The spirit of Halloween is back and at Knott’s Scary Farm;it is bigger and better than ever before! With 11 haunted mazes, two shows and 1,000 monsters lurking through the fog, whatever your biggest fear is; be prepared to face it when you attend.
The spirit of Halloween is back and at Knott’s Scary Farm;it is bigger and better than ever before! With 11 haunted mazes, two shows and 1,000 monsters lurking through the fog, whatever your biggest fear is; be prepared to face it when you attend.
Now, honesty is the best policy and I must say that attending opening night of KSF was a nightmare within itself. From, the Special Ops: Infected-Patient Zero maze being two hours behind; the Pinocchio Unstrung maze being out of order for close to 20 minutes and Mistress of the Dark, Elvira cracking one boob joke too many during her Elvira’s Asylum show. One thing for sure, there is plenty of time for easy improvements through Oct. 31.
The 11 mazes were all unique, put together nicely and each had a story behind them. Some were returning mazes from previous years and the newest, PARANORMAL, INC. and The Dead Winter were each as bone-chilling as their title.
Daniel Miller, Entertainment Designer of many of the mazes shared what he wants fans to take home after they leave KSF.
“I always want when I design something, that it is not just for “boo” scares, Iwant them to think about it. So, when they go home, sitting in their bed late at night and their eyes are about to close, that they hear something in the distance and they may think “What just happened or what just followed me home?””
Outside of that, the 1,000 ghoulish creatures did a job well done lurking through the fog-landed scare zones. So much so, a young lady and her friends took off running through the fog after a terrifying surprise. She was so afraid, that she dropped her jacket. Lucky for her, the monster proceeded through the fog after thembut with her jacket at hand. So, if you enjoy getting absolutely freaked out to the point of dropping your belongings, Knott’s Scary Farm is the place to be.
As for the two shows, “The Hanging” and “Elvira’s Asylum” was nothing short of KSF entertaining, humor; insensitive and raw. During both shows, no topic was left untouched – from Caitlyn Jenner and Donald Trump to Bill Cosby and Bobbi Kristina. The highlight of Elvira’s show was her animated dancers.
A couple of freeways away, are Universal Studios and Six Flags. Each considered as the competitions of KSF. In comparison to Universal Studios and Six Flags, the creative team members, Daniel Miller and Gus Krueger want Halloween fans to know that Knott’s has originality above anything else.
“We have a more original approach. They definitely go far the IP (Intellectual Properties) stuff. So, they have mazes that have movies that are built in, but we always go far originality; stories that you have never seen before; things that are more creative, not that they are not creative, I am just saying, we really like to stress that.
We have a lot of fun here and have very hard horror. PARANORMAL and Tooth Fairy are very hard horror. Our advantage is creativity,” said Miller.
Scenic Designer, Gus Krueger said, “We are the first. We have the most. We have more venues than any of the other local attractions. Ultimately, we don’t measure ourselves up to them. We only challenge ourselves, on what we can do better or how we can create something new and exciting while still giving fans what they want.
” He continued, “Nowhere else will you get 11, completely original created attractions. You get all of the rides of Knott’s Berry Farm and you get three massive scare zones. They say there is nowhere to hide, and they kind of mean it. There are 1,000 monsters out there in the park and you are not going to get that anywhere else.”
Written by Thai Lee
