Find Halloween thrills locally at Haunting Fields

By Kathleen Grohman

If you think you'd enjoy a bloody, white-faced patient suddenly jerking to life in the middle of the operating room of an asylum, or getting lost in a maze of chain link fences with a strobe light adding to your disorientation, then The Haunting Fields is the right place for you to get some Halloween thrills.

Located in Fremont, a 20-minute drive from campus, The Haunting Fields features six themed haunted houses.

There is no rule that the actors in the haunted houses are not allowed to touch the guests, like there is at many other haunted houses, so they will actually bump into you.

A costumed creeper hands out 3-D glasses prior to entering the scariest and longest of the haunted houses, Pirates of Emerson, which makes it difficult to tell what is actually popping out at you and what is 3-D.

The goriest haunted house, The Asylum, is more disturbing than frightening. HeartStoppers, a Western-themed haunted house, has some scary surprises, including a passageway of black plastic blowing together so that you have to push your way through.

The different houses use a variety of scare tactics, from gory, gross scenes to masked people jumping out and chasing you, to more storyline thrills. No matter what, these tactics will elicit screams and startles.

And if someone pops out of a wall or comes to life in one of the displays, don't expect them to retreat once they get a scream; they will follow you and get right in your face until you leave the room.

The ticket price, $20, still seems a bit steep, even though you do get access to all six haunted houses.

Other mini attractions include an outdoor screen showing a scary movie, a psychic booth, a food stand and a gift shop, none of which attracted much attention. There are also ghosts, pirates and zombies roaming the crowd and keeping the people waiting in line entertained.

No line took more than five minutes, but the closer to Halloween, the longer the lines are expected to be. A $30 ticket allows you to bypass the lines, but with few lines, it's possible to get through all six houses in about an hour, so the extra $10 is probably not worth it.

The Web site warns that some of the animatronics have caused certain brands of cell phones to lose memory, so leave those in the car.

All in all, The Haunting Fields is a fun way to scream and laugh with your friends and get in the Halloween spirit.

Contact Kathleen Grohman at (408) 551-1918 or kgrohman@scu.edu.