Before I can even hope to take good pictures of people going through various haunted attractions, I firmly believe I must experience them first-hand.  To this extent, I visited the Woods of Terror on Church Street, GSO.  Herein lies my observations and impressions:

I tended to follow behind all groups I was with, observing their reactions and where various staff members were placed.  I also had to satisfy my curiosity as to how the attraction features were made. 

To be perfectly honest, I tried going Friday night, but the sign was not lit and had a difficult time finding the place.  The sign was lit tonight and I suspect the parking lot will be lit by next week as well.  There seems to be ample parking space, but I suspect there will always be problems the closer to Halloween it gets.

The entertainment while waiting in line was so-so because it was at the end of one person doing bike tricks.  Again, the closer to Halloween, the better that will become.  The attractions themselves where interesting.  The school bus in the middle of the cornfield was a nice touch as well as the camouflaged person in the 3D room with hands.

The overall length and variety for this attraction was exceptional.  Some minor things I liked (mentioned later) showed an impressive amount of creativity.  Though the attraction begins with people using loud, sudden sounds to scare, there begins to be more to it than that.  The props along the way also made nice touches and added to the scene.  I can tell a lot of work went into planning this.

Likes

The "missing planks" on a bridge was a nice touch (after the boathouse).  Instead of using wood at one point on a bridge, clean Plexiglas was used to make it look like it was a drop.  Well done.

During the 3D part, the group encounters a room with hand prints.  One character's garb is black with neon hand prints on it.  This makes a camouflage effect.  This was well done. 

The "hay ride" was interesting.  It lasted for a two to three minutes, which is a good amount of time in a haunted attraction.  Characters sometimes ran up onto the vehicle to interact with guests, keeping it lively.  I would have thought this segment in the attraction would have been fairly short or somewhat circular, supposing the lay of the land and time it consumes.  (Perhaps there is more than one tractor?)  There was also a coffin onboard and I was glad no one tried something as cheesy as staying in it for that long and finally springing out of it.

A good amount of detail went into designing specific areas--such as an old fashioned meat grinder after the kitchen scene and various paintings.  It is a shame the darkness robs one of fully appreciating the scenery.  This is why I changed groups: I lagged behind enough, looking at what was to the side of the trail.  It was unfortunate people were going that fast.

Coming into and out of the haunted attraction, one met with someone doing a QA survey.  I appreciated this from a marketing and business standpoint.  It also shows desire to improve.  One person said she almost sprained an ankle on some tree roots and the person was very concerned (not just for the legal problems).

Finally, I have a deep appreciation for the 14 stations along the way (where guests have their wristband checked off).  This does wonders for keeping groups together and regulating group flow throughout the attraction--hopefully to keep groups separate.  Very good.

Dislikes

I understand the need to light the trail and such, but the lights used were a bit too bright.  I would understand if the lights were meant to keep guests from seeing what's in the darkness around the next bend, but I still think they were too intense at specific points.  I would recommend aiming them toward the ground instead.

With the way the intense lights were, there was still not enough illumination along the trail.  This is fairly dangerous and I understand the meaning behind the person almost hurting herself.  I myself couldn't see if a few places had a step or slope down at times.  I would assume 80%-85% of guests will not have a problem and will go further to assume the staff has done its job of keeping the trail as safe as possible.

The jungle segment could have used something more...  I don't remember much of that segment.

The 3D stuff was very interesting and a good idea--I will say that.  However, the spacing between 3D segments lead me to wonder if I was supposed to keep the 3D glasses on or not.  Also, it seemed like there was a tad too much 3D stuff and not enough 3D scary stuff.

Final Thoughts

It would be interesting to come back and photograph.  I have a few places in mind, too.  The problem might be in seeing if I could get the right angle on the shot.

There was so much and so many turns that I could not make a map of the place--especially when it came to the hay ride.  I wonder how easy it would be to get from segment to segment without having to take the normal trail.  The Haunted Forest attraction was nice in that, for the most part, it was one big oval.  That made it easy to get from one place to another.  Who knows?  Perhaps the Woods of Terror was also just an oval and I could not see it--just like when I was going through the Haunted Forest for the first time?

Either way, I think I will enjoy myself, should I come back and see if I can catch people in mid-scream.  Of course, I will reserve one day for photographing each attraction in its own light.  That would mean I need to spend three nights to get all of the Woods of Terror in front of the lens.  I'm game.  But it's only if they'll have me.

Note

I will try to make a summary like this for each attraction I visit.