Well intrepid readers, here we are again. Another All Hallows’ Eve upon us and the real fear still yet to come. I’ll keep this particular report on the briefer side since my general rundown has not changed much from year to year, but suffice to say I would be a poor guide I did not take us back into the familiar fogs of Knott’s Scary Farm.
That’s not to say the event was not worth going to this year - far from it. Knott’s continues to be at the peak of immersive theme park haunts even in the face of rivals with bigger budgets and recognizable horror IP. That it still stands the test of time is an incredible feat and one put on with spooky flourish every year by the committed team of writers, designers, build crews, set dressers, techs, costumers, and of course performers and monsters. These people work their butts off and crush it without fail. This year is no exception.
The Event
In brief, the lineup remains similar to last year: 10 mazes, 5 scare zones, seasonal overlays for the Log Ride and Calico Mine Ride, 3 shows and some show beats in the zones themselves. The Legacy Store from last year makes a welcome comeback, as does the Into the Fog art gallery. There’s never a lack of stuff to do at Haunt, and the consistent immersion into a busy, frightening yet festive otherworld is what makes it continue to excel.
The interactive lanterns continue to be a fun staple, and the No-Boo Necklace has been quietly replaced by the similar (but cute) Fraidy Cat Necklace. The latter is a think a thematic good choice, as it did not seem to be met with the ridicule I saw at last year’s preview event. In fact, the little purple cat was a pretty pervasive sight on the nights I visited, worn particularly by younger guests or those who have never been before. Even with the upcharge I think it’s a great way for people on the fence to get their feet wet and give it a try.
While not a show per-se, one new venue this year is the Elvira Xxperience, appropriately located in the Walter Knott Theater which was the Mistress of the Dark’s old stomping grounds. It serves as a tribute to the long career of Cassandra Peterson’s most well-known role, both a museum of Elvira props and memorabilia and a place to kick up your feet and have a break while watching a rotating roster of Elvira’s past shows played on the big screen. I appreciate it for being a more low-key offering that one can come and go from as they please, and any Elvira fan will appreciate it.
Scare Zones
Ghost Town Streets, being the progenitor of the scare zone concept, doesn’t disappoint. Steeped in fog and complimented by the weathered old buildings, it’s a perfect backdrop for the hordes of twisted townsfolk and risen dead that make the place literally live up to its name. No real changes here because why change what has worked for the past half-century?
Forsaken Lake is as haunting as ever, dark and fetid and dripping with as much atmosphere as the moss that clings to the old waterlogged tombs. Their recurring funeral procession several times a night should be experienced at least once, helping inject a cool storytelling moment in the midst of the foggy demesne.
One of the bigger changes in the zones this year goes to CarnEvil. Every year it’s gotten closer to nailing a solid identity, and this year the clowns have all been given a major upgrade. Every clown that traipses along the midway now has a solid caricature and identity, many emulating jobs or careers in the way classic clowns were intended to as parodies of adult life. The sheer variety of clowns is fantastic, and makes for an amusing area where, as always, these carnies bring legitimate clowning to the scares. Bravo!
Gore-ing 20s is still one of the best zones for interaction in the park. The undead revelers and teetotalers kill it (pun intended) on the streets of Memory Lane as the jazz band and the Hotsy-Totsy Dancers steps up a few times a night to bring the energy. That they encourage the people on the streets to dance too makes it one of the show beats you don’t want to miss.
Last but not least, The Gauntlet gets a nice little splash of medieval decor as the revived zone from Scary Farm’s past moves into its second year. Helshire feels more present than ever and seems to really hit its stride this year. Better yet, the one dedicated slider show at the event is here, now given a nice thematic story tying the feats and stunts of the sliders into the twisted lore of the Gauntlet. I’m really happy to see this zone grow!
The Mazes
I admit, the main reason I write a lot of these reports is I love talking about the mazes, and while I’m not sure how many care for my preferential list, this is always the fun part.
Two new mazes this year replace The Depths and Dark Entities respectively, keeping our total at 10, a robust number compared to a lot of theme park peers to Scary Farm. Quantity here never seems to effect quality, and all of them are standout examples of scary delights, even if my biases say otherwise; there is no such thing as a bad maze here.
