Folklore Haunted House 2021 Haunt Review

On Saturday, September 25th, Folklore Haunted House opened their doors to their first unsuspecting victims for the 2021 Haunt Season with their 3 Attractions, “The Manor”, “The Asylum” and “Overload”, as well as their Midway of Mayhem!

This haunted attraction has been dubbed Atlanta’s INFAMOUS Haunted House and has been featured on Fox 5, Big Scary Show, NBC, and USA’s Greatest Haunts.

This was our first year getting to attend the haunt after unsuccessfully attempting to go last year.

Now we FINALLY are getting to attend and we couldn’t be happier!!

But would things be everything we hoped? Would the haunt live up to it’s title as “Atlanta’s INFAMOUS Haunted House”? Would be in for a terrifying treat…. Or A Horrific Failure?

Let’s find out as we dissect

Folklore Haunted House!!

For this year’s haunt review, we have broken down each haunt that we are visiting into

6 Categories: Sets, Costumes/Makeup/SFX, Technical Effects, Scares, Pacing, and Actors.

Each category is rated on a scale of 1-5 Screams and then averaged out to give an Overall Rating. This new system is to ensure that we are not in any way biased and are giving each attraction that we visit the same fair and equal treatment that they each deserve.

Because this particular haunt has 3 attractions, we are going to be breaking down both attractions, and then we will average score for each category to get our Overall Rating.

With this new system in mind, let’s break down each of our 6 Categories for Folklore Haunted House’s 2021 Haunt!!

Initial Thoughts – First and foremost, as you look for Folklore Haunted Attraction, you may be surprised to find it situated inside of a small-town main street in North Georgia. If you didn’t know what you were looking for, you honestly wouldn’t even know that it was there from the main roads. Upon arriving at Folklore Haunted House, you’re not entirely sure what type of experience you are going to get. First, you are greeted by a large structure that is poorly lit to say the least. It is very difficult to see the words that read out “Folklore Haunted House” which makes you begin to question if you are even at the correct location. Yes. Yes you are. Then, most of the parking lot is poorly lit as well so it doesn’t provide the safest feel in the world. And then the icing on the cake is there doesn’t appear to be many scare actors running around outside trying to scare you. All in all, the initial response is not great. Apart from the main structure, you can see several booths set up with various things going on in each of them, but it is not entirely clear what anything is. I honestly could not tell where the house entrance was, where the ticket booth was, or what any of the others booths were. There is just no clear signage out front. I had to ask somebody where the ticket booth was, and I saw that there was a sign on the booth that is barely readable. Then looking at the structure itself, I notice that there is only 1 visible entrance and exit to the house. This begins to make me wonder “how in the world to I get into the other 2 houses and where in the world are they?” All good questions that all had answers that would soon arrive. As I would later find out throughout the night, 2 of the haunts were connected and the exit was the same place for each, but the entrance was on the OTHER SIDE of the building towards the back. So you had to basically know where you were going or someone would have to tell you. Again… NO SIGNAGE. And then the 3rd haunt was EVEN FURTHER BACK and didn’t even really have a clear line setup. So not off to a great start overall.

Sets – The Mansion (5/5), The Asylum (4/5), and Overload (2/5) – 3.5/5 Screams – The sets are always of great importance in a haunted house. The sets are ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT when you have 3 HAUNTED HOUSES that are ALL SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFERENT. This being said, Folklore did a pretty good job with the majority of their sets, except for when they didn’t. “The Mansion” was very impressive. You actually felt like you were going through some old, run-down mansion. All the detail was there and was precise too. I was very impressed. “The Asylum” was equally good, the only thing I wasn’t too fond of was the repetition of the scenery. So each room was different in some ways depending on what scene you entered into, but the problem was it just looked like a lot of blank walls in parts of it. Like all you saw in some areas were these ghastly hospital green walls and it just took away from the experience at times until you would enter a real scene. But I will say there was one room that was so simplistically done and yet it still impressed me. That was the Padded Room. I was very impressed with how that was done, which really boils down to some simple technical effects. Finally, “Overload” was the red-headed stepchild of the group. The sets were little to none in this attraction. All you really walked around was a maze of cages. There may have been 1 or 2 themed out scenes and they were hardly themed out. There was one room at the beginning that looked like it was a control room of sorts, and that was literally the only themed area that stood out to me, which is basically what saved the set rating from being a 1 out of 5 Screams for that particular attraction. There was just literally nothing in this one.

