Knott’s Scary Farm has returned after a pandemic pause with a new haunted maze set in a circus sideshow that compliments an already strong lineup from past Halloween seasons that put the emphasis on high quality set design, storytelling and scares.
The 48th season of Halloween Haunt kicked off on Thursday, Sept. 16 at Knott’s Berry Farm with eight haunted mazes, five scare zones and six live shows. Knott’s Scary Farm 2021, the granddaddy of theme park haunted attractions, runs on 27 select nights through Oct. 31 at the Buena Park theme park.
SEE ALSO: Knott’s Scary Farm: Everything you need to know about Halloween Haunt 2021
Knott’s Scary Farm 2020 was canceled due to the extended coronavirus closure of the park. Knott’s offered the Taste of Fall-O-Ween food festival as a Halloween season replacement while theme park attractions remained closed amid state-mandated COVID-19 health and safety restrictions.
Let’s take a closer look at all the haunted mazes for Knott’s Scary Farm 2021 with tandem reviews and rankings from Orange County Register theme park reporters Brady MacDonald and Kelli Skye Fadroski.
1) The Depths
The backstory for the 2018 maze follows the whispered but never confirmed superstitions and myths surrounding the terrifying horrors that lurk in the ominous caverns and eerie tunnels beneath an abandoned port village in The Depths maze.
Brady
The opening graveyard scene shrouded in a thick fog sliced by a green laser has always been a visual stunner — but this year’s version was simply astonishing. It was truly like wading through an eerie swamp with sea monsters lurking just beneath the surface — reaching up through the murkiness to grab at maze walkers.
The tilted floor of an abandoned cargo ship threw visitors off balance before really tossing them around inside a swaying pirate ship inhabited by monsters of the depths.
Elsewhere in the maze, visitors traipsed through the whale-size bones of a massive sea creature before coming face-to-face with the quivering tentacles of a towering kraken.
Kelli
An amazing use of technology with great sound effects and set pieces that completely immerse guests into the story as they navigate their way through the caves.
Wading through the foggy waters leaves hearts pounding and an uneasy feeling about what lurks beneath the surface.
Like with Mesmer, hit this one twice and keep your eyes wide open.
2) Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind
The new Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind haunted maze descends into the eerie world of madness and torture beneath a traveling carnival tent where sinister sideshow freaks do the bidding of Mesmer the hypnotist who preys on our inner thoughts and hidden fears.
Brady
The only new maze of 2021 does a great job of setting up the backstory with sideshow banners lining the queue while inside every room of the maze is dedicated to a different sideshow act gone horribly wrong. A constant whispered monologue throughout the maze keeps up the illusion that visitors are being put under a spell by Mesmer.
Mesmer’s cast of scareactors brimmed with animated energy throughout the new maze, but they needed something other than jump scares in their arsenals — which shattered the hypnotic state the maze was trying to create.
Kelli
A dizzying adventure through a demented traveling circus with hallways that tilt, rooms with shifting floors and a test of skill as you’re walking a tightrope.
The maze soundtrack is equally as disorienting, aimed at putting guests into a trance-like state as an array of carnies swoop in for the scare.
Go through this one twice if you have the chance because there’s a lot you’ll miss the first time.
SEE ALSO: Mesmer haunted maze brings hypnotic terror to Knott’s Scary Farm
3) Paranormal Inc.
The backstory for the 2015 Paranormal Inc. maze finds a team of ghost hunters from a cable TV show investigating the haunted Hayden Hill Sanitarium where patients have been tortured for decades by deranged doctors.
Brady
The highlight of the Paranormal maze has always been the aerial stunts. The maze opens with a crazed patient soaring above our heads in a hospital gown.
Later there’s a panicked sanitarium worker who warns us to run before disappearing into the ceiling — only to be replaced by a descending hideous monster. But the best aerial trick involved a sanitarium occupant crawling on the ceiling — attacking maze visitors from above.
Kelli
A ghost hunting adventure with a lot of action, Paranormal Inc. messes with the senses as ghosts popping up on screens serve as distractions while live actors pounce for a scare.
