An Unholy Trip West
Southern California Haunt Review 2013
Greetings, friends, and welcome back to the Unholy Cathedral. This week is a special edition, where I’ll be recounting my trip to the City of Angels. This will likely be the longest update in Unholy history, so you may want to grab a beverage. In case you haven’t been following, I took a trip to California to experience two of the top-rated haunted theme park attractions in the country– Knott’s Scary Farm, located at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, CA, and Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights. It was an incredible experience that I’ll never forget, and I’m certain it won’t be my last time at these events. So without further ado, let’s jump in and take a look at the spooky goings-on in SoCal.
Day 1: Knott’s Scary Farm
Knott’s Berry Farm is a regional theme park that has the claim of being the Original theme park haunted attraction. In the past, most parks closed for the year after Labor Day due to their employees going back to school. However, Knott’s Berry Farm started to decorate their park for Halloween, and now, the Halloween season is one of the biggest-revenue seasons of the year for all parks.
My friend Adam and I started at the theme park, and got to see the decorations around the park during the day. Knott’s in general is a very nice park, but it looks even better with spider webs and pumpkins all up in there. And even better, they have a mine-themed attraction known as the Calico Mine Ride.. but during haunt, the ride becomes “haunted” and is re-themed. This takes us to our first haunted attraction: The Witch’s Keep. It’s a slow mine cart attraction with plenty of special effects to tingle your senses. Not entirely scary, but still very enjoyable for a daytime haunt.
Around 5:30, the daytime park closes in preparation for Haunt. In the meantime, we booked a Pre-Haunt meal at their famous chicken restaurant. We went in just expecting a meal, but got much more. They had roaming monsters going around scaring people in the restaurant, and the food was fantastic. After dinner, we were treated to early entry into Haunt, which proved to be extremely beneficial. So the haunts began at 6:30, right when it opened. Click on haunt titles for media content!
Endgames is a haunt about an apocalyptic land where people are thrown into deadly games for entertainment. Now keep in mind this was our first “true maze” of haunt. And Knott’s is in the same family of parks as Cedar Point, so we did have some expectations in terms of haunt quality. Endgames quickly changed that expectation. It was a really loud, intense journey through some amazing sets and really well-done scaring by the actors. There were massive custom animatronics themed to the haunt, and this maze really raised the bar.
Haunt 3: Dominion of the Damned
Dominion of the Damned was adjacent to Endgames, and we again walked right in. If only we had known… Dominion of the Damned was utterly fantastic. It’s a vampire-themed haunt passing through a castle-like mansion full of vampires. The first room set the scene, and from there it only got better. Shaking coffins, eerie chandeliers, creepy paintings, and vampires galore brought this maze to life. It’s incredible how well they bring you out of reality and into a different, darker place. And again the actors were great. Fantastic maze.
The exit of Dominion led straight into Delirium, which is, in a sentence, the best damned haunt at Knott’s. An absolutlely insane/disgusting/puzzling/horrific journey into the darkest places of your mind. None of it makes any sense at all, but yet it was beautiful. Spinning meat logs (think of gyro meat) made of human faces. Forests of eyes glaring at you. Walls of brain matter. And some really well-thought scares to round it all up. This maze is seriously demented, and wonderful in every way.
Trick or Treat was a very good haunt. It’s themed to the Witch’s house, where children feared to tread on Halloween night, but nonetheless went knocking. One of the better façades of the night, and in essence, the sets and actors were again on point. However, this maze was way too short, and we were done in only a few minutes. Great maze while it lasted, but too short to love it.
Edgar Allen Poe really is all the rage these days, right?! Seriously though, it seems like all of the major haunts are doing Poe-based mazes, and this is yet another. The problem I have here is that if you don’t know all (and I do mean all) of the stories, you don’t really get what’s going on. But the maze did have very good theming, though the actors weren’t as good in this one. A good haunt, and plenty long, but I didn’t get the wow factor that the previous mazes provided.
Let’s face it; dolls are straight up creepy. I was a little skeptical about the theme of this haunt, and a lot of the actors in this maze didn’t have make-up/masks to follow the theme. With that said, it was still pretty darn cool, and definitely scared me a few times. But the showstopper in this maze was the GIANT animatronic at the very end. Think massive (probably 20 feet tall), undead, pinocchio.
The next maze was Black Magic, themed to the conjuring of Harry Houdini’s vengeful ghost. Again, the character costumes didn’t really scream “magic,” but the sets were again incredible, and there were some really neat effects, from a crazy rabbit-in-the-hat animatronic to a flying Houdini himself. Overall this was one of the better mazes of the night.
This maze was basically what it sounds like. Undead wild west. And despite multiple buildings, and some good scenes, the scares just weren’t there. Decent maze, but could have been great with some good actors and better scares. I will say that this is the only maze I’ve ever seen where an actor legitimately points a gun (fake or not) at the victims. Crazy cultural differences.
