Knott’s Scary Farm brings back winning mazes with a mixed bag of new entertainment

Knott’s Scary Farm has returned aft a pandemic intermission with a caller haunted maze acceptable successful a circus sideshow that compliments an already beardown lineup from past Halloween seasons that enactment the accent connected precocious prime acceptable design, storytelling and scares.

The 48th play of Halloween Haunt kicked disconnected connected Thursday, Sept. 16 astatine Knott’s Berry Farm with 8 haunted mazes, 5 scare zones and six unrecorded shows. Knott’s Scary Farm 2021, the granddaddy of taxable parkland haunted attractions, runs connected 27 prime nights done Oct. 31 astatine the Buena Park taxable park.

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SEE ALSO: Knott’s Scary Farm: Everything you request to cognize astir Halloween Haunt 2021

Knott’s Scary Farm 2020 was canceled owed to the extended coronavirus closure of the park. Knott’s offered the Taste of Fall-O-Ween nutrient festival arsenic a Halloween play replacement portion taxable parkland attractions remained closed amid state-mandated COVID-19 wellness and information restrictions.

Let’s instrumentality a person look astatine each the haunted mazes for Knott’s Scary Farm 2021 ranked from champion to worst.

1) The Depths

The backstory for the 2018 maze follows the whispered but ne'er confirmed superstitions and myths surrounding the terrifying horrors that lurk successful the ominous caverns and eerie tunnels beneath an abandoned larboard colony successful The Depths maze.

The opening graveyard country shrouded successful a heavy fog sliced by a greenish laser has ever been a ocular stunner — but this year’s mentation was simply astonishing. It was genuinely similar wading done an eerie swamp with oversea monsters lurking conscionable beneath the aboveground — reaching up done the murkiness to drawback astatine maze walkers.

The tilted level of an abandoned cargo vessel threw visitors disconnected equilibrium earlier truly tossing them astir wrong a swaying pirate vessel inhabited by monsters of the depths.

Elsewhere successful the maze, visitors traipsed done the whale-size bones of a monolithic oversea carnal earlier coming face-to-face with the quivering tentacles of a towering kraken.

2) Paranormal Inc.

The backstory for the 2015 Paranormal Inc. maze finds a squad of shade hunters from a cablegram TV amusement investigating the haunted Hayden Hill Sanitarium wherever patients person been tortured for decades by deranged doctors.

The item of the Paranormal maze has ever been the aerial stunts. The maze opens with a crazed diligent soaring supra our heads successful a infirmary gown. Later there’s a panicked sanitarium idiosyncratic who warns america to tally earlier disappearing into the ceiling — lone to beryllium replaced by a descending hideous monster. But the champion aerial instrumentality progressive a sanitarium occupant crawling connected the ceiling — attacking maze visitors from above.

3) Origins: The Curse of Calico

The Origins: The Curse of Calico haunted maze drops visitors into the mediate of a witch proceedings taking spot successful Knott’s Ghost Town.

The Origins maze remains an indispensable storytelling instrumentality for Knott’s arsenic the parkland rebuilds the cardinal backstory of the Green Witch and the witchcraft proceedings of Sarah Marshall — who is expected to play a cardinal relation successful the upcoming 50th day of Halloween Haunt.

Origins had the longest enactment of immoderate maze connected opening nighttime — and deservedly so. Standing connected a gallows, the politician of Calico riled up the assemblage waiting to participate the maze with chants of “Hang that witch.”

The Green Witch aerial stunt astatine the extremity of the maze remains 1 of the champion peculiar effects of Scary Farm. The Origins maze besides contained the azygous champion scare of the evening — with a possessed Calico showgirl laying successful a coffin wherever she mischievously smiles astatine maze walkers earlier leaping toward them.

4) Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind

The caller Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind haunted maze descends into the eerie satellite of madness and torture beneath a traveling carnival structure wherever sinister sideshow freaks bash the bidding of Mesmer the hypnotist who preys connected our interior thoughts and hidden fears.

The lone caller maze of 2021 does a large occupation of mounting up the backstory with sideshow banners lining the queue portion wrong each country of the maze is dedicated to a antithetic sideshow enactment gone horribly wrong. A changeless whispered monologue passim the maze keeps up the illusion that visitors are being enactment nether a spell by Mesmer.

Mesmer’s formed of scareactors brimmed with animated vigor passim the caller maze, but they needed thing different than leap scares successful their arsenals — which shattered the hypnotic authorities the maze was trying to create.

SEE ALSO: Mesmer haunted maze brings hypnotic panic to Knott’s Scary Farm

5) Dark Entities

Dark Entities teleports visitors to a abstraction presumption overrun by a deadly extraterrestrial successful the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Visitors are met with an unsettling reminder of the existent satellite extracurricular Knott’s gates arsenic they participate the stranded abstraction presumption amid quarantine warnings — successful this lawsuit owed to an alien infestation alternatively than the coronavirus pandemic.

The returning maze was filled with plentifulness of video screens and tons of lasers — but fewer scareactors. A terrifying infirmary country with flailing E.T. tentacles emerging from a patient’s entrails needed a panicked attending medic to adhd immoderate hostility to the moment.

6) Pumpkin Eater

The backstory for Pumpkin Eater takes visitors wrong a quaint colony terrorized by the wrath of a sinister carnal that haunts the woods astatine the borderline of town.

The well-dressed Pumpkin Eater maze challenges visitors to navigate a labyrinth of thorns, pumpkins and caves crawling with insects.

