“My dad has always loved Halloween, and my grandparents used to own an upholstery shop in downtown Springfield, so that’s where my dad started the haunted house, in the alley behind Fountain Street, and then it eventually evolved and moved to where my parents live now on route 72, just south of Springfield. It started out as just his passion and hobby, and we just kind of grew up with it, and now I honestly don’t know what I’d do without the haunted house, it’s part of our family time, and something we do together. It’s our hobby, and it’s also our passion,” said daughter Alison Deady.
The entire function is powered by the Deady family. Alison handles marketing, as well as makeup for the haunt’s scare team, her sister Tabitha Swinford handles costuming and casting, and her husband, Ben, also assists in keeping the place running. Their father Paul Deady owns the place, but also was part of the group assigned to scare visitors, up till last year.
“He was never the typical owner, walking around to check things out, he was out there scaring, because that was his passion,” laughed Alison.
The Terror Maze is one of a kind, including a trail, a maze, odd items as crawlspaces, such as semis, as well as buildings on the property. A used hearse is also an element of the maze, as visitors must crawl through it as part of the experience.
“There’s a lot of elements that are part of the haunted house. We have certain things that stay every year, but we try to elaborate, we try to change things every year, so it’s never the exact same,” she said.
According to Alison, even the way the props are built and acquired make the experience unique, as her father buys and constructs the prop materials himself to create a one-of-a-kind experience.
“A lot of locals like that it’s not flashy, that it’s different. It’s literally just in the woods behind my parents’ house, and the vibe is just different. It’s very scary and spooky, but we have people of all ages that come out to it, which makes it unique. It’s not super polished, and we’ve just tried to make it a good experience for everyone,” she said.
In addition, unlike many haunted houses or haunt experiences, the staff at the Terror Maze don’t touch their visitors to scare them.
“We don’t touch people, which is very unique, and a lot of people come to it because of that. I tell people, when they ask if we touch, ‘Nope, we don’t have to touch you to scare you,’ ” said Alison.
In the midst of the pandemic in 2020, the family made the decision to open the haunt, with very specific guidelines, some of which will continue this year.
“We made sure that we took our staff’s temperature every night, and somehow we never had a case of COVID there, which was incredible. Our priority was our workers’ safety, and people getting to visit, so we made sure people wore masks and distanced themselves, our ‘ghouls’ even wore masks underneath. We usually do makeup for all of our ‘ghouls,’ but last year we wore masks instead, and we did what we had to do to make sure everyone was safe,” said Alison.
In addition, hand sanitizer was available around at the haunt, and distancing between visitor groups entering the haunt was also a priority.
“Even this year, we still want to be careful, we will only send people in with the group they arrived with. Still, it is in the back our minds, to have some precautions, and I think that’s always going to be, because COVID has changed the industry, at least for us,” she said.
The family has made a point to do community services as well, by donating to local hospitals and organizations, and even raising awareness for breast cancer when Alison herself was in treatment for it years ago.
“We had a pink-out night to raise awareness and to donate chemo bags to the Stephanie Spelman Center, where I was getting treatment, and that year we did 20 bags. But now in recent years, we’ve been able to raise that number to 75 bags. We just give back whenever we can,” she said.
An important element of the success of the Maze is the community’s continued support and involvement as visitors, or even as workers helping run the place or acting to scare visitors.
“We have people who came to this as their first haunted house 20 years ago, and now they bring their own kids. We have a worker who’s been with us for 15 years, and now his daughter scares with us [as a haunted house actor]. So it’s not just our family, but the community’s families that are involved as well,” said Alison.
Such stories, she said, are what drives the Deady family to continue to do what they do.
“We include our community and it’s not just a business. This is our life, this is what we work on all year round as a family,” Alison said.
The Terror Maze will be open each Friday and Saturday until the end of October, from 8 p.m. to midnight, for the remainder of the Halloween season.
For more information, visit https://www.terrormaze.com/ or the Terror Maze page on Facebook.
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