For some, October means pumpkin spice lattes and crunchy leaves, while others go for the darker side of the season — welcoming the approach of All Hallow’s Eve, a time for all things creepy, scary, and macabre.
At Sandyland Acres in Petersburg, those looking to get their scare on won’t be disappointed. For fans of classic movie horror of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s in particular, Sandyland’s Haunted Hayride offers up-close-and-personal encounters with Jason, Freddie, Michael — all the genre’s deadly greats.
The Haunted Hayride takes participants on a ride along Sandyland Acres farm paths, through woods and, of course, deep into the cornfield, where actors bring the characters to life (or death) in six interactive scenarios based on scenes from the classic films.
This is the 17th year for the attraction, which includes the Haunted Hayride and a Haunted Barn, also known as “Farmer’s Revenge.”
A haunting we will go
Gene Webb, a horror movie fan and the wicked mind behind the scares, is the manager of the attraction.
“I’ve always been into scary movies. I spent five or six years going to conventions and meetings,” Webb said. “I followed a lot of the actors that were in the scary movies. So it’s always been a hobby of mine.”
Sandyland Acres is on a working family farm owned and operated by the Stephenson family in conjunction with Gene Webb. The family has been working the farm since 1959. For years, their main crop was tobacco with some sweet corn. After the tobacco business dried up, the owners increased their sweet corn crop, but it was difficult to keep the farm afloat.
Webb came up with the idea to turn the property into a Halloween attraction for part of the year. He said it’s tight timing to bring in the sweet corn crop and then turn around and prepare the property for the annual scare fest.
“Even now I’m thinking, okay, what can I do with this next year,” he said. “How can I improve on this next year? I usually start in March with redesigning the barn. I usually work on the barn up until about May and then I start making changes to the hayride…It’s turned into a full-time job.”
The attraction started out with the hayride but has since added the barn.
“We give people the option of the hayride or you can buy tickets for the barn or a combo ticket,” Webb said. “The hayride lasts about 20-22 minutes, depending on the driver.”
Time in the barn just depends on the person, he said. It’s a series of dark rooms that people can walk through.
“The barn plays out like an old-school fun house,” he said.
About 30-35 people work at Sandyland Acres, including drivers, parking and set up people and, of course, the actors. During the pandemic, it was rough, but Webb said they kept the hayride part open and instilled precautions.
Come for the nostalgia, stay for the screams
A particular period in the horror film genre has become the mainstay of the operation.
“We started doing movie-based themes — the Michael Myers and Jason and Freddie,” Webb said. “We started doing that from the beginning because that’s what I knew. And, that’s what I liked. I’ve seen, over the course of 17 years, a lot of other haunted attractions have gotten away from that. But we’ve kept that theme. We’ll keep to the original as much as possible.”
For his 10th anniversary, Webb said he tried to switch it up a bit, dropping some well-known characters and creating new ones. He said that turned out to be a misstep. He learned that many of his customers were coming to see their favorites made popular by the various movie franchises, especially “Halloween.” Actors create scenes from the movies and interact with the participants directly.
“I think that’s what makes us unique,” Webb said. “We’ll actually stop at six different scenes and let the characters act them out. So you get that feeling that you’re in the movie, you’re part of the movie. That’s what people like.”
Webb said it’s a challenge to return to the same franchises and characters each year. He will go back into the different films to find new scenarios to keep it fresh. “Halloween” has had 13 films, and the final film in the series, aptly named “Halloween Ends” is set to hit theaters this week.
Webb won’t mine that one yet, maybe next year, he said. This year he will go way back to the original film for inspiration. That formula seems to be working. He said Sandyland Acres brings in between 4,000 and 5,000 visitors in the years when the weather cooperates.
What scares people the most? Webb said, some people are afraid of the dark or of clowns or characters like Freddy, but “you know, the magic is this— it’s the element of surprise. It’s some guy popping out of the corn or jumping out somewhere with a chainsaw. So there’s always that shock value of a real surprise.”
Sandyland Acres is located at 4172 Belleview Road in Petersburg. They are open Friday and Saturdays from 8 p.m. to midnight through Oct. 29. For more info, go to sandylandacres.com.