Haunted Gallows Has Three Attractions, But is Basic and Hazardous (3 stars)
Before I review Haunted Gallows, let me introduce myself. Events INSIDER Magazine was founded in the Boston Globe as a contractor, and is now independent. Over 20 years, we’ve written nearly 1,800 articles, and you’ll see at eventsinsider.com that we try to show kindness, with mostly 4.5-star and 5-star reviews. We don’t get an ego boost from putting down the arts. We exist to uplift the arts. Over the years I have personally written feature articles about more than 70 Halloween attractions in New England, which probably is more than any other journalist or influencer.
So when I say that I can’t recommend an attraction, it comes from experience. It is not a rant.
Haunted Gallows is a Halloween venue set at Richardson Sawmill and Farm, between Worcester and Providence. Parking attendants are helpful and there’s even a firepit in the parking lot to warm your hands.
They have a small midway with a basketball carnival game, food vendors, and three attractions:
- Boo Patch is non-scary, for social media. It has no actors, but it’s got decorations where you can take photos.
- Dark Fair, a haunted woods walk, which takes just 10 minutes.
- Bathsheba’s Woods, another woods walk, is extensive. It takes you a mile through the woods, according to staff, and is much more theatrical than Dark Fair.
I went first to Dark Fair, walking a path through the woods, and the best thing I can say is that actors sometimes had lines to say, instead of just jumping out and shouting. Kudos to the actor who climbed up on top of the wooden maze construction to scare us from above! The Candyland scene was a theme I’ve never seen before at a Halloween attraction.
Unfortunately, these few good elements got overwhelmed by problems. Instead of having Halloween scenes with staging, the pathways were mainly filler, just tarps and discarded shipping palettes, instead of decorated rooms with theatrical scenes. These are simultaneously ugly while also blocking our view of woods. A forest at night is naturally beautiful and scary. Don’t hide it.
The path also had numerous hanging cloth strips, which dangle from above and which guests must push through to proceed. Having cloth strips slide across my face means that I’m sharing the germs of other guests. Also, cloth strips become moldy because they are left outside in the weather all season. Cloth strips serve no real purpose in a Halloween attraction — it’s not like they improve the scary scenes. They should be removed.
Even worse, the path had continual tree roots that are a danger to stumbling and falling. I don’t mean just 2 or 3 tree roots along the path; at almost every step there were tripping hazards. This is a problem. At worst, tree roots should have proper lighting, so that guests can see them and step over them, but in the Dark Fair there were so many tree roots that I really don’t think that would work. They should be removed, or the forest path laid out elsewhere.
When I asked about the tree roots, two different staffers shrugged and said, “Well, it’s a farm.” This is concerning for two reasons. First, do they really think it’s impossible? Other Halloween farms carefully remove tree roots and small rocks from their forest paths. New England farmers have been clearing fields of trees and rocks since the 17th century. Second, if you acknowledge a hazard, you are obligated to handle it. You can’t just tell guests to deal with it.
It’s a problem. Except for 13 Nights at Jiminy, Haunted Gallows is the Halloween attraction with the worst tripping hazards that I’ve ever seen.
So this is a 2.5-star attraction, but I will bump it up to 3 stars because (a) they do have the midway where guests can spend some more time, (b) they do have the social media path, which is basic but solid and a good idea, and (c) I was told that Bathsheba’s Woods, while also having tree roots everywhere, is much more theatrical, with better scenes and staging. I will take that on faith, because I didn’t see Bathsheba’s Woods in person. I didn’t want to fall. I left.
For more, see hauntedgallows.com.