Creeper Crawl: Milburn Manor

The scene: A haunt hosted at a family-owned pumpkin farm on a country road outside the little farm town of Hubbard. A musty storage barn is a “manor” with other scares set up in the woods around it. 

Cost: $9 for one attraction, $20 for all three. “The Manor” is the best of the bunch, while “the Dark” is a total throwaway. Unless you’re making a long night of it, I’d hit the Manor and move along.

The backstory: In the Manor, a little girl killed her parents, then herself and now returns to haunt their home. The “Wicked Wood Forest” is a wooded area next to the barn that’s under attack by zombies who cannot walk through metal fencing and breath very loudly but do not yell. The Dark is “phobia-based” but the only phobia really indulged is coulrophobia, the fear of clowns. This farm, for some reason, has been totally overrun by creepy clowns, though they’re a little less scary than your average group of Juggalos at a suburban MAX stop.

Biggest scare: Actually, it was an animatronic head that popped out at me as I admired black light-illuminated bubbles blowing through the zombie-invaded forest. It’s a simple diversion scare, but it was well-placed as my eyes were still glued to the shiny, floating bubbles. Oh, and the floor of the dimly lit forest is scary—wear sturdy shoes.

Blood spilled: There was very little gore in any of the three houses. Mostly, you stumble through blackness, occasionally passing through dangling black rags.

Lamest moment: Watching a high school girl read instructions from a script before the wooded haunt. The owner asked her to memorize it. Sorry, the girl answered, she’s not good at memorizing things.

Grade: D. Portlanders shouldn’t bother unless they’re stopping by on a drive to Salem or nearby Butteville Manor.