Advocate ventures for haunted house reviews: Ghost Town

Every year, the Jehovah Witnesses turn off their porch lights and the small children of the world dress up like their new favorite TV character. Parents get ready for a night of children high on sugar. Teenagers ponder whether they’re too old to put on a costume, and if the candy is even going to be good. Adults over 21 dress a little risqué and drink a little more than they should. Pumpkins show up everywhere, in a white girl’s coffee, outside every grocery store, and, my personal favorite – in pie.

Every year, Halloween comes and for basically everyone too old to trick-or-treat and too young to buy alcohol, this means haunted houses. The nice thing about haunted houses is that they are basically run throughout all of October. Haunts also come in a wide variety. This variety of haunts is nice, because some people like to bring their children, while others want to be actually scared. (gratuitous, does it really paint an image better than simply saying they were terrified?)

Here are some of the Advocate’s haunt reviews!

Ghost Town

The Haunted Ghost Town is a haunt located on Northeast 122nd Avenue in Portland at Rossi Farms. This haunt is one more for the family. Though the entry is $30 ($25 if purchased online), the Ghost Town ticket is worth it. Unlike many haunts, you don’t just walk through and leave. This haunt hosts three mazes and two boardwalk-like areas, along with an area to sit, talk, and eat food from vendors. It also allows customers to walk through the haunts as many times as they please, which is awesome.

The first haunt, a walk-through, was called “Ghost Town,” themed as an old Western town. In previous years that I’ve gone to this haunt the Ghost Town has been the only attraction here. Last year, it had a theme that added an evil circus into play. This year the Town was completely different – some things were re-organized while others were new. This walk-through wasn’t all that scary, but a good haunt for kids 12 and up.

“Farm House” is another walk-through haunt here. This one is just like it sounds – a farmhouse complete with “Mama” and all. The haunt walks you through every room of the farmhouse house past Mama and all of her crazy hillbilly kids. One of the more gross parts of this haunt was when my group was forced to eat “Mama’s cooking.” Not realizing what it was, my boyfriend willingly went for the food. Please don’t make the same mistake he did!

The next place we walked through was “Boinx Retribution.” This area was more of a alley way, minus the boardwalk. In Boinx Retribution there are two clowns known as Grins and Messy. These clowns proved to be my favorite part. Not only were the tons of girls running away funny, but the characters part proved both silly and frightening.

After walking past Boinx Retribution, we came upon “Harvest” and “Wicked Hallow’s.” Harvest was a bit boring, with two actors patrolling a monumental pumpkin stack. Wicked Hallow’s was a slightly more exciting, walking past a few dead bodies and a lot of witches.

Besides the fun in getting to go past and through all of these areas, I also found a few of the vendors pretty great. For the first time in my life I had fried Oreos, which are a lot tastier then one would think. The vendors also included a beer garden and kettle corn stand. Best of all, though, was the German bratwurst I had from Urban German – they are to die for.

In all, the Ghost Town wasn’t that scary of a haunt, unless you’re afraid of clowns, but still a great place to go, hang out, and eat some bratwurst.

Advocate Staff