After a brief talk with that guy with the red tie, he recommended that I should check out Doomsday in Athens AL. He had visited with another friend of ours previously and said friend was quoted to saying “Do you know who would love this place? Andy!”. Needless to say that was all the convincing it took for me to head that way and see it for myself, so I took the road trip up to have a gander. As I pulled up to the place, I was greeted by a quite colorful façade, all greens and purples with a giant sign that read “DOOMSDAY”. Surely this was the place. There were staff near the entrance directing where to park, and I was motioned to park right next to their hearse. Great start thus far! I walked up to the ticket booth and purchased tickets for the main trail and their corn maze (a corn maze in Alabama? Not unheard of, but rare). The gates opened at 7 but the attractions were kicked off a half hour later by a small fireworks display and a monster parade of the cast, followed by a big honking truck! The show had officially begun. First up was the corn maze. My group was directed to the entrance and was let loose within the maze. It was sparsely manned, with only a small handful of actual scenes, but the twisting nature of the maze along with the “choose your own path” approach made up for the lack of creatures within. After about 30 minutes of navigating the maze back and forth, I finally made my way back out and on to the main attraction: the woods trail. My group was brought into a creepy yet oddly cozy cabin and given the spiel on the rules. Pretty standard stuff for the most part: don’t touch the actors, keep your stuff in your pockets, no smoking, but they had one rather unique catch. We were allowed to take selfies with the actors so long as we didn’t use a flash. First time I’ve ever seen that allowance on the actual trail of a haunt. They also stressed that this was an interactive attraction, meaning that the actors would act and react as much or as little as you did. I knew I was in for quite the treat! I had led the group at first, but that soon changed as we progressed. Everyone else was going through to get a scare, while for me it was playtime! The actors did great in their roles as my group proceeded, especially with me stopping every so often to interact. Stand outs were the freakshow diner manager who tried to sell me “vegan” ice cream, the lady trying to strike a business deal for organs and parts, and the twins at the end (I did not expect that one!).
It was a fun experience and if you’re haunt crawling around that area, it’s definitely one to put on the list.
