By Chris Brielmaier
Your hayride pulls up to an old gas station. Workers move in the darkness as a mechanic is hunched over an old car. Suddenly, a flame races across the ground toward the gas pumps—and the station erupts in a massive explosion.
It’s the kind of oversized, cinematic moment that makes Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride so memorable. The sets are big. The scares are big. And the pyrotechnics give parts of the experience the feel of a Hollywood action show. Even the entrance to the Bates Motel makes a statement, with a giant dragon breathing fire overhead.
That sense of scale is a big part of what earns Bates its place among Fearcast’s Legendary attractions. But after years of photographing and filming there, I’ve come to appreciate something just as much as the spectacle: the people who make it happen.
Decades of Making Halloween
For more than thirty years, Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride has been part of Pennsylvania’s Halloween landscape. Its roots go back to 1991, when Randy and Anne Bates started a haunted hayride at their family’s Arasapha Farm in Glen Mills.
Bates was building its reputation while the modern haunted attraction industry was still growing into the elaborate entertainment experience we know today. Over the decades, it became an institution—a place whose history is tied to the growth of the industry itself.
You can see that ambition in the experience. The hayride’s large sets and explosive moments turn the ride into a succession of scenes with their own sense of scale and theatricality. There’s a showmanship to it that feels made for Halloween: give people something extraordinary to look at, catch them with a scare, and leave them talking about what just happened.
The People Behind the Fire
I’ve worked with Bates since 2007, shooting photos and video. Every time I return, the people there make me feel like part of the crew.
That comes through in the way everyone works together. When I’m there to capture the attraction, the crew and actors help along the way, sharing the same interest in making the best thing we can make. It’s a welcoming, collaborative environment that I’ve experienced again and again.
The family connection reaches beyond the Bates name. Many of the people working there have been returning for years. Together, they form an extended family, with a sense of community that has become one of the attraction’s defining qualities.
As someone who gets to see the work behind the finished show, that matters. The giant sets and fire effects are what fill the frame. The relationships behind them are a big part of why I keep enjoying my time there.
A Legacy Still Growing
Randy Bates passed away this summer, leaving a lasting mark on the attraction and the people around him. His family, including his sons and daughters, continues to carry that work forward alongside the longtime crew.
That continuity is part of what makes Bates special. The family remains involved in the experience, carrying its history into another Halloween season while continuing to build and improve it.
For me, the spirit of Bates is about having fun together and getting scared along the way. The cinematic spectacle gives families and groups something to experience together, with an emphasis on theatrical scares and Halloween excitement. Individual scare tolerance will vary, but that shared sense of fun is central to what I enjoy about the place.
Bates earns Legendary status through the whole experience: decades of history, ambitious scenes, memorable scares, and a community that keeps bringing it all to life.
The exploding gas station and fire-breathing dragon are easy to remember. So is the feeling of being welcomed back.