10 - The Chilling Chambers
I think my opinion of the Chilling Chambers has improved since last year, but not by much. It remains at the bottom chiefly because I still think the C3 section is obnoxious and the farting elephants are the fecal icing on that particular cake, but I still think the maze is a fine tribute to Scary Farm’s past and the good sections of the maze help it stand up on its own.
9 - Wax Works
Dr. Scratch is about to pack up his art and burn the museum down for the insurance money (or to cover his tracks) because this is the final year for Wax Works. This does feel like the right time for it to go, and I will remember it fondly for its grisly and demented themes of art, wax and plastic surgery.
8 - Bloodline 1842
More surprising to me is the news that this is also the swan song of Bloodline. My best guess is that the maze lost something of its appeal without the shooting gallery aspect, though in all honesty I prefer this current incarnation. Everyone has an opinion and they are valid, but I can say I liked both iterations of this maze and am glad to walk the streets of Valdonia one more time and genuinely admire its set pieces and steampunk aesthetic. It just feels like it’s being taken before its time.
7 - The Grimoire
Excellent as the Grimoire is, it still suffers from the ambitious storytelling, and even in its third year I still see a lot of people not understanding the conceit of the maze or grasp what exactly is going on. The lore is very cool and the way the themes are executed remain top-notch, but a lot of that requires looking into it. I’m not sure how this can be fixed other than hoping one wanders through and manages to witness every beat and cue; otherwise it’s just a black-and-white pastiche of locations connected by a campground and a book. I think it’s clearer than some give it credit for, but I think conveyance is important and the Grimoire isn’t quite there yet.
6 - Cinema Slasher
Now this downshift might be a surprise to some. “But David, wasn’t this in your Top 5 last year?” I hear you ask. “Didn’t you call it an immediate fan favorite?” Yes I did, hypothetical reader. And that’s still true. Cinema Slasher is a gem, nailing its premise and presentation while not being connected to any real movie franchise. It’s got great sets, good talent and overall a smash hit. So why did it drop a couple spots?
Simple: every single time I visited this season, the third movie screen was empty. That movie, by the way, is the one where yours truly (as Rip Tupman) gets brutally split in twain by a spinning saw blade. After all that screaming and fake blood thrown in my face, we enter the third theater and there’s nothing? My ultimatum is I will restore Cinema Slasher to the Top 5 once they bring back Slaughterhouse and fix this glaring error. Until then, it stay firmly at Number 6.
5 - Widows
Sunset Rise Nursing Home for Widows seems to be having an arachnid problem. Probably doesn’t help that cantankerous old Granny Gertrude is fed up with being ditched by her family here and happens to know a thing or two about dark magic. She’s opened a portal to the realm of Arachne, Queen of Spiders, and now the place is crawling with eight-legged horrors that inhabit the bodies of the old women, dragging the unwary off to the caverns of Arachne’s dimension for food or, worse, to create more progeny…
Arachnophobia is a pretty primal fear, and it surprises me it took this long for there to be this sort of spider-themed maze at Haunt, but it certainly delivers. Widows is an incredibly surreal maze, especially once you pass through the portal from the old folks’ home into the spider world of web-filled caverns. Corridors undulate, walls have glowing spidery eyes, and webs dangle everywhere. I genuinely got turned around in the maze and felt like I was going deeper and deeper into a Hellish netherworld. Creepy, clever and cool, Widows is absolutely a winner.
4 - Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman
Here’s a fairy tale for you: once upon a time, a young orphan boy who was bullied by his peers fled into the woods outside his village. He would have perished if not for the seeming kindness of a wood sprite, who melded the boy with a tree and transformed him into something not altogether human. Unfortunately for the village, the boy did not forget the injustice brought on him, and with his newfound power began to pray on the people of the town by night. Those children who were cruel or mean would soon find themselves paralyzed in their beds, watching as a dark figure slowly gnawed their fingers away, one at a time, until only one finger remained. But soon, it wasn’t just the children who Eight Fingers Nine preyed upon…
Widows and Eight Fingers Nine are just about equal in my estimation, so its position boils down purely to personal preference. Eight Fingers Nine tells a definitive story, and unlike The Grimoire has zero trouble making it abundantly clear what is happening. Though the colors are subdued, there is a vibrancy to the maze that makes it feel like traveling into a storybook, and that’s where the cautionary boogeyman story takes over, following the process like you’re moving between the segments of the story and addressed by a rhyming narration as you go. This gives really good colonial folk horror vibes, and the scares within are varied and startling.
