t’s hard to say what’s more horrifying: navigating the dark, ghoul-filled halls of Frightland’s Attic or watching the performers prepare to scare in a fenced-off area obscured from the fright-seeking patrons.
Zombies and ghastly creatures lurch about in lurid garb, and don’t seem bothered by their awful injuries or severed limbs as they munch on pre-game pretzels. Performer Jake Hunter is ready well before the 6:30 p.m. opening at the park on a night that boasts perfect conditions for a visit to a haunted attraction. There’s a slight crisp in the air, and a few brushes of dark gray clouds perfectly frame the full moon in an otherwise clear sky. Hunter, The Attic’s greeter, is dressed in a black frock with white ruffles and has a nasty gaping wound on the left side of his mouth. Although this is his first year working at Frightland, he has ample stage experience to lean on and a passion for scary flicks. “It’s different than acting on stage. You feed off their fear,” said Hunter, 22, of Middletown. “I just psych myself up and slip into something dark and sinister.” Frightland, just north of Odessa off U.S. 13, is one of several places in the area to get your fright on. To the north there’s the highly rated Eastern State Penitentiary, in Philadelphia. To the south, in Camden, there’s Fright Night, which boasts a Blood Castle, Graveyard and other attractions. And the excellent Field of Screams and Jason’s Woods are less than a two-hour drive away, near Lancaster, Pa. And The Attic, which takes thrill-seekers through a pitch-black maze packed with all sorts of demons and banshees, is just one of several spooky adventures that ticket buyers can experience. In addition to the Barn of Horror, Forgotten Asylum, The Escape and the Town of Redemption, there’s the heart attack-inducing Idalia Manor, which underwent $100,000 in well-spent refurbishing over the summer. There’s also the Haunted Hayride, which takes helpless riders through a wooded area filled with zombified plane-crash survivors, blood-smothered field workers and a young Jason Voorhees, who decides to go for a swim even though its October. Oh, and the hayride also boasts everyone’s favorite – or least favorite – Halloween fiend, evil clowns. Jesse Stroup, of New Castle, is one of the lucky ones who gets to don the warped clown persona, which mixes the joy of a goofy carnival worker with the sinister malice of a serial killer. He and a fellow evil clown work as a double-team on the hayride, targeting people who suffer from Coulrophobia. “Clowns are like the best thing here. People are afraid of clowns more than anything else,” said Stroup, 18, who patterns his clown after The Joker from “Batman.” “It’s better to be the one scaring people than the one being scared. That’s how I feel about it.” Bot not even evil clowns can top Idalia Manor, probably the scariest attraction at Frightland by the hair of a severed nose. There’s also a storyline: Dr. Idalia, the father, has stepped out on his wife, and his mistress has been, from page 16 well, taken care of in one of the mansion’s bathrooms. The son has chopped the father’s face off and all sorts of hell has broken loose from the ground floor to the roof. Lady Idalia is played by Julie Murray, of Bear, a stage actress who is in her fourth year at Frightland. She gets the first scare and “welcomes” visitors to the mansion. Robert Burton returns for his 12th year at Frightland to play her husband, Dr. Idalia. The 54-year-old Hartley resident is so good at scaring people he can’t help it. He was recently in Kohl’s standing next to a mannequin, and when he moved he scared the beelzebub out of nearby customers who thought he too was made of wood. All of this is fine and good, but how does Frightland really rate on the scare-o-meter? The park’s fear factor can be measured through the experience of Aideen Murphy, a 32-year-old student at the University of Delaware who is from Cork, Ireland. They don’t have places like Frightland over there, so her friend Tara Falcone brought her to the park for her first haunted house visit. During her trip through Idalia Manor, Murphy screamed and squealed and refused to be the first one to enter each room. After exiting, she was visibly shaken as she stood in line to walk through The Attic. “That really freaked me out,” Murphy said. “I felt like I was in a Wes Craven film.” When Murphy’s group was called to enter The Attic, Murphy thought about pulling a Shaggy and scrambling back to the Mystery Machine. “I’m thinking I should have taken my $15 ticket and gotten out of here.”