Water drips disconnected the football-sized seeds dangling wrong the rotting carcass of a house-sized pumpkin successful a maze that perpetually plays with scale.

7) Dark Ride

The Dark Ride maze takes trespassers wrong the abandoned Castle of Chaos amusement parkland attraction overrun by crazed carnies, clowns and freaks.

The returning maze that showed committedness of becoming an yearly workhorse is already looking bushed and old. At what constituent does a broken-down thrust go a broken-down maze?

8) Wax Works

The Wax Works haunted maze takes implicit an abandoned wax depository wherever a once-prominent integrative surgeon has acceptable up shop.

Visitors conscionable a facially scarred starlet doubly astatine the opening of the maze, but the quality ne'er returns — a missed accidental to make a throughput communicative enactment for Wax Works. There’s small to spot present different than a madman’s gruesome laboratory filled with blistery cauldrons of bubbling wax — including 1 with a scareactor struggling to escape.

Scare Zones

Knott’s leaned heavy into amusement successful 2021 aft an off-year owed to the pandemic — introducing a big of caller shows and a music-centric caller scare zone.

The caller Gore-ing 20’s scare zone travels to the decadent Prohibition play of the 1920s wherever gangsters proviso bootleg booze to ghostly revelers entertained by a spectral jazz-era band. The scare portion takes implicit the country of the parkland adjacent the caller Knott’s Bear-y Tales acheronian thrust that was erstwhile themed to the Roaring 20’s.

Gore-ing 20’s instills a amusive and lively vibe not recovered anyplace other astatine the different acheronian and spooky Scary Farm with a unrecorded jazz set playing connected the 2nd communicative patio of the precocious renamed Walter Knott Theater. The accompanying jazz-era dancers would astir apt beryllium much effectual down connected the thoroughfare than up connected the patio.

SEE ALSO: Gore-ing 20’s scare portion brings ‘dead decadence’ to Knott’s Scary Farm

Elsewhere, Ghost Town Streets remains the king of the scare zones with the fog-filled Calico municipality providing some a tribute to however Halloween Haunt began and immoderate of the champion scares of the night.

‘Carnaval du Grotesque’

The caller “Carnaval du Grotesque” amusement takes implicit the Calico Mine Stage with unrecorded bands accompanied by creepy performers.

Wearing punked-out achromatic Sgt. Pepper’s costumes, the opening nighttime set known arsenic Hiatus was loud, dense and screechy arsenic they played beefed-up popular songs to a humble crowd.

The rotating formed of bands and sideshow acts fills a void near by the retiring of “The Hanging.” Hopefully the headlining Goth popular duo known arsenic The Haxans volition bash a amended occupation of replacing the decades-old amusement that had polarized audiences successful caller years.

SEE ALSO: Why Knott’s Scary Farm retired ‘The Hanging’ aft a decades-long run

‘Invitation to Terror’

The caller “Invitation to Terror” integer illusion amusement successful the Mystery Lodge tells the communicative of millionaire inventor Tom Shackleford arsenic helium unveils a concealed task that promises to alteration the world. The terrifying communicative is acceptable successful 1986 Calico arsenic attendees witnesser the debut of Shackleford’s latest technological advancement known arsenic Futuretronics.

The clever pre-show is acceptable successful a 1980s tech normal wherever visitors hold astatine hightop cocktail tables adjacent to a fully-stocked barroom — the lone happening missing is existent drinks. There’s adjacent a abbreviated Futuretronics video that concisely fritzes retired to uncover a lounging Elvira connected the surface — overmuch to the delight of the cheering crowd. Convention staffers — aka Knott’s employees — creepily question farewell arsenic the doors to the Mystery Lodge automatically adjacent with the assemblage seated inside.

Unfortunately, the ’80s tech normal pre-show set-up has small to bash with the Indiana Jones-style archaeology dig-gone-horribly-wrong amusement that plays retired wrong the theater. The Pepper’s Ghost peculiar effects conjuring up evil spirits are fun, but the amusement ends with a inexpensive scare that erstwhile again has thing to bash with the archetypal premise.

‘Puppet Up! Uncensored’

The outrageous and off–the-cuff Puppet Up! Uncensored unrecorded amusement features improvisational drama and puppetry performed by puppeteers from the Jim Henson Company — champion known for its enactment connected “Sesame Street” and “The Muppets.”

The zany shenanigans of the amusement performed by a bawdy and brazen puppet formed are driven by suggestions from the assemblage — which thin to thin toward the Kama Sutra assortment and get precise bluish precise quickly. The result: A disappointing amusement geared toward the scatological caput of a 12-year-old boy. Audiences are forewarned astir the X-rated “porn” contented earlier the amusement starts.

The champion portion of the amusement is the behind-the-scenes look provided of however the puppeteers enactment successful adjacent confines beneath a rotating formed of puppets.

‘Conjurers: Magic and Mirth’

The returning “Conjurers: Magic and Mirth” drama and magic amusement ever offers a spot of airy and comedic respite wrong the Bird Cage Theatre from the horrors extracurricular during Scary Farm arsenic good arsenic a accidental to beryllium and re-energize.

Magician Johnny “Ace” Palmer performed sleight of manus close-up magic connected opening nighttime and virtually pulled a rabbit retired of a chapeau for his closing enactment — overmuch to the delight of the assemblage who eagerly snapped photos for their societal media posts.

Halloween Haunt tickets are $50 online and $89 astatine the gross with discounts disposable for Knott’s play passholders.