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Writer's pictureChandler Clouser

Madhaunter’s Madhouse - 2024


😈💀 Our Visit to Madhaunter’s Madhouse 💀😈

Date: 10/12/2024

Location: Purcellville, Virginia


Prepare to be thrilled & entertained as you enter the Madhaunter’s Madhouse. The dark woods come to life around you in this Madhouse of Horrors, leaving you to question your fate!


Located just off the beaten path and deep in the dark woods of Purcellville, Virginia is Madhaunter’s Madhouse. This monstrous outdoor trail attraction is home to all sorts of unruly & cannibalistic creatures, but none more demented & delirious than “Thee Madhaunter” himself! This wayward character cannot be missed, as you’re sure to encounter him roaming about the Madhaunter’s midway! Be forewarned, he has countless tricks up his sleeve & is sure to frightfully delight all who visit!


We arrived at Madhaunter’s shortly after 9pm on a chilly Saturday evening! This place was PACKED and doing the best they could to squeeze car after car into their parking area. Our crew has never formally visited Madhaunter’s Madhouse, so we were unsure what to expect. One things for sure, the local community was flocking to Madhaunter’s with one collective goal in sight, to endure a frightening & spooky fun adventure! We had the pleasure of speaking with the owners prior to our adventure. We learned this is their 14th season of providing fear & 3rd season at this specific location! The owners kindly gave us a lay of the land at Madhaunter’s and then set us off to enjoy our experience!


The Madhaunter’s midway features several food trucks serving up all sorts of scrumptious eats. A large outdoor movie screen had all sorts of Halloween favorites playing. A well stocked merchandise booth featured various Madhaunter’s shirts, hoodies & other goodies! What makes this midway extraordinarily lively is the countless roaming spooks! Each & every character encountered was full of life, providing an excellent mixture of hilarious & frightening engagements. Grab a few spooks & make sure to snag a commemorative group photo at one of the several photo-ops!


We kicked our festivities off with the small side attraction, PreCURSEr! While only about 5 minutes or so in duration, PreCURSEr made for an excellent appetizer to the main trail. While waiting in the queue line your eyes are drawn to the ominous house facade which was eerily & elegantly crafted! Once inside a sinister gal wanted to steal our eyeballs & replace them with plastic ones. As we ducked under her fireplace what we saw on the other side was nightmare inducing… A menacing fellow delivered a gut-wrenching visual as he was kneeling overtop a corpse eating bloody abdominal contents. As we passed by he spit out all sorts of guts & gore! We eventually stumbled into a large dark maze, that succeeded at disorienting us. We were all sorts of twisted and turned around before we eventually got dumped back into the midway.


Next up was the main event, the Madhaunter’s Madhouse. This monstrous outdoor trail took ~35 minutes to navigate through, which we came to learn is notably longer than seasons past! Along this spine-tingling journey we encountered a plethora of scenes & characters. A beautifully yet eerily crafted church was anything but holy, the devil had taken over & did his best to turn us to the dark side! A LONG outdoor cobweb tunnel was loaded with spiders & other creepy crawly creatures. A large beehive featured realistic set design & audio effects effective enough to have our skin stinging & crawling with fear. The “Good Mourning Cemetery” had an eerie aesthetic as the lighting & fog weaved through the tombstones. As we walked across a bridge one our members received the fright of the night, as he dropped what felt like 2ft into a mattress-lined pit! Amy’s playground was quite DOLL-TASTIC, as it was flooded with freakish dolls dangling from all over. Purcellville Pub might’ve taken the cake as our favorite scene here. We legitimately felt like we stumbled into an old school western pub which featured an animated & drunk gent, stumbling around speaking all sorts of gibberish. We recall a pretty cool animatronic character in here as well. And we can’t forget to mention the large western lad dressed as a masked bandit… he stalked our crew to ensure we didn’t cause any mayhem! Another area was littered with slithery snakes, one of which nearly took a bite out of us! We had a good chuckle when we encountered the skeleton stagecoach… a carriage being pulled by skeletons! We can’t forget to mention the several pallet mazes we weaved our way through. Clearly no shortage of scenes in the Madhaunter’s Madhouse… we encountered a wide array of themes & ample creativity to bring the theme to life!


As you exit Madhaunter’s Madhouse you are funneled back to the main parking area. We wish the trail somehow dumped you back in the midway. That way if you wish to continue to enjoy the midway, grab a bite to eat, purchase merch, etc you have one last opportunity to do so. We enjoyed connecting with the owners once more to share our thoughts on the experience. We were delighted to inform them of our spooky fun adventure & found ourselves raving about some of the sets we encountered! We certainly have to give props to the costuming & makeup team at Madhaunter’s, as all the characters looked incredible. Costuming & makeup can really elevate an experience when it’s realistic & matches the scene! Kudos to the entire cast for pulling off a solid performance! We specifically remember a redneck fella in the very beginning of the trail giving us quite a few chuckles before he terrified us with his chainsaw! He certainly helped to set the tone for the way forward.


Madhaunter’s Madhouse certainly succeeded at providing a frightfully fun adventure! Their passion & heart for all things spooky didn’t go unnoticed. We now understand why the local community flocks to Madhaunter’s. It’s become a staple in the community for providing SPOOKY FUN, something we all crave this time of year! Job well done Madhaunter’s team, we’ll certainly check back in the future to see what new tricks you have up your sleeves! Until then, stay spooky Madhaunter’s Madhouse!

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