Overall, the sets were pretty good throughout 2 attractions, but the 3rd one looked pretty pitiful compared to what was being done upstairs.

Costumes/Makeup/SFX – The Mansion (5/5), The Asylum (5/5), and Overload (4/5) – 5 Screams – In all of the haunts at Folklore, the production team did a very good job with making sure everybody had a costume and makeup. All of the detail work that was put into each costume was very impressive and well received by our team. Throughout the Mansion and The Asylum, we saw a lot of varied uses of makeup and costumes, depending on which one you were in. Then at Overload, the few actors we did encounter had some good costumes, but I was still unsure of what we were dealing with, which is why I gave it a 4 out of 5. I really didn’t understand the premise of the house going into it, and I still don’t after having gone through it. The monsters that did come at me did not have a clear picture of what they were. At one point a prisoner came up to me, or at least I assume the character was a prisoner, because she in an orange jumpsuit. So naturally, I had to use my imagination to figure things out. All in all though, costumes and makeup were still done pretty well.

Technical Effects – The Mansion (5/5), The Asylum (4/5), and Overload (2/5) -

3/5 Screams – As I’ve often said, technical effects are becoming more and more relevant in haunted houses these days. Whether it be your backyard haunt, or your major haunted attraction, you will see some form of technical effects. At Folklore, you can see these effects used in a couple of different ways. When you visit “The Mansion”, the lighting and sound is used to create an ambiance of fear. You feel as though you’ve entered into this dilapidated mansion and there is no escape. They did some really cool things in here with some animatronics and such. Another notable thing that they did was an effect inside of one of the ‘toilets’ in the house. There’s a section where you walk through a bathroom, and I don’t know how they did it, but if you looked inside, it looked like maggots or worms crawling around inside. It was done very well. If you visit “The Asylum”, the lighting and sound is equally good at creating this uneasy feeling of being in an asylum that’s been abandoned for some time. Now, while it does not use as many technical effects as the other one, there was one notable scene that I must give credit to. There was a scene that is meant to be the ‘padded room’, and in order to get this effect, they used some sort of gobo lighting (pattern light), to make all the walls look they were padded rubber. It was a very neat effect and I was actually very impressed when I entered this section. Finally, down at “Overload”, the effects are not quite as impressive. In fact, the only effects I saw used throughout this haunt, were the use of sirens wailing and the little police type lights, but they were orange. Other than that, this haunt did not boast nearly as many technical effects as the upstairs haunts.

Scares – The Mansion (4/5), The Asylum (3/5), and Overload (1/5) - 3/5 Screams – Everyone scares differently. Some people will drop to the floor and tremble at the sight of a scare actor. Some people will run like a maniac. Some people won’t do anything at all. I’m the type of person who will jump if he gets scares and will audibly say something to signal that I was INDEED scared. At Folklore, the number of scares I had appeared to be related to which houses I was in. When in “The Mansion”, there were several great scares that I got, but it wasn’t an overwhelming number either. It was enough that I was jumping for the majority of that house, but there were still a couple scenes where I just sort of walked through and laugher or interacted with the actors. In “The Asylum”, the scares seemed to be even less. The places where I did get scared were good scares, but there just seemed to be fewer places for that to happen. I walked through most of this house just sort of looking at all of the scenery and taking everything in. I jumped a couple times, but it was mainly me just walking through looking around. Then, in “Overload”, we received our disappointment in terms of scares. There weren’t really any scares delivered to us. There was one that I was looking forward to because the guy at the front said that it would catch us off guard, and I don’t think I got to experience it. I didn’t get scared at all going through this one and that was a HUGE BUMMER for me because I feel like the concept was great, but it needed some work.

Pacing – The Mansion (4/5), The Asylum (4/5), and Overload (1/5) - 3/5 Screams – The pacing of the houses at Folklore Haunted Attraction is all dependant on which one you are going through at the time. If you are going through “The Mansion” or “The Asylum”, you are in for a pretty decent show in terms of the length and how quickly you get through it. There’s a lot to see in both houses and you spend up to about 10 minutes in each of them – Give or take. However, because it is only about 10 minutes, I had to dock a scream from each of those categories. Then, if you go downstairs to the ‘basement haunt’ as I refer to it, you will find that the pacing is not great at all as the experience is over before it even starts. Our team was going through and we actually ran up on another group because there was so little going on and we were just taking a leisurely stroll. To add onto that, the length of this haunt was nothing short of disappointing. It was not nearly as long as the other two attractions that were had there. For this reason, we could only rate “Overload” as a 1 out of 5 screams. This brings the grand total for Pacing to 3 out of 5 Screams.

