The Haunted Grounds is a guided walkthrough of an eclectic sequence of settings ranging from an encounter with Michael Myers to a visit from a UFO. This is the first year for Haunted Grounds, though not the first year for the haunt organizers, who worked at the now closed Hales Community Haunted Forest in nearby Jonesborough.

We paid the $12 admission for just the haunt. There is also an escape room add-on for $10, but we skipped it to get into the line for the feature attraction. The waiting area and the haunt are housed in what is normally a pair of exhibition or vendor buildings when it’s not a haunt season. My wife and I joined with six others to make a group, which included adults and teens.

Having a guide created an entirely different haunt experience as groups are forced to stop and stay at the scene. This enabled the haunt actors to linger and give attention to the more reactive patrons instead of a brief jump scare or two while a group races through, trying to keep pace with its most frightened members.

Although Haunted Grounds is not a contact haunt, the various stops in specific rooms allowed the scare actors to get up close and very personal with their victims. For example, a Michael Myers actor leaned down and got nose-to-nose with a teenage boy, who responded with a nervous laugh. The actor laughed. The boy pressed back against the wall, and Myers leaned in and continued with a creepy maniacal giggle while the young patron tried to escape. In another room, a demented vivisectionist, well costumed and complete with severed head accessory, bounced jauntily from person to person, trying to determine who his next victim would be.

The path and rooms, defined by simple hanging black plastic and occasionally more solid bits of wall, wound back and forth within the building. Our travels between rooms were punctuated with sudden noises, flashing lights, and other effects that prompted jumps and starts from our more reactive group members. The construction of the haunt reminded me of old school charity haunts, like the Jaycee’s haunts of my youth, where a site must be planned and hurriedly transformed in time for the end of September, then dismantled just as quickly in November. I now realize that most of the haunted attractions I’ve been to in the last few years are in permanent sites that can be worked year-round and even offer off-season events.

Haunted Grounds made creative use of materials for settings, pressing a number of artificial Christmas trees into service as haunted woods complete with glowing eyed werewolf. One of the attractions in the alien area was a UFO lighting up and descending toward the ground. Those rooms would have been made better by some scare actors, which has been a complaint voiced on social media as well. On the night we went, the haunt was well-populated with actors and there were enough guides to keep the line moving. The tour lasted about 15 minutes.

Difficulty finding actors following the pandemic and economic turndown has been a common complaint for haunts recently, and Haunted Grounds was no exception, though they are making efforts attract and train new and experienced actors.

The haunt used Facebook to its own advantage as well, asking for input on themes, scare factors, and scenes or scares customers would like to see in the haunt and on the grounds. According to the haunt organizers, the questions generated a number of helpful responses that are being incorporated into the Haunted Grounds, and they expect to be asking similar questions again in preparation for 2023. Get your feedback ready and be a part of planning a new haunt’s second year!

For more information about the Haunted Grounds at the Appalachian Fairgrounds, check out their Facebook page. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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