Hundred Acres Manor Mauls South Park, Pennsylvania

Can you smell it? I can. It’s the faint wispy scent of moldering leaves mixed with an autumn breeze that chills the spine. I’ve been getting the hankering for haunting, and it was with this in mind that I started to search for Haunted Houses that stretch the season envelope by opening early in September and running into November. I thought this past weekend might be pushing it, but I was not disappointed in my search. Hundred Acres Manor in South Park, PA (that’s just below Pittsburgh and no, Kenny wasn’t killed there) braved it and opened Friday September 21st, and me,the Barrow-Wight, and Mrs. BW road tripped to the ‘burgh to check out this awesome charity haunt. So did a few other folks - actually a huge amount of other folks, which prompted me to upgrade my tickets to the VIP skip-the-line variety. I hate standing in line so it was well worth the price difference from $13 regular admission to the VIP at $20 to not have to hang about with a bunch of over caffeinated teenagers. Hundred Acres Manor was also surprised by the turn-out because they had to look for the VIP tickets. Lucky for us they found them just fine.

Nestled in the heart of South Park, PA - actually it’s damn near lost in a wooded park that reminded me of “The Evil Dead” - Hundred Acres Manor occupies a rather unassuming building rented to the them by the park services with its accompanying grounds. It amazed me just how quickly my drive through the suburbs turned into an outing in wilderness not unlike the movie “Deliverance”. In fact that happens to be one of two minor complaints that I have about this haunt. Since I drove nearly three hours to get there finding it was difficult because as anyone who has ever driven Pittsburgh knows the streets are sometimes rather ambiguously marked. In all fairness to Hundred Acres though, they do not have an actual street address because they are located in the park. This made using my cell phone’s VZ Navigator feature useless. While they don’t list at least their zip code for those of us who use cell phones with street directions on them, they do offer a Google Map (see haunt information below) on their website to their exact GPS location. Of course if your kid is busy playing LOTR online and won’t let you print out those directions then you may be up the proverbial creek; hopefully just not the one Ned Beatty (squeal like a piggy!), Burt Reynolds, and John Voight had to deal with. A few more “Haunted House this way” signs would also be useful to those nutjobs like myself that drive into unfamiliar areas to review haunted houses. Note to self: PRINT THE MAP OUT AHEAD OF TIME.

Getting lost was par for the course in my travels, and we made it with plenty of haunt time to spare to this surprisingly wild setting in the suburbs. In fact I had to drive extra slow due to all the deer on the roads surrounding the haunt, and more than once I suspected this was a trick by things in the woods to try and get me to stop my car. Hundred Acres Manor was definitely not a disappointment after our scenic tour through some of Pittsburgh’s ritzier neighborhoods as well as prime Bigfoot territory. While the website shows that Hundred Acres Manor is a multi-element haunt with four parts: The Fun House, Manor Creek Bog, Hillbilly Hell, and The Maze, each element really flows into the next so that once you enter “Hell on Earth” you are not getting out till its demented denizens release you. Be sure upon entering to enjoy the effects the coffin room where you start your tour by laying your hands on the Master’s Casket. I’ll let what happens next be a surprise, but you might just want to skip drinking that 20 ounce Coke while you wait in line.

For those of you that know and love haunted houses the traditional effects are all in Hundred Acres Manor like drop doors, air cannons, screaming volunteers with great makeup (no raccoon eyes here), and there are plenty of high quality pneumatics from companies like Scare Factory and Oak Island. A crowd favorite should be the Oak Island Claustrophobia effect (at least I’m pretty sure this was Oak Island’s gizmo) that makes one feel like they’re being evacuated (substitute your favorite scatological reference here) out a giant’s arse (my wife’s description). In the midst of the haunt comes The Maze.

This leads to my second minor complaint about Hundred Acres Manor. It’s really an extension of my first. I am absolutely stupid when it comes to doing mazes. It’s the “following directions and getting lost” thing. Consequently I don’t do corn mazes unless I have hours to kill and my kids along to help me. So, when my wife and I entered The Maze portion of Hundred Acres Manor I was surprised to find out that it really was a maze - complete with dead ends in the dark. Fortunately this fire-marshal-approved section of the haunt was populated by Hundred Acres ghouls who gave helpful and occasionally false directions out. I can’t help but wonder how many other maze-challenged folks get frustrated here, but Damon, the fine and engaging representative from Hundred Acres Manor who showed us around afterwards, assured me that flow through is never a problem here due to removable panels for high volume nights and ghouls to direct lost souls out. I do, however, suspect the Tor Johnson look-alike was sadistically enjoying my lack of navigation ability. We really weren’t in this particular part of the haunt very long before we made our way back into full throttle haunted house scares.

It’s hard to get me in a haunted house anymore. By that I mean I know way too many of the tricks, but I have to admit that I was startled more than once in Hundred Acres manor. Their use of volunteer actors - really quality ones like the very strange half-Sea-half-Man (put those two together and you’ll get the off-color flagellating insinuation) who can literally run up walls - was quite good. This was especially true when multiple actors were coupled with pneumatics to distract and startle. It was also quite fun to let the actors separate me from my wife who was forging ahead analyzing the aspects of the haunt. She didn’t notice on a number of occasions as she was dissecting the haunt that her remarks were falling upon the dead ears of a creature from the Netherworld instead of me. I am evil - yes, it’s true.

Hundred Acres Manor devotes 100% of profit to two charities. Homeless Children’s Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization established in 1999 to supplement federal funding for the educational needs of local homeless children, and Animal Friends, Pittsburgh’s only non-kill shelter. Two very worthy causes that benefit quite well from this haunt’s efforts. Do not let the word “charity” bring to mind the days of black plastic walls and unskilled actors going “boo”. This is a full in-your-face haunted attraction that just happens to give all profits to charity. Damon let me in on how much they benefit, and I’ll just say that what gets donated would finance the budgets of several large haunts. An amazing effort from this ripping good haunted attraction. So was it worth the drive? Damn straight it was, and I’d drive out again. In fact we were invited back for a daytime tour by Damon which I intend to take full advantage of as long as they like this review of course. This time I will have printed directions in hand and my son, the video game addict, to guide me through The Maze.

WHEN TO GO:

Hundred Acres Manor is open September 21st through October 28th Wednesday - Sunday (closed Mondays and Tuesdays).

7:00PM - 10:00PM for Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday
7:00PM - 11:30PM Friday and Saturday

WEBSITE:

www.hundredacresmanor.com
The website is brand spanking new thanks to the highly disturbed Sinister Visions folks.

WHERE IS IT:

Hundred Acres Manor is located on Hundred Acres Drive on the site of what used to be Sully’s Pool and Phantoms in the Park in South Park, PA. They are about 10 miles south of Downtown Pittsburgh. You can Google Directions here.

TICKET INFORMATION:

Take cash! No credit cards accepted at the ticket booth, or you can buy online at Screampass. Check the Hundred Acres Manor website for details.

General Admission:
Any night: $13.00

VIP Admission (skip the line!):
Any night: $20.00

Check the Special Events page of the Hundred Acres Manor website for details on special appearances by bands and radio stations too.

September 24th, 2007