Paranormal Inc. is filled with some fun gags where you can get separated from your group and split off into different directions as the spirits in the haunted hospital relentlessly stalk their victims.
4) Origins: The Curse of Calico
The Origins: The Curse of Calico haunted maze drops visitors into the middle of a witch trial taking place in Knott’s Ghost Town.
Brady and Kelli
The Origins maze remains an essential storytelling tool for Knott’s as the park rebuilds the central backstory of the Green Witch and the witchcraft trial of Sarah Marshall — who is expected to play a key role in the upcoming 50th anniversary of Halloween Haunt.
Origins had the longest line of any maze on opening night — and deservedly so. Standing on a gallows, the mayor of Calico riled up the crowd waiting to enter the maze with chants of “Hang that witch.”
The Green Witch aerial stunt at the end of the maze remains one of the best special effects of Scary Farm. The Origins maze also contained the single best scare of the evening — with a possessed Calico showgirl laying in a coffin where she mischievously smiles at maze walkers before leaping toward them.
5) Dark Ride
The Dark Ride maze takes trespassers inside the abandoned Castle of Chaos amusement park attraction overrun by crazed carnies, clowns and freaks.
Brady
The returning maze that showed promise of becoming an annual workhorse is already looking tired and old.
At what point does a broken-down ride become a broken-down maze?
Kelli
Like something straight out of Rob Zombie’s “House of 1000 Corpses,” Dark Ride: Castle of Chaos sure does feel like Captain Spaulding’s Murder Ride.
Castle of Chaos is a low-budget roadside carnival ride gone terribly wrong with murderous clowns strategically hidden among broken down and decaying props.
This maze made me so uneasy I got scared by a piece of furniture. Yes, even the furniture is scary.
6) Wax Works
The Wax Works haunted maze takes over an abandoned wax museum where a once-prominent plastic surgeon has set up shop.
Brady
Visitors meet a facially scarred starlet twice at the beginning of the maze, but the character never returns — a missed opportunity to create a throughput story line for Wax Works.
There’s little to see here other than a madman’s gruesome laboratory filled with hot cauldrons of bubbling wax — including one with a scareactor struggling to escape.
Kelli
Wax museums and wax figures are already frightening, but add in the story line with actual people being dipped in piping hot wax to form such figures and you’ve got a terrifying attraction.
Big, elaborate sets coupled with monsters with half-melted faces make for several jumpy moments.
7) Pumpkin Eater
The backstory for Pumpkin Eater takes visitors inside a quaint village terrorized by the wrath of a sinister creature that haunts the woods at the edge of town.
Brady
The well-dressed Pumpkin Eater maze challenges visitors to navigate a labyrinth of thorns, pumpkins and caves crawling with insects.
Water drips off the football-sized seeds dangling inside the rotting carcass of a house-sized pumpkin in a maze that constantly plays with scale.
Kelli
The Pumpkin Eater maze is a classic that feels like it has run its course. There weren’t as many actors inside so the scares were at a minimum.
However, it is fun to pretend you’re on the inside of a pumpkin, just waiting for your insides to be scooped out and then thrown on someone’s front porch as a jack-o’-lantern to rot until Halloween.
8) Dark Entities
Dark Entities teleports visitors to a space station overrun by a deadly extraterrestrial in the farthest reaches of the galaxy.
Brady
Visitors are met with an unsettling reminder of the real world outside Knott’s gates as they enter the stranded space station amid quarantine warnings — in this case due to an alien infestation rather than the coronavirus pandemic.
The returning maze was filled with plenty of video screens and lots of lasers — but few scareactors. A terrifying hospital scene with flailing E.T. tentacles emerging from a patient’s entrails needed a panicked attending medic to add some tension to the moment.
Kelli
The well-built sets in the Dark Entities maze create for a sci-fi adventure, but the story is confusing. Who are we supposed to be afraid of? Elon Musk’s Tesla robots? Aliens? Was that a zombie in there?
Dark Entities feels like an orchestra of technological experiments gone wrong. While totally awesome to look at, the scares were lost in trying to figure out what exactly we were running from.
