In the summer of 1985, 15-year-old Tony Wohlgemuth was sleeping in a tobacco barn on his family’s property one evening in Archdale with some friends. A chandelier hanging from the rafters came loose and plunged from the ceiling, catching just above their faces. The fall caused the power line to unplug, throwing the barn into darkness.
“That spawned a dare,” Wohlgemuth said. “The dare was, ‘Who’s gonna restore the power?’”
At the time, the tobacco barns were powered by electrical cords routed from a blue farmhouse on the property. One was rumored to be haunted.
“And I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna,’” Wohlgemuth said.
But a friend took the dare. On his way inside, the story goes, he was accosted by a bat, prompting another friend to check on him. In the darkness, the two boys collided, and chaos ensued.
“It caused a big ruckus and a memory of a lifetime,” Wohlgemuth said, and one of the friends suggested that they should create a haunted house.
Four decades later, Kersey Valley Spookywoods is one of the most well-known haunted attractions in North Carolina and beyond. Since its humble beginnings as a five-bedroom haunted house with $2 tickets, it has grown in both popularity and size.
Thirty miles away, Greensboro’s Woods of Terror competes with its own impressive attraction focused on high-quality sets that rival Universal Studios. Together, the two businesses scare patrons who travel to the Triad every year in the weeks leading up to Halloween.
“You have to be a different kind of person to run a haunted house and do it successfully,” said Eddie McLaurin, the founder of Woods of Terror.
‘An Extended Family’
Since opening the haunted house in 1985—which they called the “House of Death”—Wohlgemuth has greatly expanded his business. He and his team created a path through the woods, weaving through the family farm’s Christmas trees, which inspired the attraction’s second name: Kersey Valley Haunted House and Forest. In the 2000s, they added a corn maze and then ziplining. Since then, they’ve also added laser tag, axe-throwing, escape rooms, and a Christmas attraction.
All of it is to mitigate the risk of running a haunted attraction, Wohlgemuth said.
Both Spookywoods and Woods of Terror are only open for about ten weeks out of the year—mainly the weekends leading up to and just past Halloween. That means if the weather doesn’t cooperate or there’s a global pandemic, it greatly affects sales. Adding different offerings to Spookywoods has stabilized the business, Wohlgemuth said.
“We’re open year-round now,” he said.
It’s largely possible, Wohlgemuth said, because of just how much land he owns. When his family bought the farm in 1979, it was about 65 acres. Now, Wohlgemuth owns close to 100. That’s what sets Spookywoods apart, he said.
“We’ve grown slowly,” he said. “But we’ve put the best into it.”
Spookywoods is set up in sections. The first area features the original haunted house, which was completely rebuilt from the inside out in 2023. It’s named “Endora’s House” for the witch who lives there and follows attendees as they walk through.
There’s also a replica of the Bates Motel and Bates House from the classic horror movie Psycho. Attendees can experience Camp Crystal Lake from Friday the 13th, which was built on 10,000 square feet of land, complete with a pond and a dock.
“You feel truly immersed,” Wohlgemuth said.
Other attractions include the haunt’s “Icons” area featuring some of the most popular horror characters, including Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees.
And Spookywoods is still growing, Wohlgemuth said. They change about half of the attractions every year and continue building new portions of the park. But it’s not easy.
“I know it sounds crazy, but a year is not long enough to rebuild some of these things,” he said.
That’s why staffing is so important, Wohlgemuth said. The business relies on high-quality actors who are hired at the beginning of the year and trained extensively. Wohlgemuth doesn’t like to rely on animatronics for scares. This year, over 300 people are on staff. It’s his biggest expense, but he doesn’t mind, Wohlgemuth said. In fact, it’s where his heart lies.
Spookywoods doesn’t discuss politics. But they support everyone, Wohlgemuth said, no matter who they are.
“It’s really an extended family,” he said. “There’s a lot of people out there who feel bullied or feel like they don’t belong, especially in today’s time. I see so many kids come in here, and they’re transitioning. They want to be a woman or they want to be a man, and we have open arms. We don’t judge anybody. And when they dress up, they are becoming somebody else. They become really powerful behind the mask. It gives them confidence … And to see that transition, it just blows me away.”
Working with people appears to come naturally to Wohlgemuth. He helped McLaurin, founder of Woods of Terror, in his early years, he said. He took McLaurin with him to horror conventions and helped set up his QuickBooks. And for over three decades, they’ve had a friendly competition.
“We tend to push each other,” Wohlgemuth said.
‘A Poor Man’s Disney’
They call McLaurin the Halloween Man.
As he walks through the Baba Yaga house at Woods of Terror, he points to different objects he has collected throughout his life, which now hang from the ceiling or are attached to the walls. He knows where he found each one. A mummified cat? A woman discovered it in her old house. A weathered cross? From a tobacco farm in Asheville.
Growing up in a strict Christian household, McLaurin wasn’t allowed to watch horror films. But when his friends started working at a haunted house in the early nineties, McLaurin convinced them to work for him. He would make his own haunted house, he said.
In 1991, Woods of Terror began on his family’s property off Church Street in Greensboro. For the first decade, they didn’t do much, McLaurin said. The attraction was mostly a trail through the woods—hence the name—and props McLaurin would find on the side of the road. It wasn’t until the 2000s that the business really started to grow. They added more staff. They made large, higher-quality sets.
In the last few years, McLaurin hired Chris Harder, Woods of Terror’s production manager, and Ryan Visingard, the artistic director. That brought the attraction to a whole new level, McLaurin said. Now, Woods of Terror has 22 buildings on site, all built with incredible detail that rivals attractions like Disney, according to its employees.
Some sections at Woods of Terror are filled with familiar characters. Their Horrorwood Cinemas, which predates Spookywoods’ Icons section, according to McLaurin, features characters like Michael Myers. There is also a section inspired by the popular TV show, Stranger Things. But Woods of Terror’s attention to detail and original ideas set it apart, McLaurin said.
Among them is the Baba Yaga house, a multi-story monstrosity of a building, based on the Slavic folklore of an old witch who eats children. Inside the winding attraction, thousands of artifacts bring the scene to life. Bones hang from the ceiling, books line the shelves, caskets and crates clutter the space, while witches and monsters peek out from corners.
It’s taller than Disney’s Space Mountain and took seven months to build, McLaurin said.
But it’s worth the trouble, he said. Rather than a more open layout like Spookywoods, McLaurin prefers the closed, immersive buildings at Woods of Terror. For him, the immersion is what makes a good scare. That’s why they take care to use quality sounds, music, and even scents like pine or cotton candy, for their scenes.
“Woods of Terror is a poor man’s Disney,” McLaurin said. “Some people are never going to Disney. They can’t afford to. That’s what we’re trying to bring to North Carolina.”
Visingard agreed.
“That’s what haunts are in general,” he said. “It’s a theme park for a fraction of the price.”
Since expanding the business, Woods of Terror has added new elements like 3-D capabilities and blacklights. There’s now a Christmas attraction. In addition to the park’s scary sections, there are more lighthearted areas featuring pirates and another called “Fungus Among Us”, loosely based on the Last of Us video games and TV series.
“We want the sets to be as immersive as a Universal attraction,” Visingard said. “I think that really sets us apart from other haunts in this region.”
When asked about his competition with Spookywoods, McLaurin said he works to be the best attraction around. But he also echoed a sentiment expressed by his mentor, Wohlgemuth.
“All of the haunted houses work their butts off,” McLaurin said. “I want all of them to be successful. I just want to be the most successful.”