Haunt 10: Uncle Willy’s Slaughterhouse
Unfortunately I missed the picture here. Slaughterhouse was fantastic. Themed to a backwoods barbecue joint, you walk into a room with bluegrass music playing from a jukebox, but within seconds the jukebox “breaks,” and doom metal overtakes the sound system. From there on, it’s a disgusting romp through the butcher house, where humans are being ripped to shreds. There’s blood, severed limbs, and mutilated corpses galore. And it’s all capped off by the gigantic meat grinder filled to capacity with human bodies. Really gross, and really scary.
Final Haunt: Trapped: The New Experience
Okay. So this is the upcharge maze that we reserved way in advance. It promised to be ultra-intense, and really push our limits in a maze where basically anything goes. After a short wait, we entered the maze. Trapped is basically a puzzle-maze, where in order to move to the next room, you have to either find the exit, or endure “something” to get out. That something was dealing with bowls full of bugs in some cases, to the rancid smell of human waste in others, to something as simple as knowing how to use an allen wrench. After all was said and done, it was pretty lame. Maybe expectations were too high, but this was a major let-down.
Unfortunately, we did not get to experience Mirror/Mirror due to the incredibly long line, but we’d heard that it was simply a mirror maze. However, we also experienced some shows, including The Hanging. It’s a musical/action/comedy show that takes place in a large town square. They spend about a half hour making a complete mockery of various celebrities, such as Paula Deen and Bieber, and it’s capped off by the residents of Calico publicly hanging the most notorious public figure of the year. *SPOILER ALERT* For 2013, you guessed it, it’s Miley.
We also saw the queen of darkness, Elvira, in person! Here’s a pretty crappy picture from the show. There was some dancing, and some comedy. Elvira was quite entertaining, poking fun at the audience, the industry, and even herself.
Knott’s Recap
Overall, Knott’s was an absolute blast. It’s a park unlike any other in the Cedar Fair chain. There’s a reason they’re annually ranked very high in terms of park haunts, and I can see why. They do an incredible job with the sets for their mazes, from the structures themselves to the insane custom animatronic figures. They even had a “hanging booth,” that was similar to a dunking booth, but… well, you get the idea. They don’t hold back at all in terms of pushing boundaries in the name of horror, and the beautiful mazes make Knott’s Scary Farm an amazing experience from start to finish.
Day 2: Six Flags Magic Mountain
Not much to report in terms of scares here, as we mostly went to this park for the rides. But we did experience a few scare zones, and the unique layout of this park makes for quite the setting for a haunt. Also, being in the Los Angeles area apparently gets you access to some of the better make-up artists, as the actors at Six Flags had some fantastic make-up.
Day 3: Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood
Horror Nights. It’s the must-do for fans of theme park haunts. Until Knott’s, no one in my experience had even come close to the detail that Universal puts into their mazes. However, this was my first trip to Universal Hollywood. I knew two things going in… 1) The park was split between upper and lower lots, and 2) We needed to get there early to beat the crowd. I extremely underestimated both of those things.
First, the lots. Universal Hollywood is quite literally on a mountain. The main entrance is on the upper lot, as was the location of the Terror Tram and two other mazes. It wasn’t until I got to the back of the park that I realized how far down the lower lot was. There is a jaw-dropping set of escalators that takes you down about 300 feet of elevation to the lower lot. It’s absurd.
Second, the crowd. We arrived at 4:30, two and a half hours before opening. And we were admitted into a queue for early entry to the park. By the time “early entry” rolled around, there were upwards of 5,000 people JUST in the early entry line. It was a chaotic parade to the lower lot to start the night, but fortunately we were able to walk right in to the early mazes. Unfortunately due to the crowds, I only got a few pictures from Universal. So anyway, here we go… Onto the haunts.
The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven
We entered the park, and descended the endless escalators to the lower lot, and boarded the first tram to the backlot. This in itself was a neat experience, as the tram went past various movie sets and structures. We opted to do The Walking Dead maze first, as we figured (correctly) that this would be the most popular maze. Had we come to this maze an hour later, this would have been well over a two-hour wait.
The maze itself takes place in last year’s season of The Walking Dead. You start in the penitentiary, and eventually make your way to Woodbury, encountering plenty of zombs along the way. The governor’s chambers were a very nice touch, complete with the “aquarium.” But overall, this maze is exactly what I expected it to be. Very, very good.
Black Sabbath is the other maze in the backlot area, and is themed to the music of the titled metal band. I’m admittedly not a big fan of 3D mazes (I like them 2D! kidding..), but this one was very good. There were some dizzying hallways that kept you off-kilter, and when the actors showed up, they made their scares count. Obviously plenty of Black Sabbath being played throughout the maze, and the maze shifted between themes of the songs. The ‘War Pigs’ section was easily my favorite. So overall, very good for a 3D maze, but not as good as the normal mazes.
After Black Sabbath, we boarded the tram to return to the main area of the lower lot. When we got back, we took a quick spin on Transformers: The Ride, which was fantastic. And then, it was on to the maze to end all mazes.
