SPORTS
The Fright Trail
WORLD-CLASS HORROR RIGHT HERE IN ACADIANA
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By Matthew Miller
n Louisiana, the chill of autumn only means that temperatures drop from 100 degrees to 90 degrees, so we need something else to mark the beginning of the season. How about monsters, ghouls, and horror? After all, fall is the season of Halloween, and who doesn’t like a good scare? Acadiana is fortunate to be the home of one of the world’s top experts in haunting attractions (called “haunts” in the industry), Rich Hanf. He and his wife, Deborah LeBlanc, a published horror writer, own the Fright Trail. The Fright Trail is an outdoor haunted attraction on 20 acres of land in the town of Scott, right outside of Lafayette. Filled with frights and fun, the sheer size of the attraction would be impressive enough, but it offers so much more than that. The haunted trail will celebrate its 10-year anniversary this Halloween season, and over the years, it has gained a
worldwide following. As one of the world’s most watched haunts on social media, the Fright Trail boasts over 5,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel and 100 million views on UNILAD, a British media company’s website. It has been featured on MTV in Europe and Asia and is famous among those who love horror and haunts. The trail itself is a multi-faceted world of terror, composed of several different featured areas. This year includes an all-new attraction ominously called “the Morgue,” and if the trail’s website photos are any clue, you can expect to be scared by zombies, werewolves, vampires, killer clowns, monsters and more. According to Huntor Dake, one of the haunt’s actors who plays Pennywise the Clown (yikes!), the entire attraction takes about 35 to 45 minutes to walk through, but he added that it is much shorter if you run. Whether guests find themselves walking or running in horror, Hanf likes to emphasize that ROUX
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