Field of Screams thrives after three decades through relentless scares

MOUNTVILLE, Pa. — The Schopf brothers’ legacy for delivering premium scares to humans was further cemented in the opening of another season of their Field of Screams experience.

Jim and Gene Schopf started this adventure more than three decades ago on their family’s 35-acre farm, and it has come to fruition through hard work, dedication, teamwork and, most of all, passion.

“We had an idea, I’m working with my brother, we’re working with our family, and we created something from nothing. It has lasted this long and only gotten bigger,” says Jim Schopf.

Now, specifically, in its 33rd year, this mini theme park of terror boasts more than 1.5 million guests who have experienced a frightening adventure, fueled by talented scare actors and makeup artists and a team of a dozen production designers to bring the horror to the masses.

“We pour our heart and soul, time and effort and sacrifice things every year to entertain because we love doing what we are doing, it’s rewarding, and I just really love it,” says Mr. Schopf.

Let’s take a peek at how passion translates into horror with the four attractions and some behind-the-scenes history courtesy of Mr. Schopf.

Haunted Hayride: The adventure that started it all returns with a new scene and spiffed-up production values, but a tamer group of scare actors.

With the help of vintage 1970s tractors attached to 35-foot-long, custom-built wagons, drivers take up to 80 visitors per trip through a gantlet of menacing cornfields to “experience the chill.”

The scares happen within and around immersive warehouse-enclosed scenes for about a 30-minute worth of cinematic horror.

All total, the tractors make 10 stops that temporarily plunge guests into living dioramas such as an elaborate, two-story human body “chop” shop.

One stop features headless corpses hanging on massive, revolving conveyor belts, spotlighted with an up-close decapitation of an unlucky victim and her head close enough to fall into the wagon.

The most complex scene was the two-part sci-fi horror found in the SHADE Cryogenic Facility. Ranting researchers try to tame bound monsters in a stark research lab filled with working monitors and life-size tubes containing escaping, mutating beasts. Getting out of the facility proves difficult as the vehicle shakes, nearly tipping over and then dropping like it may fall into space.

New this year was a gasoline station run by hillbilly lunatics who do not quite understand that fire, firearms and gasoline do not mix. The tractor driver pulls up to fill the tank, and a truck rams into a pump, causing explosive flames that begin to spread.

The R-rated hayride relies on high level production design and visual effects (a Mad Max-style area is a celebration of metal structures) as well a collection of freaks that include a pig man eating a carcass, neon-glowing toxic mutants, Carnage the Clown and his minions, giant spiders that batter guests and, as customary, chain-saw wielding serial killers showing off their prized vivisections.

Behind the screams: “My dad owned an old ’69 Ford with a truck bed camper on it. My brother Gene was in, I think, junior high, and my sister Kim was in high school, and they drove the truck from Mountville, Pennsylvania, down through Central South America all the way to Panama. That truck is now used in the gas station scene.” — Jim Schopf

Nocturnal Wasteland: This apocalyptic-style outdoor amalgam of twisted metal, trees, greenery and decaying vehicles (including a crashed, split-apart 50-foot private jet), sports a pinch of the supernatural and demented.

It dares guests to traverse through a .666 mile long (I’m not kidding) forested trail featuring wobbly and booby trapped walkways, stairs and catwalks to escape the horrors.

Guests start by walking through a rotted ice cream truck to begin the journey. Highlights include oozing neon lighting, nonstop screams of anguish from the toxic inhabitants, rusted fencing intertwined with branches, leaking barrels, occasional flames and chain saws.

Most notable was a pair of animatronics showing an emaciated, goggled technician electrocuting a seated inhabitant; a witch floating on the ceiling of a cabin; and a thick, fluorescent-green swamp demanding guests wade through an illusion of toxic water.

The jump scares were not as numerous this year, but when administered by the inhabitants, they did deliver a shock.

Additionally, the evolution of the Nocturnal Wasteland is not just the addition of more structural upgrades but a clearly laid out path often defined by various metal fencing and ornate walls to allow guests more control of navigating through the lands.

Worth noting, the roughly 20-minute course often demands navigating paths set to cause guests to feel uncertain underfoot, with stumbling commonplace and also includes bending through a sewer pipe and cages, so pay attention and tread deliberately.

Behind the screams: “This section of woods is over 100 years old and is actually the property line between the two farms that comprise Field of Screams.”

Finally, and the most fright effective attractions of the evening, are a pair of very active mansion-style haunted houses that mix gore and unimaginable horror.

Den of Darkness: Guests survive a 3.5-story Victorian-themed mansion filled with ghouls and actually transformed from an original barn built in 1840.

The highlight is an elaborate, multitiered dining hall area with a decaying, split-open body seated at a table filled with a fatty blob of meat as the main course and an elaborate ceiling of stained glass with skeletal remains hanging from it. The area is every much worth taking the time to admire.

Walk up and down staircases and avoid getting hit by a moving vehicle to also find a room with the creepiest of doll collections, potentially formerly owned by Regan (“The Exorcist”) MacNeil, and one of the scarred inhabitants asking, “You wanna play?”

Move on to another room of hanging bodies clothed in white burial shrouds and end at a kitchen displaying something that’s created to look like “fresh human meat.”

Its pinnacle, pulse-pounding moment is not so much scary but a true test of physical endurance as guests crawl through a pitch-black attic space, climbing over a body and blindly feeling for an exit.

Behind the screams: “10 years before this barn was officially the Den of Darkness, Gene and I turned it into a temporary haunted house just for fun to scare members of our family and friends.”

Frightmare Asylum: Prepare for the biggest shocks of the night at the Applegate Mental Hospital and Asylum, a place that mixes the criminally insane with untreatable patients.

First walk through a basement research lab filled with active and poorly working industrial equipment, including an occupied electric chair, all punctuated by a variety of pungent, moldy and rotting odors.

Mangled and cut open bodies lay on gurneys and operating tables nearly every turn as screaming, coughing and wheezing inmates in bloodied and tattered straight jackets roam and harass.

Guests must walk through a room filled with mannequins dressed as nurses, a black-and-white checkered psychotherapy area and a ward full of aggressive patients looking for a friend.

The highlight of the insanity? One real and unlucky visitor (not a plant) was asked to sit in a reclining examination table by a ranting inmate and almost had the top of his head sawed off by a buzzing electric hand tool that exploded with showers of sparks as it, thankfully, missed its mark

Behind the screams: “The basement was used as the farm’s ‘potato cellar’ because it was dark and cold, and the other floors were used for the poultry production for the farm.”

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IF YOU DARE GO

What: Field of Screams

Where: 191 College Ave., Mountville, PA 17554

Fear factor (out of 5): 4 for adults; children younger than 12 need to stay away.

Hours: Open weekends, rain or shine, through Nov. 8 — Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and select Thursdays; also, Extreme Blackout night on Nov. 14, open until the last person is through the attractions.

Open for four offseason events: near Christmas (Dec. 12 and 13), Valentine’s Day (Feb. 13 and 14), St. Patrick’s Day (March 13 and 14) and halfway to Halloween (May 2).

Price range: $18 to $23 for individual attractions to $60 for a “Scream Pass” accessing all four attractions (look online for price variations and daily deal sites to find less wallet-bleeding pricing). Add $20 to $35 more per person (depending on the weekend) to avoid the lines with a VIP upgrade. Only cash is accepted at the event, but there is an ATM on-site.

Website: https://www.fieldofscreams.com