Actors/Team – The Mansion (5/5), The Asylum (4/5), and Overload (4/5) -

4/5 Screams – The actors and team members at Folklore are very devoted to their jobs. This is evident from every interaction that we had with them. The first booth I went up to, I spoke to the marketing manager and he was so thrilled to speak with me and have me there. I spoke with the people at the front of each house and they were beaming from ear to ear and insisted that I would have a great time and could I tell that they were happy I was there. The actors inside were incredibly devoted to each of their roles throughout each house. Not a soul broke character that I could tell. The only reason that this received a 4 out of 5 Screams for Actors/Team, was because when I went inside both “The Asylum” and “Overload”, there were not as many actors as I was hoping there would be. That being said, the ones that were in both remained devoted and stayed in character for the entirety of the time we were in there, so that’s why we only took 1 Scream from them, NONETHELESS, we still would’ve preferred A LOT MORE actors in “Overload”, and some more in “The Asylum”. All in all though the team and actors were very friendly and seemed to enjoy what they were doing. They all supported each other and all knew each other, and had a genuine excitement about coming to work. That’s the best thing they can have.

Overall Rating: 4 Screams

Overall, Folklore Haunted House is a great one to go to, but you have to be prepared for what you may encounter on the trip. You may go into “The Manor” or “The Asylum” thinking it was AMAZING, but may leave “Overload” slightly underwhelmed. This being said, I know that the team here worked very hard to make this haunt a reality and I commend them for their great work. I know that it takes a village to do what they do, and that does not go unnoticed. While yes, they did have some flaws that did point out, they are still a great haunt in my opinion. They just have some minor things that they need to go in and re-evaluate, and potentially fix. Maybe it won’t be fixed this year, and maybe it will. Either way, we still enjoyed our trip there and will definitely be returning for the 2022 Haunt Season, as well as some of their special events that they are planning on having. The Social Media Manager informed me that they will be doing a Christmas Haunt, a Valentine’s Day haunt, and finally an 80s Themed Haunt, so we are definitely going to be returning to get some coverage on all of these awesome nights.

Congratulations Folklore on your 4 Scream Rating. You worked hard and your team definitely deserves it. I do look forward to returning next season and some time for the special events.

I hope that everyone gets a chance to go check out Folklore Haunted House this season, and be sure to let us know what YOU think. We’d love to hear some of your thoughts.

Keep reading below to see how you can get tickets for your trip to Folklore Haunted House!

Folklore Haunted House Ticket Info:

You can purchase tickets when you arrive at Folklore Haunted House, or you can purchase tickets online. All tickets are good for any date in the haunt season.

General Admission

Admission to all three haunted houses. Wait time varies.

$25.99 - $28.99

RIP Admission

General Admission PLUS enter the Fast Pass Line, usually ~1/3 the wait.

Add $15

Individual Buys

Purchase admission to any one of our three haunted houses. The Manor: $14, Asylum '67: $14, Overload: $8, The Last Ride: $5

$5.00 - $14.00

Folklore Haunted House will be open on select evenings from September 25th – November 6th , with some special events happening on select evenings: Check out Folklore’s Website for more information

Every night the attraction will open at 7:30pm and will end at a different time depending on which evening you are attending. Be sure to check out their website and calendar for those specific dates.

Follow Their Social Media For More Information & To Keep Up With Them:

Facebook: Folklore Haunted House (@folklorehauntedhouse)

Instagram: @folklore.hauntedhouse

Twitter: @FolkloreHaunt

Snapchat: folklorehauntedhouse

YouTube: Folklore Haunted House

Website: https://folklorehauntedhouse.com/

Location: 5389 N Main St. Acworth, GA 30101

Be Sure To Go Check Out Folklore Haunted House

This Season And Let Us Know What You Think!!

Maybe You Don’t Agree With Our Rating!

You Can Send In Your Thoughts To Us

And Play Along At Home As Well!!

We’d Love To Hear From You!!

Until Next Time,

Be Safe Out There,

Don’t Text And Drive,

And Be Excellent To Each Other!

Take Care Everybody!!