventured into a demented church funeral that ended with a chilling surprise. One of the most unique scenes was easily the rainforest/swamp-esque section featuring large snakes, gorillas, and several other furry creatures! Special shout-out to the clowns for keeping us entertained, especially the fellow with the Pinocchio-esque nose!
With being a true old school style haunted attraction, Elysburg Haunted House uses little to no animatronics or high end special effects, relying heavily on their cast and crew to deliver the scares & bring their show to life! One thing is for certain, Elysburg Haunted House had no shortage of scare actors, as this place was crawling with spooks and had legitimately ZERO areas of dead space! The cast and crew here at Elysburg Haunted House was by far one of the most energized and passionate crews we’ve ever encountered in the 90+ haunted attractions we’ve visited over the past 7 seasons! These folks have a true passion for haunting & to top it off they are all completely volunteers - WOW! These folks were energized, interactive, and provided phenomenal performances, succeeding countless times at providing sneaky hair-raising startles!
After exiting Elysburg Haunted House we had the pleasure of chatting with the owners and managers that make Elysburg Haunted House the top-notch attraction that it is. These folks were oozing with passion for Halloween and clearly love what they do! Heck, they are already brainstorming ideas for 2023, these folks clearly never sleep. We even had the incredible opportunity to go behind the scenes in some of the areas and got to learn more about the history and evolution of Elysburg Haunted House!
Elysburg Haunted House is still by far the best kept secret in the haunt industry! The experience Elysburg Haunted House provides is unique, immersive, and just downright frightfully fun! Elysburg Haunted House is a MUST-SEE Haunted Attraction as it’s sure to please all varieties of haunt goers! If you’re a haunted attraction guru and you’ve yet to visit Elysburg Haunted House, pencil them into your schedule, you won’t be disappointed! Job well done to the entire Elysburg Haunted House team! Thank you for all that you folks do for the community and keep providing that old school spooky fun experience we’ve come to know & LOVE! We were once again truly blown away by the experience Elysburg Haunted House offers and will most certainly be visiting again for many years to come!
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