The Haunted Forest at The Buford Corn Maze

                On Thursday, September 20, 2012 we joined a group of haunt friends to experience the Haunted Forest at the Buford Corn Maze.  The Buford Corn Maze is located at 4470 Bennett Road in Buford, Georgia.  This location has three available activities: a corn maze, a hayride, and the haunted house.  For a maximum price $18 per person you can enjoy all three activities.  It is a family friendly event, though the haunt itself is certainly not recommended for younger children.

                Early in the day the Facebook page for the event updated their information to reflect that their start time would not be at 8:00 as previously stated.  They included information about how they would start the haunt at 8:20 or dark, since much of it was outside.  It was very nice to notice that they wanted their customers to be aware of the correct information as things evolved.  We continued to experience wonderful customer service throughout our visit at the location.  This made for a very enjoyable evening for us and for our friends (Happy Birthday to Ronnie from The Haunted Theater on Hill Street, Griffin).

                Arriving early was a must for us, so that we could experience as much of the location as possible.  It doesn't seem as though waiting in line would become an inconvenience at Buford Corn Maze.  Rather than stand around and wait for the haunt to open we did the corn maze and even had time for the hayride.  The maze took substantial time to complete and the hayride was rather lengthy.  Our time felt well used, rather than wasted.

                Though our intent is to review haunted attractions we frequently end up getting to experience their partner activities and give feedback regarding them as well.  The Buford Corn Maze was a great length, and we were lucky to visit when the corn was at the optimal height and density for the maze.  They have a rather cute gimmick for you to play along with, so search for the numbered plaques and solve the word puzzle as you go along.  We actually decided to go in at first without using the map and found our way through.  Doing this we ended up only missing two of the signs, so out came the map and back into the corn we went.  It was definitely worth the time and cost to enjoy this bonus while we were waiting for night to fall.

                After our time spent wandering through the corn we went on their hayride.  This was the most worthwhile part of our entire experience.  Let's start by saying that this is not a haunted hayride at this time, so don't go in expecting that.  It starts out innocent enough then proceeds to travel through some very tight woods.  You can't create an environment such as the one for that hayride, which would be perfect to haunt.  There are some surprises on the ride that may unsettle you, but not in a haunted attraction kind of way.  This is a ride through the woods, so do watch your head.  Those low hanging branches will get you if you aren't careful, but then again if you aren't careful you will give those with you something to laugh at.

                Our final adventure of the night was the haunted house, better known as The Haunted Forest.  This name may be slightly misleading, but only slightly.  You will be outside for much of the haunt, though there is a house to go through at one point.  The walls that create the pathways for much of the haunt are created from various tarps and such which were hung.  This is not a problem, especially when you know that these haunters are in their second year at this location and their previous experience is in some form of yard haunting.  Their budget is still working on increasing through profit so that they are able to do more in the future.  Keeping this in mind we noticed that this attraction was what some might refer to as a Heinz 57 Haunt, which has a variety of things going on that are not connected to a common theme.  Some areas of the haunt were definitely more developed than others, and you can avoid the more developed areas if you choose to take the "chicken route."  The house is the area of the haunt with the best, most well defined, set of scenes.  It has some good effects within it that felt as though haunters with more experience had worked on this area than the outside spaces.  It was definitely worth the trip and the cost was extremely reasonable.  They only send in groups of five or less which is a fabulous thing.  Please keep in mind when going that the ground is very uneven, so dress appropriately with tennis shoes.

                After much discussion related to a score we averaged out two opinions together to give The Haunted Forest at the Buford Corn Maze a score of 2.75 Severed Heads.  That's a pretty unusual score for us to give, as we usually try to stick to whole and halved severed heads.  We look at the scoring that we give similarly to grades in a school.  The average student is a C student, so that is around 3 Severed Heads on our scale.  The better that average student is a B student, which is around a 4 for us.  The extremely exceptional student is an A student, equaling a score of 5 from us.  Those that are slightly under average are D students, which seems to be about a 2 on our scale.  Finally those students that have a lot more room for growth and are still trying to catch up from being far behind are those students who score U (what used to be known as an F), and they are the ones that we score around 1 Severed Head.  Our ratings using Severed Heads is strictly our opinion as people who enjoy going to a wide variety of haunts each year.  We hope that you find some haunts out there that you enjoy this season and we look forward to hearing all about them.  Happy haunting...and on to the next!