Haunt 3: Insidious: Into the Further
We’d heard good reviews of this maze, so we knew we had to hit it early. It’s a good thing we did, as we were eventually able to go through twice before the crowd really set in. Later in the night, this line was listed at 150 minutes. Anyway, as for the maze itself– HOLY HELL. This is without a single doubt, the best maze I’ve ever been through. It starts with Tucker & Specs from the movie, right at the entrance. We managed to meet them & get some memorabilia, and then into the maze we went. It started with the screeching violin that is made famous by the movie. And then just pure terror.
Insidious bridges the first and second movies with a seemingly-endless maze. It starts with the first chapter, where you encounter the veiled woman, the biker ghost, and the red demon himself. You travel through the rooms where Elise is navigating into the further, and also encounter the room of ghosts. And just when you think you’re finally in the clear, you encounter the woman from Chapter 2. And so begins the rest of your journey as a relentless torrent of actors bring scare after scare. From the evil mother to the bride in black, every ghost shows up, and every one of them is perfected to the point where Insidious is quite literally brought to life. An unbelievable maze.
Haunt 4: Evil Dead: Book of the Dead
After Insidious, we took a ride on Revenge of the Mummy to get the chills out of our spines, and then we headed over to Evil Dead, the final maze in the lower lot. Again, the sets of this haunt are incredible, taking you from the woods, to the cabin, and back outside for the horrific end to Evil Dead. Each room features a stand-out scene from the movie, primarily the goriest ones of all. And with the clever (read: disgusting) use of water effects, this maze is both terrifying and repulsive (read: really fun). The final scenes will likely be forever imprinted in my mind. Great, great stuff.
So after Evil Dead, we did another trip through Insidious, and then hit up Jurassic Park for a ride to complete the lower lot. Then it was time to go back up top. Up, up, up the absurd escalator climb. By now, the park was absolute insanity. The lower lot was VERY crowded as we were leaving it, and while riding the escalators up, the two rows of escalators going down were completely packed with a never-ending flow of people. It was a crowd like I’ve never seen. So we arrived at the top and grabbed a quick bite to eat, before heading to the Terror Tram.
Haunt 5: Terror Tram (invaded by The Walking Dead)
The other Walking Dead-themed haunt of the night was the Terror Tram, which is normally the studio tram tour. After a 30-minute wait, we boarded a tram that took us way back around the top of the mountain, and dropped us off for a long walk back. The walk back is through a trail of desolation brought on by the zombies of Walking Dead. I will say this… the setting is quite impressive, complete with a life-size crashed airplane cabin, military vehicles, and fire effects. Beyond that, this was pretty boring. The zombies were basically just roaming through the crowd, and didn’t really achieve anything scare-worthy.
Final Haunt: Universal Monsters Remix
Our final maze of the night was Monster’s Remix. I wasn’t that excited about this maze, solely due to the concept. It was a trip through the normal monster museum, but with the music of a local LA DJ to back it up. As it turns out, this was a very pleasant surprise. The dubstep music was a little hokey, but the maze itself was great. All of the classic monsters are brought to life, from The Mummy, to the Wolfman, and even a real-life Chucky. There were also characters from The Purge, Frankenstein… you get the idea. But the actors were fantastic, and this maze, which was somehow a walk-on, ended up being a hidden gem of the park. Very good stuff.
Unfortunately we were unable, rather unwilling, to do El Cucuy due to the stupidly-long line. So we ended the night with one more trip through Monster’s remix, and then we saw the Bill & Ted show to wrap it up. Enjoyable show with more hating on Paula Deen and Miley Cyrus.
Horror Nights Recap
So that wraps things up for our final day of the trip. Universal was an incredibly unique park with a lot of stuff crammed into a very small place with a ridiculous terrain. While I don’t think their event is up to speed with Universal Orlando in terms of the overall event, they had some of the best mazes I’ve ever been through, including my all-time favorite, Insidious. Had the crowd been a little lighter, this likely would have been an even more enjoyable experience, but all things said, I can’t complain at all. Wonderful park in a wonderful city.
So if you’re STILL reading this, congratulations! I hope you’re not insanely bored. This was an incredible trip full of fun activities. Los Angeles is simply fantastic, and not only for haunts, I promise. Amidst the scares, we were able to drive through Beverly Hills, and up through the mountains on Mulholland Drive. And we also explored Hollywood for a bit, and of course ate some In n Out burger. If you want to check out all of my pictures, including coasters, scenery, and even some food, here’s a link.
And finally, my top 10 haunts, from Worst to Best.
10. Black Sabbath in 3D (HHN)
9. Endgames (KSF)
8. Uncle Willy’s Slaughterhouse (KSF)
7. The Walking Dead: No Safe Haven (HHN)
6. Black Magic (KSF)
5. Universal Monster’s Remix (HHN)
4. Evil Dead: Book of the Dead (HHN)
3. Dominion of the Damned (KSF)
2. Delirium (KSF)
1. Insidious (HHN)
I’ll bring this to an end. Thanks to my coaster/haunt buddy Adam for making this trip easy and enjoyable. Great times were had. And to all of you readers, know this… This will not be my last rodeo in the Wild Wild West.
Until next time, Ghost ride your whips.
-Dvo
The Unholy Cathedral 
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