Fright Farm Cordially Invites You to a Night at the Hawthorne!
When checking in to the Hawthorne Hotel, one must be ready for anything and everything that may befall oneself before the sun rises! The 2024 spooky season saw our return to Fright Farm in Smithfield, PA, a haunt we've visited only once before and were quick to fall in love with during that previous visit. This terrifying, linear experience occupies the shell of a former farmhouse on the vast farmland property still owned and operated by Rich Farms, and every year, the dedicated team at Fright Farm goes above and beyond to ensure that the haunt gets a whole new theme complete with new sets, new props and new skit lines. This year's theme, "A Night at the Hawthorne", was worth the ticket price on its own - the level of effort and detail put into this year's reimagining of the property was nothing short of breathtaking.
First and foremost, a good haunt is more than just its haunted attractions. Fright Farm has long offered and continues to offer a wealth of activities and experiences on its Fest-Evil Midway, including but not limited to live music, escape games, carnival booths and attractions, axe throwing, roaming scare actors and some of the BIGGEST brick oven pizza we’ve ever laid eyes on - a single $7 slice could easily feed three people! This year’s event saw a significant upgrade to the LED package on the main stage, which gave the performing artists that much more incentive to continue pumping the jams as patrons ran screaming all over the community areas. And if you weren’t running because you were being chased by chainsaws or zombies, you might just as easily have been running to beat the clock in the haunt’s very physical quick-time response games. One way or another, when your group was called for the haunt, you’d be running to the queue marked by a fire-breathing dragon so that you could board the Hayride of No Return and start the long, terrifying journey into the spooky manor on the hill!
The hayride itself, which never lacked for large sets or original vignettes to begin with, has still seen some marked improvement since our last visit in 2023. A preamble to the main event, the hayride helps to set the stage for progressively larger and more intense scares as it carts riders from the midway down to the walkthrough experience hosted at the mansion. Guests can expect to be stalked, haunted, jump-scared and personally targeted by any of the many dedicated actors clambering on and off of the wagon to form a narrative bridge between scenelets in a fashion that could be compared to Walt Disney World’s now-defunct “Great Movie Ride”. As of 2024, guests might also recognize a familiar voice chastising a Cadillac that has overstayed its welcome at a gas pump…if they’re familiar with our YouTube Channel, that is! After disembarking the wagon at the mansion’s main entrance, guests are given a safety briefing before being sorted into groups and pushed through the queue to experience all that Fright Farm has to offer.
Above: The eerie facade of Fright Farm's infamous mansion sets a macabre tone for riders disembarking the Hayride of No Return as they enter the main experience.
The Hallowed Grounds is largely unchanged from the previous year, though the detail-oriented may notice a new route imposed in some areas and a few new spooks and surprises in others. For those who visited last year, what has now become known as the Trick or Treat leg of the walkthrough experience - which itself was constructed from the ground-up in 2023 - has really taken shape as a Renaissance-era town with some demented twists. But Fright Farm isn’t just about building on what works; the team is also keen to add something new to every year’s event so as to ensure that fans from prior years have something new to come back to in future years. This year, the outdoor trail’s new addition of the Shallow Wharf outright blew our minds with its scale. While we try to minimize spoilers here, I’ll give you this one little insight into how far this particular vignette has gone to world-build for the haunt - ever see a full-size commercial fishing boat run aground on a patch of farmland?
Moving to the indoor sections of the experience, the Farmhouse which served as a central hub last year has been reworked with new elements designed to shock and unsettle. Projections of this year’s icon, the Guillotine Queen, haunted the darkened hallways. The eerie storybook rhymes painted onto the walls each point towards something far more sinister; and with each turn of the proverbial page, horror-themed holograms and eerie soundscapes set the stage for what’s to come…until, inevitably, you wind up facing off against the Guillotine Queen herself, for whom death appears to have only been the beginning. The Farmhouse is one of the largest individual legs within the haunt overall and will take time to explore. Of note is that guests will at times be expected to walk up and down staircases that have been creaking and snapping in the Farmhouse as far back as the days when it was a live-in home for the original property owners.
Above: The Hotel Hawthorne awaits visitor check-in at Fright Farm in Smithfield, PA.
The biggest change this year was the introduction of a completely reimagined finale and the haunt’s 2024 namesake, the Hotel Hawthorne. A stark contrast to last year's insect-infested horrors, the hotel's concept leaned into a more classic horror aesthetic with an unsettling atmosphere. Guests return to the great outdoors very briefly before re-entering the Farmhouse structure through beautiful facade of the hotel, complete with decorative easter eggs such as “Best Pool Award” and “Five Diamond State of Marshmallow” signage, all of which set the tone for the chilling journey ahead. Upon entering, guests are immediately thrust into an interaction with the concierge desk, before ultimately moving on to an experience that combines fog, old-school scares, and a palpable sense of dread as they make their way through the various rooms and hallways. Play your cards right and you might even be invited to dinner with the hotel’s resident performer, Isidora the magnificent, whose siren song (a live vocal performance, by the way) never fails to impress.
What’s left of last year’s Sewer system - still the home of some rodents of usual size, which we certainly believe exist after last year - leads directly into the haunt’s final chamber, affectionately referred to as the “Big Room” but bearing the larger brand identity as The Tenement. Between 2023’s rendition of this space as a mountain lodge facing a Yeti attack and this year’s rendition of a brick apartment complex under siege by an escaped serial killer, so many changes have taken place that you’d barely recognize the bones of this space as they once were. That so much can be accomplished over the course of eight to ten months in the gaps between operating seasons is a testament to the level of passion and dedication that the staff at Fright Farm has for this property. As with every year, Fright Farm has masterfully balanced chaos with order, making sure that the journey feels both thrilling and cohesive. And, the triumphant return of Slaughter Hollow as an optional (guests may choose to bypass this experience) stinger to the event as a whole really allows you to choose your own adventure and get the experience that you want out of your ticket. area adds a touch of gritty intensity. While violence is definitely more pronounced in this section, the vignette remains just as actor-driven, and it’s impossible not to smile as the chainsaws chase you out of the last barn of the trail.
Ultimately, Fright Farm’s 2024 event offered a fresh yet familiar experience for those who have been following the farm’s haunt journey for years. From the newly constructed hotel finale to the reworked attractions, there’s no shortage of thrills to keep you on edge all night long. And with the talented team’s blood, sweat and tears pouring into every element from set design to character acting, it’s no surprise that this year’s haunt has set a new standard for immersive, terrifying experiences. We’re always so grateful that Fright Farm saw fit to invite us out in 2023 and always so excited to return in future years and see how the haunt has changed and grown since our last visit. While you await whatever changes the 2025 season brings to this property, you can check out our vlog below for a peek into 2024!
