After four decades of ghost trains and haunted houses at shows and fairgrounds, they get a bit lame.
I know at 40-plus they’re not really aimed at my demographic and I’m sure no spooky house operator cares what this middle-aged woman thinks, quite rightly.
But how nice is it to get a thrill out of something again long after you thought you were forever desensitised?
We drove half an hour to Numurkah and half an hour back on Saturday night for just a 10-minute experience at Trengrove Terrors – a Halloween-themed maze — in between.
Let me tell you, time was no measure for substance.
It was 100 per cent worth the 60 minutes in the car.
The spooky space at 47 Pine St is transformed each October into a dark maze, loaded with dark themes, eerie projections, atmospheric fog, a tonne of props and animatronics that move, glow and talk.
You might be thinking, “Yeah, but there are plenty of fully decked out Halloween displays popping up each year as themes surrounding October 31 gain momentum”, but there is something else going on at Trengrove Terrors that I’m not sure anyone else is doing in the Goulburn Valley.
Inside this maze, you will find — or they will find you — live actors in full character and costume dishing out heart-stopping jump scares to unsuspecting punters.
My youngest (13) bailed while we were lining up to get in.
The unsettling screams he could hear from within got too much and he made a beeline for the car, telling me as I followed, “there’s nothing you can say that will make me go in there”.
I tried in vain to convince him, then locked him in and returned to the line, where my middle child (15) had already entered with his cousins, so I hung back and waited for them to emerge from the other side.
When they did, I pleaded with him to come through a second time so I didn’t have to go by myself.
I figured the edge had now been taken off for him, even if his first walk-through was terrifying.
He was smiling, so as traumatic as it might have been, he’d recovered quickly.
He kindly let me go first with a devious grin on his face.
Of course he did; he knew what awaited me inside.
Immediately, what I thought was a Chucky dummy sprang to life waving its knife at me and screaming.
Holy heck, the demons are even in miniature variety, I thought.
It had me on high alert from the get-go. I didn’t trust that any figure in there wasn’t an actual human in costume from that moment on.
The anxiety, quite justifiably, was high.
Scream, nervous giggle, scream, nervous giggle, shallow breath, scream, nervous giggle, and repeat.
When I feared my heart had taken enough stress for one night, I muttered, “Get me out of here” as we emerged into the open air of the backyard, which was also enthusiastically decorated as far as you could see.
Then, caught off-guard, I’m inspired to scream once more by a figure twice the height of me whom I was certain had to be an animatronic until he moved all too human-like towards me.
I had not expected the quality of Trengrove Terrors and its frights to be quite so, well, frightening.
I’m glad my 13-year-old toddled himself back to the car or he might never have forgiven me for the nightmares that no doubt would have ensued.
I still may take him back for Trengrove Terrors’ ‘scaredy cat hour’, where the maze is void of spooky fog and live actors, just so he doesn’t miss out altogether.
The maze is open for four night this year. Two — Saturday and Sunday — have already passed, but it will open again on Wednesday, October 30 and Halloween the following day, on Thursday, October 31.
Scaredy cat hour starts at 6.30pm, then the full fright experience begins at 7.30pm.
Entry is via a gold coin donation (voluntary) that this year will go towards the Starlight Children’s Foundation and Numurkah CFA.
For more info and pictures, follow Trengrove Terrors on Facebook.