Owned by Zach Glaros, and nestled just off Interstate 4 in Plant City, Sir Henry’s a perfect alternative for horror fans and haunt enthusiasts who are tired of dealing with unruly crowds and excessive limitations at other Halloween-themed attractions like Halloween Horror Nights and Howl-O-Scream.
We ventured out for Sir Henry’s annual media preview and were not disappointed, although we did feel our age when one Tik Tok influencer complimented our “Evil Dead” Necronomicon work shirt: “That’s something my dad would totally own.”If anything, our first visit, which was prompted after viewing the award-winning independent horror film “The Pumpkin Man,” which uses Sir Henry’s as a pivotal setting throughout the first feature by director Ryan Sheets, will positively not be our last.
Sir Henry’s sprawling campus is home to four main attractions, plus two escape rooms, ax throwing, and cast performances, food vendors and merch sales on the midway.
The new trail, Legends of Halloween Haunted Hayride, takes about 11 minutes or so to complete, but it’s packed with some quietly beautiful and some seriously impressive moments, including a pumpkin tree farm complete with ritual sacrifices and a barn of doom with a giant hog/dragon creature and animatronic body bags that convulse as the tractor passes by.
The problem with hayrides is the speed, or lack thereof, but honestly, I wouldn’t complain in this case because Sir Henry’s makes sure to populate the trail with plenty of character interactions.
The returning trails for 2023 are Moonlight Massacre, Wicked Waters and Tales of the Dead, which could be our favorite haunted creation in quite some time.
Moonlight Massacre basically takes some of the best beats from your favorite werewolf flicks, think “The Howling” unleashed during colonial times, and provides a solid walk that ends with a full-body menacing wolf looking for its next meal.
Wicked Waters is a nautical-themed descent into backwoods craziness that succeeds in transporting you to a rundown marina where creepy hybrid fish-human creatures lurk like denizens from a forgotten Lovecraft story.
What we enjoyed most about these trails is what distinguishes Sir Henry’s from other regional haunts. If you look closely, you can see small flaws in the set design and construction, you can see wear and tear, but it doesn’t matter because the ambition and the effort more than compensates.
You enter through a castle door into a candlelit sacrifice, and then quickly descend into madness. This trail takes guests on and on, down dark corridors, through a child’s bedroom, past an elaborate dining table, and on some more, until it reaches its crowning achievement.
At first, you may think you’ve gone too far or taken a wrong turn, but that’s just part of the thrill and the chill you get upon realizing you have to sneak and snake your way through a pitch-black closet corridor that seems to narrow as you go.
It’s a true butt-clench and pray experience as you inch through, anticipating something to jump out and/or touch you at any second, until you finally emerge into a sea of fog and laser lights to guide you out.
Part of what makes Sir Henry’s so exceptional is the fact that it places workers throughout each of the trails, but they’re all in character, so they don’t come off as being security personnel, which can instantly pull you out of any pure fright moment you might be experiencing.
This article appears in Oct 5-11, 2023.