Brothers Gene and Jim Schopf have spent over three decades entertaining visitors at their “Field of Screams,” a theme park in Mountville, Pennsylvania, with extreme scares and frightening fun, but their mission has always been about more than just making a profit. “It’s still a passion for my brother and I,” says Jim Schopf. “We absolutely love what we do and never feel a sense that we are tired of doing this.
We love it every day. You get to be creative and come up with new ways to entertain people.” Now in its 32 season, the niche theme park caters to a crowd looking for extreme terror delivered by talented scare actors and makeup artists.
The entertainment continues to evolve, thanks to a team of a dozen production designers working year-round to bring the macabre magic to life. Visitors enter the Schopf brothers’ abnormal realm to find ghastly creatures and roaming maniacs spread out over four main attractions concocted on the family’s 35-acre farm. The building now also accommodates a chainsaw bar for adults looking for a potent libation as well as a midway with carnival games, ax throwing, escape rooms and even live rock bands.
A good starting point to a night’s visit, and sure to get the heart rate going, is a 20-minute sweaty jaunt through the plopped in a forested terrain complete with a shantytown, human chop shop and living cemetery. Victims move through a dilapidated ice cream truck and enter an apocalyptic land filled with twisted metal catwal.