Haunt Diary: Carved has a community-minded presence in the fear factory industry
Carved. // Photo by Elijah LaFolette
This is part of our 2023 Haunted House coverage. Read more here.
In many ways, Carved is probably the most unusual of all the haunts I attended this year. For starters, it ran for one night only on October 21, as the performers of the haunt’s “evil circus” took over Riverside’s Renner Brenner Park on Vivion Road.
By day, the park serves as the trailhead for the Jumping Brach Trail, which winds alongside the creek until it reaches 50th Street to the north. The showrunners at Carved took advantage of this unique position to create the event’s main attraction, a “Haunted Trail” that began under the Vivion Road bridge and extended the entire length of the Jumping Branch Trail.
The haunt itself was relatively short and sparse, as such things go, but nonetheless boasted some surprisingly innovative scenes and scares, often making good use of the trail itself. One of the best of these was a scare actor dressed as a clown armed with a truly massive mallet, which he would slam down onto one of the trail’s existing wood-and-metal bridges, creating a resounding clang that caused the entire bridge to vibrate under your feet.
Carved. // Photo by Elijah LaFolette
Other scenes were no less inventive, even when they weren’t taking the organic features of the trail into account. In one tableau, two figures staged a murder scene inside a lighted tent, where only their silhouettes were visible against the tent wall. Elsewhere, a scare actor decked out in a costume reminiscent of Silent Hill’s “Pyramid Head” character was perched atop some tall, lighted rigging designed to make them look like a towering giant with a massive, tent-like, glowing skirt.
Despite these novel scares, the Haunted Trail felt mostly like what it was: A simple affair one step above an amateur “home haunt.” Sometimes, however, the less polished haunts are the most fun, and there was certainly a welcome amateur theatrical quality to Carved’s Haunted Trail which, like the rest of the event, was loosely themed around a circus motif, complete with a little backstory that you’ll only get if you go to the website.
Carved. // Photo by Elijah LaFolette
Attendance at the Carved experience overall was free, and the event had taken over the entire park. Along Vivion Road, cars from several area merchants and organizations had set up a trunk-or-treat, while the path circling the park’s playground equipment had been transformed into a “spooky trail” for kids, flanked by inflatables. There was a DJ spinning spooky dance songs accompanied by strobing lights – at least, the songs were spooky when the night began. By the time we left, they had transitioned over to stuff like Queen’s “We Are the Champions.”
Carved. // Photo by Elijah LaFolette
Down in the skate park there were performers including magicians, jugglers, and fire throwers. In the parking lot there were food trucks and a “Tavern of Terror” sponsored by KC’s own spooky pop-up bar, Apparition. Parents could bring kids to the trunk-or-treat, the trail of inflatables, and even the performers for free. The only two events with a ticket price were the Haunted Trail itself and three tents perched on the side of the hill, where local fortune tellers gave tarot card readings.
The trail cost $20 and opened when it got dark. Well before then, the line stretched a considerable distance around the park, and even when we left hours later, the line was still just as long. Walking the trail took around 20 minutes, and deposited you up on 50th Street, where a bus waited to take you back to the park – although the line to get on the bus was also not-inconsiderable, and so many of us opted to simply walk back along Gateway Avenue.
Carved. // Photo by Elijah LaFolette
Getting your tarot cards read was another $10. With three tents, there were three different readers, and the one I ended up with was Allison Sasso of Veil and Vow Tarot who did a great job of making the experience fun, welcoming, and inventive, even if I froze up a bit when asked to pose a question to kick things off. The reading was a very simple three-card affair and didn’t take long, but Allison made it an immersive and personalized experience that honestly felt like a steal at $10.
Of course, since Carved was a one-night-only event, it is already over for the year by the time you read this. But this is at least the second year that the event has taken over the park, and hopefully they’ll be back next year. Tickets for the couple of things that were ticketed (the fortune tellers and the Haunted Trail) sold out this year, so keep an eye out next time around and, if you want to go, maybe consider getting your tickets early. Parking also filled up quickly, so getting there early is a good idea.
Carved wasn’t the best haunt experience I attended this year, by any means, but it was perhaps the most welcoming. By combining the Haunted Trail with the trunk-or-treat, the performers, and everything else, the organizers of Carved opened up the idea of a Halloween haunt into something more community-minded in a way that felt fresh and inviting for a wide range of people, out for a wide range of different experiences to enjoy.
Carved. // Photo by Elijah LaFolette
