PhotoTR: Scared by the Sound @ Rye Playland

Hey, everyone! I'm Hale, and I haven't posted on here too much, but I love reading all the reports and seeing all the pictures on TPR. I do post on MiceChat pretty often, but there's no way that place could satiate my needs for good ole' theme park fun.

My birthday is next Wednesday, so I was planning a trip to go up to Lake Compounce yesterday, Friday, to see their Haunted Graveyard and ride Boulder Dash with some friends. Unfortunately, it became hard to plan as the weather forecast kept changing all week. Then, when the day came, plans fell through for most people and it looked like we weren't going to be doing anything in the wind and the rain. Later that afternoon, we met up with some of our family visiting from Tennessee, and we made plans to go out to dinner and visit Playland Park in Rye, New York for their Scared by the Sound haunted house. Rye Playland is much closer to our town in Connecticut- maybe 15 minutes as opposed to over an hour.

We hopped over the CT-NY border to Port Chester where we had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Can't say we'll be going back any time soon. The adults sat at their own table and my cousin, two of my friends, and I sat along the upstairs railing. There were NO lights above us so we could hardly see our food. The food was pretty cold too- but we met up with some mutual friends and had a nice time hanging out. Afterwards, my cousins decided that they would be skipping the haunted house so they could be sure they'd catch their train to their hotel in New York City. So then our group became my dad, my friends Eamon and Erin, and I. Rye was only a few minutes away and we made our way down the Playland Parkway to the Park.

Now, I've never experienced any real Halloween event before. This was a first for me. For a while, I've loved reading up about Halloween Horror Nights and all the other big events on websites like this. I love the environments they create and the stories they tell. However, Playland's Scared by the Sound is not quite as big of a deal. First of all, the park isn't actually open. None of the rides are operating. It's just one haunted house, that is set up in the park's picnic areas. Still, as we drove in- I hit a wall of "Oh jeeze this is gonna freak me the hell out." Apparently, the same thing happened to Erin. My dad dropped us off at the main entrance to go park and Erin was already freaked out.

Inside the main gate, the big fountain was turned off and still. They had some netting around the fountain and a centerpiece of creepy skeletons. It reminded me very much of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, actually... To the right was Long Island Sound. The misty drizzle and the winds really added to the atmosphere. A generic spooky Halloween sound effects track was playing over the speakers and every couple minutes a deep voice would say, "Welcome to Scared by the Sound," and laugh spookily. People were going in the Ice Casino, presumably to skate. Two ticket windows were open for Scared by the Sound. We bought our tickets, and entered through the walkway on the left side of the mall. Near the gate, a food truck was selling hot dogs and a table offered drinks from some sponsor I've never heard of. One water gun game was operating. Around the corner, we passed the go-kart track and used the restrooms- the park's largest ones. A large banner said "ENTRANCE," and lead us to one of the picnic pavilions. Inside, a queue was set up, and a small projection screen was showing REALLY random clips from old Sci-Fi movies, (Dine-in, anyone?) Our wait was only 15 minutes. At the end of the queue, an entrance arch was all lit-up and the security guards left guests in the care of a zombie butler.

When we were let through, this zombie let us inside and we were immediately surprised by one of his buddies. These two guys got us up against a wall and were really in-our-face as they let us know the rules: "Keep moving," "we won't touch you if you don't touch us," "no pictures or video," etc. The scares started quickly. We definitely, definitely kept moving.

Most of the house followed a structure of: turn a few corners, people are banging on the walls, dark hallway, big room, (repeat.) Here are a few highlights, (I'll try not to give away too much.)

Highlights of Scared by the Sound:

- Big, brawny, bounty hunter guy shows us the way. Eamon: "Oh, good, Billy Ray Cyrus is here to save us."

- A girl in a white dress with a candle followed us for quite a while.

- I was in the front of the group for practically the ENTIRE THING.

- Hale: "EAMON, YOU'RE GOING IN FRONT THIS TIME." (Eamon goes in front.) Scareactor (to room): "Eamon's here..." (We enter Wine Cellar room, Eamon crumples to the ground in fear as people start popping out.)

- Head on table screams for a long-ass time. Us: "Nice lung capacity. Are you a swimmer? In glee club?"

- One room featured a gypsy giving us a Tarot reading, and quite a surprise. Here, the in-house photo was taken.

- Erin nearly crying in the clown room.

- One room, featuring "little girls" in their play room, was really awesome.

The twenty-five minute house emptied out into a graveyard with a few zombies (perfect in the fog and rain!) and there was a booth selling in-house photos at the end, along the boardwalk. It was a really fun experience.

Being a "virgin" to these types of experiences: I must say, I was pretty scared in the beginning. For the first few minutes, I was thinking, "Oh, there's NO WAY I'd be able to survive one of these, twice as long, at Lake Compounce!" Now I wish I could have done it again to pay more attention to those first couple of scenes. Throughout the house, I was trying to crack some jokes about what we were seeing. In the beginning, Eamon was, (and he's a pretty funny guy,) but later on he was far too busy literally ducking under Erin's jacket and practically crawling to say anything. One scareactor said to me, in one room, "So you're the one who's tellin' the jokes..." Later in the house, though, there were a few rooms that did freak me out- the little girls' playroom, for example. And I had to run through the final hallway. Now that I've experienced this house, I think it would be awesome to go to a larger-scale attraction. However, I don't know how they would compare. How does this compete with the "fear factor?" Is it as scary as, say, HHN? I'll find out someday. It definitely left me wanting more.

Then, that was it. That's Scared by the Sound. Excuse my long-winded-ness, but I wanted to put all my thoughts out there. I really have heard very, very little about this event and I thought some people would be interested. I'd recommend it to anyone within a short drive of Rye- maybe if you're in New York City, you could take the train in?

There's still a possibility that we'll visit the Haunted Graveyard this year, so look out for a report from there! I also have a trip report in the works from last weekend of a park that has apparently NEVER been featured on TPR, so look out!

Scared by the Sound's website can be found here: http://www.scaredbythesound.com/

Here are the couple of pictures I took. I used Picnik to make them a little easier to look at:

Orange/black=open, Yellow=queue, Red=house?, Green=photos, game, etc.

A look through the main gates at the classic Ice Casino and the fountain. (It wasn't this dark... Darn flash.)

The centerpiece in the fountain, one of the few special decorations.

The gate, on the right side of the mall. It was NOT crowded.

Inside the gate, the empty go-kart track and posters featuring some unknown drink as the sponsor.

Eamon in front of the bathrooms. Note the rain and fog.

The queue.

The three of us, while we waited.

The view of Long Island Sound awaiting us upon our release from the house.

Looking back down the mall towards the Music Tower. (WOW It was actually this bright.)

A hearse in front of the fountain. This is a better idea of how bright it was.