(And, unlike Cinema Slasher, you can see me in this maze through one of the Boogeyman’s many portals. If you happen to spot an asshole teenager harassing goats in a barn, then please don’t tell Eight Fingers where I am. I was just trying to, uh, get their goats. Get it?)
3 - Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind
What can I say about Mesmer that hasn’t already been said in past Fog Reports? It’s twisted, dreamlike, chilling and unsettling and perfectly captures that macabre circus and freak show aesthetic. I may know it well, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying being immersed in Mesmer’s hypnotic patterns year after year.
2 - Room 13
Room 13 enters its second year with grace and sinister style, not noticeably different from its debut but as strong as it started. It ties everything in the Gore-ing 20s together and presents an overall picture of the fallen decadence of the area and the depravity the Devil’s Elixir has wrought.
1 - Origins: The Curse of Calico
I think this might be my bias for the Green Witch now, since this maze has been for Calico what Room 13 is for Gore-ing 20s and it still only just manages to edge out the previous maze as my favorite. That’s got to be the reason. That, or maybe I just love Origins for being an overall tribute to Ghost Town and the history of Knott’s. It is the ultimate example of how the story initially told organically by the monsters has become the lore of the event, and Origins keeps getting that legend across in the best way possible: by putting you in it.
The Shows
I’ve stated in the past that the shows were never my main draw compared to the mazes and zones, but I like to make sure I take the time during the season to enjoy them, as they bring on a lot of quite talented people that do amazing work.
The Calico Mine Stage still features the Carnaval du Grotesque, with its circus feats and high-stakes acts on full display to anyone walking by. The outdoor venue lends itself to letting the spectacle naturally draw people in, and is a great watch if you’re just pausing for a moment to pass by or committing from the begging to take it in.
The Hanging is still a mixed bag for me, as it feels like you need to be in the right mood to enjoy its irreverent pop-culture evisceration (figuratively and literally) and deeply groan-inducing jokes that are dated the moment they let them fly. It’s still one of the only places you’ll see a dedicated stunt show at Knott’s anymore - a fact lamented by many old-timers who remember when the Wagon Camp had them regularly - and I am happy it’s there if mainly for the sake of the people who are big fans. It’s just not my thing.
The third show at the Birdcage Theater is Conjurers, a rotating series of magicians and illusionists who bring their sleight-of-hand to Scary Farm. The night I attended had Johnny Ace Palmer doing some surprising close-up magic that is seriously impressive, thought I think Snowball the rabbit (pictured above) that he pulled out of a hat early on stole the show; she just kept chilling in the hat off to the side for the whole performance afterward! Joking aside, I felt like Conjurers was a pleasant and mystifying experience and that kind of magic is always worth a detour from your night’s terrors to enjoy.
Final Thoughts
Full disclosure, but I’ve now been working at Knott’s Berry Farm for the last three years and see it go through its many seasons and phases on a regular basis. As much as I enjoy my job, some of the charm and whimsy can get buried under the daily grind of being there, I don’t make a habit of visiting very often when I’m already there a lot of the time anyway.
But Scary Farm is the exception, because it is a legitimate testament to everyone I mentioned above that the place I work can feel so staggeringly different when atmospheric lighting, fog and roaming creatures are applied. It’s magical in a way that’s hard to describe, a transformation so simple yet so complete it makes my workplace a surreal, supernatural nightmare world when the sun goes down.
I keep coming back to Scary Farm because, more than any other theme park haunt I’ve visited, it feels steadfast in its ability to make the whole property an immersive Halloween landscape. That I can still feel that escapism is something I cherish in the face of so much existential dread in the world, and it’s weird to say when a place that is meant to scare you is somehow a familiar comfort.
That said, thank you for joining me on this sojourn, intrepid readers. Get out and enjoy the last night of October, and I’ll see you in the fog.