I’m not necessarily a Halloween person, but I do enjoy a good scare when given the opportunity. Ever since I was little, I’ve had a phobia of zombies after my dad pulled a Michael Jackson “Thriller” prank on me one Halloween. On Oct. 15, I decided to conquer my fear and some zombie hunting at DFW Zombie Hunt in Adventure Park with a few friends and my mother.
At the beginning, I was pretty terrified of what could happen, and I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, the whole setup wasn’t scary whatsoever, but I was still shaking.
Although I felt like a cow being herded, the layout of all of the different zombie tours were fairly organized and easy to navigate. The tours were put into different lines, and they played The Goonies as we all stood waiting for our chance to “defend our city from the insatiable hunger for brains of the zombies on the loose.” Having the movie on was a nice touch to everything because a lot of families brought their young children, and it kept them entertained.
DFW Zombie Hunt offered two options for their zombie paintball excursions: *Zombie Assault Truck and Zombie Assault Trailer. My friends and I participated in the latter of the two options. Both tours were connected to each other, so it didn’t really matter which one you chose. However, I thought Zombie Assault Truck looked cooler than Zombie Assault Trailer because of the purple lights and it came with two canisters of paintballs instead of one.
Before the tour, we were shown a cheesy video that gave an inaccurate depiction of the tour and the expectations. My group sat on the left side of the trailer while families with smaller children sat on the right hand side. By the end of the tour, it was pretty obvious there was an imbalance in the amount of zombies each side got to shoot. I sat on the side with, at most, three zombies. I understood why they set it up the way they did, but adults and teenagers most likely came with friends to escape the frustrations adulthood by annihilating zombies with paintballs.
I found a few other traits that weren’t necessarily appealing: the zombies were whipping and nae-naeing and the lack of appeal to older crowds bothered me.
However, I enjoyed the positivity, playful attitude of the guide, the music they played while we were driving around and the one scene where fire came erupting from the sides of a building close to the end of the tour.
Overall, the DFW Zombie Tour wasn’t the worst thing ever, but it certainly was not the best. I would definitely recommend it for those who have smaller siblings or those who have children. However, for teenage and older groups, I’d warn them “to beware” of the disappointment and slight waste of money. Not necessarily a bad experience, but it was not really meant for older crowds.
Rating: 5/10
*does not include the extension/ fastpass options
