Bloody Christmas planned for Nov. 15-16, 2024
By Tara Adams
BLOOMSBURG, Pa. – The gentle whispering of leaves along West Fort McClure Boulevard mix with the soft, rippling sound of the Susquehanna River on a chilly October night.
But just across the street, that sense of calm is overcome by screams, the revving of chainsaws, and menacing voices warning visitors of a harvest of horror.
Fear at the Farm combines a bit of comedy, scares, interactive scenes, and a whole lot of chaos.
And soon, that chaos will be joined by a few twisted jingle bells. The haunt recently announced its Christmas haunt, Bloody Christmas, will be held on Nov. 15-16, 2024.
“That's kind of a fan favorite there,” Co-owner Adrian Swartzlander said. “We turn the whole house into a Christmas theme. I let all my actors come up with new designs.”
Swartzlander owns the haunt, which is in its fourth year, with business partner John Berger.
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| Adrian Swartzlander Haunt Co-owner |
While the fall haunt includes a haunted hayride through a cornfield and the McClure Manor Haunted House, only the haunted house will be open for Bloody Christmas.
Fear at the Farm emphasizes scares through interaction with live actors, rather than animatronics and quick reset scares.
“We're real big on actors,” Swartzlander said. “I'm not big on animatronics and stuff like that. There's nothing better than a live person.”
And those live actors - who total about 55 between the hayride and haunted house - are known to bring the intensity by touching customers and using some profanity, while other characters add comic relief.
“A lot of haunts, they don't allow touch. Our actors are trained professionals, and they are allowed to touch customers,” Swartzlander said. “The customers are not allowed to touch them. It does make for a little more intense scenarios.”
In one of the more comedic scenes in McClure Manor, an actor tells customers they're about to go down a slide. The guests enter the side through the mouth of a large, devilish face along a wall.
“Guess where it goes?” the actor asks.
“To Hell!” a customer responds.
“You're a very smart girl,” the actor tells her, as he then explains the proper way to go down the choppy, carpeted slide.
“You put your bottom here. You put your feet there. You shimmy down on your backside. The slide is very bumpy. It was made in China,” he said, as the customers erupted in laughs.
Once down the slide, however, the jokes end and a more sinister ambience begins to take over. Customers walk down a hallway filled with a hazy, red glow. Chains swing from the ceiling and what appears to be a poor soul can be seen caged behind bars.
“Welcome to Hell,” a character shouts. “He's coming for you.”
Guests then face a number of scares as the end of the walk-through approaches.
“You have all different types of scares, so, usually the cheap trick is the jump scare,” Swartzlander said. “But we like to find different hiding spots, do different tricks with different electrical components, just things you wouldn't think would be there and in spots you wouldn't think somebody would be.”
Swartzlander said the haunt is growing in size and in the number of customers. Bloomsburg University being nearby helps bring in the numbers, he said.
“It's a big college town, too,” he said. “So, we do get a younger crowd, but they enjoy it. They love the intenseness of it.”
Swartzlander said the haunted house has about 30 rooms, and the haunt changes about half of them every year.
“So, a lot of our return customers and locals, they just love it that you're getting something new every year,” he said. It's not the same haunt every single time you go through. And I do the same thing on the hayride - different scenes.”
In addition to the attractions, Fear at the Farm has a large midway with a fire pit, games, merchandise and food vendors that sell a mix of options, such as pierogies, kielbasa, ice cream, and burgers.
Swartzlander said he and Berger wanted to create an environment where customers could spend time hanging out at the attraction and feel as though they're engaged with all it has to offer.
“You can spend an evening of it - usually 20 to 30 minutes on each attraction, get food, play games. It's usually a nice evening out,” he said. “Just come on out and see us. Get out to all the haunts. Pennsylvania is number two behind Ohio … in the number of haunts. So, yeah, just everyone come out and see us.”
