Knott’s Scary Farm offers a fun-filled experience for the spooky season.
In a short while, Halloween will be upon us. Since it’s my favorite holiday, I pride myself on wearing my orange pumpkin shirt on the first day of October, throwing together a last-minute Halloween costume and binge watching classic spooky movies, like “Hocus Pocus” and “Monster House.”
For an extra sprinkle of Halloween magic, I usually attend either Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights or Knott’s Scary Farm. This year, I went to Knott’s Scary Farm with a group of friends. I love the adrenaline rush I get from a good scare, and Knott’s did not disappoint.
Upon entering the park, I was met by the terrifying “CarnEVIL” clowns that roam the boardwalk near HangTime and Wipeout. The clowns set the mood for the night, drawing out long-winded screams from hundreds of middle schoolers that dared to walk by. The “CarnEVIL” scare zone is illuminated with lights, providing a frightening, yet fun area for jump scares — unlike the extremely foggy and dimly lit scare zone in Ghost Town.
The park offered nine mazes, with two of them making their first-ever Halloween appearances. Out of the nine, I walked through four: Pumpkin Eater, Wax Works, The Depth and Dark Entities.
In the Pumpkin Eater, you must survive the murderous pumpkin creature that resides in the woods outside The Hollow. This maze was my second favorite; it was intricately decorated, genuinely scary and it was the longest maze I went through. While other mazes take less than a minute to walk through, this took a good two minutes, maybe three. Another perk was the wait time. The sign claimed the line would take an hour, but it was hardly more than 15 minutes. Don’t always trust the wait times, people.
The next maze was Wax Works, one of Knott’s new arrivals. The maze depicts Dr. Augustus Scratch, a demented plastic surgeon who has created art from molten wax and human body parts, displayed in an abandoned wax museum. This was by far the scariest and most disturbing maze of the night. It was honestly unsettling how lifelike the props were; the attention to detail and realism was spectacular. I was still thinking about this hours later while eating a burrito. Needless to say, I lost my appetite.
Next on the list was The Depths. This maze followed the story of an abandoned port village where ancient sea creatures inhabit underground caves. This maze was fun, if not a bit cheesy. The sea creatures reminded me of the half human-half sea monster characters from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
The final maze I experienced was Dark Entities which explored an extraterrestrial, mutation-infested space station. This maze was bizarre, and even more-so at the time, considering I didn’t know that the theme was until I was inside. At first, it seemed very futuristic and sci-fi, not at all scary. Then, out of nowhere, a demented and twisted creature emerged from the shadows and scared the life out of me.
I want to mention one other great maze at Knott’s: Special Ops: Infected. This maze is my all-time favorite out of every Halloween theme park attraction. While I wasn’t able to make it this year, I have gone through it in the past, and it forever changed my expectations of mazes. Special Ops: Infected is an interactive maze that is the spectacular love-child between laser tag and The Walking Dead.
“The high tech innovative experience thrusts guests into the middle of a live-action video game complete with live actors, real-time scoring system, kill streak rewards system and interactive targets, including a juggernaut boss zombie,” writes the Knott’s Scary Farm website. It is truly a maze worth waiting in line for, and I highly recommend it.
The four mazes I walked through this year lived up to the hype. While I wasn’t able to experience all nine of them, I can confidently say the others won’t disappoint. The atmosphere of the entire park comes to life with the sound of screams, almost tangible tension and paranoid awareness.
If you haven’t gotten in the Halloween spirit already, you should give Knott’s a try.
Knott’s Scary Farm will run until Nov. 2 from Thursday to Sunday each week. If you plan on going, you had better hurry — there are only two more weekends left!