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Monday, September 26, 2016

Knott's Scary Farm 2016: Keeping It Ghoul

The mother of all monster bashes is open for a new season of scares! Knott's Scary Farm opened up to the masses like a doorway to a new dark place. New scares await you with some old thrills, we break them down like bones going through a grinder for you. With the re-opening of the other worldly park comes the return of Elvira and the long time dread that Knott's has given to SoCal residents for four decades. They know their scares.

Knott's Scary Farm
September 22 – October 31 Select Nights
Knott’s Berry Farm
8039 Beach Blvd, Buena Park, CA 90620
$tarts at $40 on select nights.

"I've had to much Frankenstein, thank you, " that's was what I was telling an associate at the reception for press and special guests on the opening night of Scary Farm. A delectable assortment of Halloween treats, sadly not for public consumption, were presented including a chocolate candy Frankenstein head with boysenberry brains with boysenberry blood and cream leaking out. It was to die for. Other treats included chocolate coffins filled with fruit and a skull chocolate version of old Frank.

After filling up, we needed a chance to throw up from fear. Luckily, we managed to keep our food down while getting frightened.

New Mazes:

Special Ops: Infected; this one arms you with a gun as you shoot the brain-munchers in some zombie epidemic. It's fast-paced fun. They want you blasting the undead on the go, you're a soldier in this scenario. Maze tenders hark orders like you're a commando in a war with walkers. You feel, briefly, like you're in a zombie shooter.

It uses a kind of laser tag technology; shoot zombies and their collars change color. I'm not sure how well it works. More targets or some sort of better scoring may need to come into play. At the end I thought there was going to be a scoring system, nope. Another ride open at the park does this quite well, the Iron Reef, it keeps your score and even takes your photo.

We don't know of any other mazes that arm you, so props to Knott's for trying something new.

The Red Barn;You have to love the farm concept at Scary Farm. Creeps are cooking up people, yes, cannibalism, the way to lose and gain friends.

You have to let yourself go while walking through the unclean sheets blowing in the wind to banjo music.

From what I was hoping, which was animals gaining intelligence, speech and eating people it wasn't that at all, just farmers feeding people to their livestock. That old gem.

Shadowlands: Dishonored samurai want your soul in this somewhat 80's movie maze. A path must be chosen, this is how it  start as you wander in the woods watching out for samurai. Many heads are getting chopped off in this one. I could've spent more time in the Geisha room. It's like an 80's cheeseball movie became real.



Elvira and her boobs are back and she has no problems telling you about her bosom's return, it's part of her act/stage show running twice nightly for Knott's Scary Farm. The show features the buxom babe sharing the stage with a dance troupe in, "Elvira’s Danse Macabre."



Updated was the hunting of you in The Dead of Winter: Wendigo's Revenge. This chilling maze has some of the nicest looking death scenes;  some wonderfully mastered icicle deaths. Love the falling snow.

Nearby was suppose to be the new FearVR, virtual reality horror, but we were unable to find it, staff seemed to not understand what we were talking about when we tried asking about it.

Staff fell into some other problems with the new Skeleton Key Rooms; special rooms that require extra payment, but you snag a very nice-looking glow-in-the-dark key. When trying to enter them you have to have your pass punched, by a hole puncher. These passes were laminated and let's just say it was sad to see staff trying so feebly to cut through plastic, add to that it was dark and they had to hold flash lights. You beg the question, why not use permanent marker?

Some of the Skeleton Key Rooms are marked poorly or unmarked as Zozo had no signage when we tried to find it. These are easy fixes with signs marking paths and locations. Two out of the four special rooms were missing signs. 

The rooms themselves are well worth the experience as we got to try and find ghost via augmented reality tablets in Visions and were stuck in a room with a serial killer in Slasher.




If you want to be scared the old fashioned way the roller-coasters and a few favorites are open including Big Foot Rapids, the Log Ride and Iron Reef during the night. Night coasters!

We're sad they're weren't any special Hallowen decorations for these rides, put Big Foot at the Big Foot Rapids. Decorate the log ride again!

Knott's has kept it's horror tradition in tact. It's a spook circus of thrills to keep you busy all night. We stayed until closing as Knott's brilliant team of clowns and other spooks scared us every few steps.