The Legend at Pope Lick Review by Ash

I'm a little late getting this review up. Partially because I'm freakin busy as hell, and partially because I was torn on posting it at all. BUT in the end, I decided to go ahead and post it with a preface.

As luck would have it, we visited the Legend at Pope Lick on a really really off night. Half the cast and crew had called out, people were scrambling to fill in, and things were really not a normal night. We didn't know this going in, nor did the other visitors that night, and likely as not they had the same experience. So given that, I do want to say we were hoping to find time in our review schedule to go through again and give this haunt a second chance, but our schedules simply won't allow that. There are too many haunts, too little time, and too many other obligations going on. Here's what I experienced - again, not the norm, so we are told!

(side note: I do not own these images, I pulled them from Google)

For starters, this haunt got some really great reviews, which is part of the reason why we wanted to visit anyway. I really wanted to love this haunt. Unfortunately though, it fell short of our expectations, and given the circumstances we can see why.

To begin, we parked and weren't even sure we were in the right place. there was very little lighting, a concssion stand, and little else to indictate a haunted house existed there. We made our way to the concession stand and stood in line since there was no other signage or indication of where to go. The lady running the counter said if we weren't buying snacks we could go on to the haunt and pointed to my right. We turned, took a few steps, but still there was no signage or anything to guide us. Finally a gentleman stood up with a flashlight and pointed with it to a sidewalk WAYYYYY down the way and said to follow it to the haunt.

Um. Okay.

We crossed the grass in the dark praying it didn't have any holes for us to fall or stumble in until we reached the concrete path. We walked...and walked...and walked...until it finally turned into gravel. Then we walked...and walked...and finally made it to a path between trees that turned out to be the entrance to the haunt. It was not very prominent and an unexpectedly LONG walk to get there.

We stood in line for a bit, there was one actor hanging out with us in the short line so it helped it to not seem as long as it was. We were handed a flashlight between the three of us and led inside.

I do need to say this: PLEASE step carefully. One flashlight between three people means one person can see okay, one person can see a little bit, and one person is following blindly. I know, because we alternated who was in front/middle/back and who had the flashlight. The path through the woods is not well lit, so those without the flashlight are going to stumble a bit.

We did meet a dentist who was more interested in making us laugh than scream, it appeared. And there was one scene that absolutely horrified me. Not due to the acting, because I never even saw her. She made no move to try and take advantage of my phobia and elicit more screams. I ended up charging through it in about six steps and on to the next scene.

There were very few actors that night, and we understand that is not the norm. But it was still very obvious when we saw actors running between sets and scenes, and most of the actors seemed disinterested. Then the object of the haunt - what the whole haunt was supposed to be about - was an absolute letdown. There was a deafening sound, the goat man popped out and roared at us, then went back into hiding.



What the Hell? There's this whole epic story line with so much promise and potential, and he literally pops out to say boo and goes away, leaving us feeling nothing more than slightly startled and annoyed.

We had an equally long walk back to our car, that seemed to take forever. There were so many things that went wrong with this night, from start to finish. No signage or lights pointing us in the right direction, too long of a hike to get there, not enough scares, not enough light or lighting options, no real interest in scaring us, and another long hike to get back.

There were some positives - I know I've only focused on the negatives so far, but really I'm just being honest there. The scenery that I could see looked to be well thought out and put together. It was too hard to see the quality in a lot of places, so I can't speak to that. The costumes we did see were pretty fly for the characters the actors were portraying, except for the Goat Man. (I honestly thought it was one of those weird white baboons at first.)

While it wasn't the world's most detestable haunt, Legend at Pope Lick really missed the mark on this night in a lot of ways. I'm sorry to say this, for me, was only a 2 star haunt.

Now, please take that with a grain of salt. I know sometimes things happen that are outside your control, and that is unfortunate. I am absolutely willing to visit again next year (or if the fates allow, I might revisit this year) and I fully expect a different experience, similar to the ones others are getting already. I think this was a fluke, and not the experience everyone else will suffer.