Rhodenwald's Haunted Hedge Maze

Briefly pondering a trip to the Naked Rocks until I caught the first two lines of their blurb:

"A celebration of spookiness and nudity! You must be nude here or the grim reaper will track you down!"

Yeah, no, that's not happening. Next.

Was considering going to the haunt at Commune Utopia until I caught their blurb:

"Please turn Sounds and Music on, use parcel windlight, and explore each room of the dilapidated home of Horny McPhee, who disappeared while trying to find the hot tub across the river. Gift upstairs!"

Ugh, nope. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood? I know I'm struggling not to get sick, and it has set me slightly off. But still.

Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns? Also nope.

A haunted hedge maze? Oh, what the hell.



Well, this certainly looks charming to start with.



I do like that the girl in the mirror reaches out of it. That is reasonably creepy.



On the surface, just a gargoyle on a column. But I panned up, and got the tree with all the little faerylights, and that was magical.



It's important to note that the makers of this maze are very clever: several points, like this one, look blocked. But the objects in the path are phantom, and a lot of times, fog or cobwebs or other effects will hide the passage behind or beside them. Very tricky and imaginative.



I apologize to any arachnophobes--this was the picture I left as dark as I took it, I didn't want to enhance it just in case. And even for me, I had to think hard about walking past all those...multi-legged things...lining the hedge.



I actually found the door at the heart of the maze, and guessed the right answer--but I didn't find the gift promised. But that's okay, this was actually neat to go through, and it frankly blows away most virtual corn mazes. (And maybe even a few actual RL ones, this was really fun to experience!)

My recommendation is to go. Take some time, take a friend if you like (there are 'traps' [non-RLV] in the maze for pictures and such), and just have fun. Nothing will scream at you, nothing will jump out and claw your face off. It's just well done, and enjoyably seasonal. Finally, something not terribly depressing!