By: Sidney Dills, Diversions Editor
Now that we are all too old to go trick-or-treating without a younger sibling in tow, the usual Halloween alternative is to watch bad B-rated zombie movies and buy our own candy. Halloween can be a more exciting holiday if we go out and seek frights and thrills with friends. Corn mazes, haunted houses, and pumpkin patches are perfect places for making our Halloween a thrill. Here are a few local attractions to make your Halloween a little more exciting than watching fake brains being eaten:
Madworld in Piedmont, SC about 30 minutes from Furman is by far the best haunted fright house to visit in the Upstate. The business spends an incredible amount of time on their makeup and costumes. The characters running around and scaring you are realistic and could easily be something out of “American Horror Story.” The tour is self-guided and can take up to 40 minutes, much more intense than the more local five-minute attractions. The tickets are $20 each, but with an additional $8 you can also do a new part of the attraction where you shoot zombies and try to survive in an apocalyptic world.
Maybe you would prefer to spend your Halloween drinking, but, instead of sitting in your apartment doing so, why not go on a Haunted Pub Crawl? Visit several haunts and have a few drinks while hearing spooky tales. The pub crawl is hosted by the Greenville Ghost Tour every Wednesday night. The tour is for 21+ guests and costs $20, but, unfortunately, the price does not include drinks.
If you are low key and enjoy carving pumpkins and doing a non-scary corn maze, or simply want the nostalgia of being a kid again, then check out Stewart Farms. Although it is a 45-60 minute drive away, the maze is very large and could be fun to go to day or night. There are also farm animals and a hayride on the farm. They are open until 10 p.m. on Friday through Saturday and until 8 p.m. on Sunday. The cost is $10 for the wagon ride and maze.
In the event that none of this appeals to you, then sit on your couch with your favorite store-bought chocolates and instead of watching B-rated horror movies, try watching a few horror classics currently on Netflix. If you are in a group of people with varying horror tolerances, there is always “Cabin in the Woods,” a horror comedy making fun of typical movie stereotypes and college students.