Scare Zones
Knott’s leaned heavily into entertainment in 2021 after an off-year due to the pandemic — introducing a host of new shows and a music-centric new scare zone.
The new Gore-ing 20’s scare zone travels to the decadent Prohibition period of the 1920s where gangsters supply bootleg booze to ghostly revelers entertained by a spectral jazz-era band. The scare zone takes over the area of the park near the new Knott’s Bear-y Tales dark ride that was once themed to the Roaring 20’s.
Gore-ing 20’s instills a fun and lively vibe not found anywhere else at the otherwise dark and spooky Scary Farm with a live jazz band playing on the second story patio of the recently renamed Walter Knott Theater. The accompanying jazz-era dancers would probably be more effective down on the street than up on the patio.
SEE ALSO: Gore-ing 20’s scare zone brings ‘dead decadence’ to Knott’s Scary Farm
Elsewhere, Ghost Town Streets remains the king of the scare zones with the fog-filled Calico town providing both a tribute to how Halloween Haunt began and some of the best scares of the night.
‘Carnaval du Grotesque’
The new “Carnaval du Grotesque” show takes over the Calico Mine Stage with live bands accompanied by creepy performers.
Wearing punked-out black Sgt. Pepper’s costumes, the opening night band known as Hiatus was loud, heavy and screechy as they played beefed-up pop songs to a modest crowd.
The rotating cast of bands and sideshow acts fills a void left by the retiring of “The Hanging.” Hopefully the headlining Goth pop duo known as The Haxans will do a better job of replacing the decades-old show that had polarized audiences in recent years.
SEE ALSO: Why Knott’s Scary Farm retired ‘The Hanging’ after a decades-long run
‘Invitation to Terror’
The new “Invitation to Terror” digital illusion show in the Mystery Lodge tells the story of millionaire inventor Tom Shackleford as he unveils a secret project that promises to change the world. The terrifying story is set in 1986 Calico as attendees witness the debut of Shackleford’s latest technological advancement known as Futuretronics.
The clever pre-show is set in a 1980s tech convention where visitors wait at hightop cocktail tables next to a fully-stocked bar — the only thing missing is actual drinks. There’s even a short Futuretronics video that briefly fritzes out to reveal a lounging Elvira on the screen — much to the delight of the cheering crowd. Convention staffers — aka Knott’s employees — creepily wave farewell as the doors to the Mystery Lodge automatically close with the audience seated inside.
Unfortunately, the ’80s tech convention pre-show set-up has little to do with the Indiana Jones-style archaeology dig-gone-horribly-wrong show that plays out inside the theater. The Pepper’s Ghost special effects conjuring up evil spirits are fun, but the show ends with a cheap scare that once again has nothing to do with the initial premise.
‘Puppet Up! Uncensored’
The outrageous and off–the-cuff Puppet Up! Uncensored live show features improvisational comedy and puppetry performed by puppeteers from the Jim Henson Company — best known for its work on “Sesame Street” and “The Muppets.”
The zany shenanigans of the show performed by a bawdy and brazen puppet cast are driven by suggestions from the audience — which tend to lean toward the Kama Sutra variety and get very blue very quickly. The result: A disappointing show geared toward the scatological mind of a 12-year-old boy. Audiences are forewarned about the X-rated “porn” content before the show starts.
The best part of the show is the behind-the-scenes look provided of how the puppeteers work in close confines beneath a rotating cast of puppets.
‘Conjurers: Magic and Mirth’
The returning “Conjurers: Magic and Mirth” comedy and magic show always offers a bit of light and comedic respite inside the Bird Cage Theatre from the horrors outside during Scary Farm as well as a chance to sit and re-energize.
Magician Johnny “Ace” Palmer performed sleight of hand close-up magic on opening night and literally pulled a rabbit out of a hat for his closing act — much to the delight of the crowd who eagerly snapped photos for their social media posts.
Halloween Haunt tickets are $50 online and $89 at the gate with discounts available for Knott’s season passholders.
