Post by johnnyhalloween on Oct 12, 2009 0:33:23 GMT -5
Haunt: Cayo Industrial Horror Realm
Score: 5 out of 5 skulls!
Summary: I expect it to be the best haunt I hit within driving distance of Syracuse. I'm not done for the season by a long shot, but the bar has just been raised a lot.
Where to start...
We drove from Syracuse & it was about an hour door to door. We pulled up in the lot of a large abandoned factory in an industrial district in Utica. No light in the windows, no hint at what awaited inside... Just a long line of people. It seemed like people were going in.. but rarely did we see them coming out the exit lol. Anyway, after waiting in the ticket line, we moved to the entry line and waited just as long. I don't want to say how long because I don't want to scare anyone off. It was worth the wait, and the time flew by. Of course all the while we talked about how it better be good, lol. Well it was.
I knew why it was so packed as soon as my friend, who's a grown man who hits all the haunts he can, shrieked like a little girl within the first 2 minutes of entering.. It was great! Turn after turn he got GOT. He was caught off guard multiple times until we changed our positions... Then I got it just as bad! lol
Dark and dank, with the occasional industrial light hanging, Cayo is packed with well placed scares and gory depictions that are anything but cheesy.
This is one of the few haunts I've been to where the animatronic props are used effectively. They were triggered on time, moved realistically, and all went perfectly with the theme; Torture & gore.
Cayo also makes use of dozens of static props. Normally static props are walked by and elicit yawns but Cayo's are done well, are all within the theme, and are quite creepy... Picture children in chicken wire cages and victim's bodies on hospital beds, the occasional one twitching unexpectedly... All done with attention to detail that you could see even in the low light (usually green).
Sometimes you're not quite sure if you're looking at a prop, or a person, and whether or not it's going to lunge at you or have it's head sliced off by a live person; squirting blood at you... as you feel the wetness hit your face.
I was thoroughly impressed with Cayo, with the only drawback being the long wait in line.. And you're gonna get that anywhere worth going to since word travels fast when something is good. The haunt itself is very long as well, so at $15 for 2 attractions the price is fair. There's nothing worse than feeling ripped off by a haunt. You can easily SEE how much money was spent on things like props and live scare-actors, and how much TIME was put into designing it. Cayo leaves you feeling confident that some guy in Utica is on rotten.com studying bludgeoning victims & designing painstaklingly accurate props in mid-march.
That's a compliment.
Cayo raises the bar for all haunts around. I can see why scarycuse just named it an editors pick.
Score: 5 out of 5 skulls!
Summary: I expect it to be the best haunt I hit within driving distance of Syracuse. I'm not done for the season by a long shot, but the bar has just been raised a lot.
Where to start...
We drove from Syracuse & it was about an hour door to door. We pulled up in the lot of a large abandoned factory in an industrial district in Utica. No light in the windows, no hint at what awaited inside... Just a long line of people. It seemed like people were going in.. but rarely did we see them coming out the exit lol. Anyway, after waiting in the ticket line, we moved to the entry line and waited just as long. I don't want to say how long because I don't want to scare anyone off. It was worth the wait, and the time flew by. Of course all the while we talked about how it better be good, lol. Well it was.
I knew why it was so packed as soon as my friend, who's a grown man who hits all the haunts he can, shrieked like a little girl within the first 2 minutes of entering.. It was great! Turn after turn he got GOT. He was caught off guard multiple times until we changed our positions... Then I got it just as bad! lol
Dark and dank, with the occasional industrial light hanging, Cayo is packed with well placed scares and gory depictions that are anything but cheesy.
This is one of the few haunts I've been to where the animatronic props are used effectively. They were triggered on time, moved realistically, and all went perfectly with the theme; Torture & gore.
Cayo also makes use of dozens of static props. Normally static props are walked by and elicit yawns but Cayo's are done well, are all within the theme, and are quite creepy... Picture children in chicken wire cages and victim's bodies on hospital beds, the occasional one twitching unexpectedly... All done with attention to detail that you could see even in the low light (usually green).
Sometimes you're not quite sure if you're looking at a prop, or a person, and whether or not it's going to lunge at you or have it's head sliced off by a live person; squirting blood at you... as you feel the wetness hit your face.
I was thoroughly impressed with Cayo, with the only drawback being the long wait in line.. And you're gonna get that anywhere worth going to since word travels fast when something is good. The haunt itself is very long as well, so at $15 for 2 attractions the price is fair. There's nothing worse than feeling ripped off by a haunt. You can easily SEE how much money was spent on things like props and live scare-actors, and how much TIME was put into designing it. Cayo leaves you feeling confident that some guy in Utica is on rotten.com studying bludgeoning victims & designing painstaklingly accurate props in mid-march.
That's a compliment.
Cayo raises the bar for all haunts around. I can see why scarycuse just named it an editors pick.
Thanks for your review, i'll post my thoughts when we're back.