HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — After Hurricane Helene destroyed their woods and canceled their shows last year, The Haunted Farm is back for its 2025 season bigger, better and scarier than ever.
The Haunted Farm will run for its 15th season on weekends from Sept. 27-Nov. 1, 624 Townsend Road. While there is no age limit, this is a scary attraction, and no refunds are given for any guests who do not complete the walkthrough. Find tickets and the full schedule of dates here.
Building scares
“I love haunted houses. I have since I was a kid. I love horror,” said Daniel Ballard, general manager of The Haunted Farm. “I really like the artistry of it, especially gore, the artistry of gore, and making it so realistic and believable is something that just really impresses me as an art form.”
Ballard has been a longtime collaborator with The Haunted Farm, jumping onboard a decade ago to craft scary narratives for the attraction on their marketing and social media platforms.
Check out “DEATHYARD,” a narrative promo Ballard produced for the 2019 season of The Haunted Farm:
Today, Ballard spends all year working on the show.
“There is a trade show in St. Louis, usually in March, that we go to, and we get some ideas there. What’s trending, what the big producers are doing and the prop makers are making, and that kind of thing. Checking out the newest and latest props, animatronics, masks, scares from all the big, big dogs in the industry,” Ballard explained. “So, some of it starts there. Some of it starts with just ideas we’ve been kicking around in our heads and talking about for years, and you can’t do it all at once, usually.”
While Ballard and his team may not produce every single idea they have, The Haunted Farm is massive, elaborate and houses a diverse assortment of scares as is. Segments of the haunted house include everything from “The Big Top Psycho Circus” to “The Depths of Terror” to “The Lodge,” a new building for the 15th season.
“It’s a hunting lodge. It’s kind of like a secret club of murderous hunters, right? It evolves from that into a library scene, which goes down to the creep factor, and from there it goes into a torture room,” Ballard described. “It’s like this cultish lodge that we’ve built this little addition for and we’re really proud of that.”
Behind the mask
In each of its rooms, The Haunted Farm is staffed by a dedicated team of scare workers donned in freaky makeup and costumes.
“I’d say we have 35 to 40 actors that are so hardcore,” Ballard said. “They’ve been with us every year for, like, the last 3 years. There is a really solid crew we have.”
In the lead up to every season of The Haunted Farm, Ballard builds camaraderie with the cast and crew through movie nights, cookouts and games of corn hole. For the films, Ballard draws on his expansive horror movie knowledge to pick titles he thinks will be most educational for the scarers.
“I try to show them some of the older movies, like from the 80s and early 90s, to try to kind of give them a little horror education. Like, ‘Creepshow’ was one,” Ballard said. “I showed them all ‘Monster Squad,’ they were all really excited about that. They thought that was fantastic. Most of them never seen it, and that’s one of my favorite movies.”
The selections are often as diverse as the horror attraction itself, ranging from slow burn folk horror flicks like “The Witch” to classic slashers from the “Friday the 13th” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street” franchises.
Read our 828boosNOW stories on “The Witch” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”
However, Ballard thinks the biggest influence on The Haunted Farm is the most iconic farmhouse horror movie out there: “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”
“‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ is probably our cannibalistic, redneck kind of stuff,” Ballard said. “Old farmhouse kind of thing. There’s a little bit of creepy mutant kind of stuff, ‘Wrong Turn,’ ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ kind of stuff, but, yeah, ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ is, probably.”
If escaping from chainsaws, creeps and mutants sounds like your idea of a fun night, head out to The Haunted Farm. For more information, visit www.nchauntedfarm.com.
