Knott's Scary Farm Halloween Haunt 2010
Oct. 17th, 2010
Ah, The Doll Factory… man, I loved this maze so much two years ago. The goth scary-sexy tone, the pumping industrial soundtrack, the creepy props… Maybe it’s gotten a bit too familiar. Have there been any significant changes in the last few years? If so, I’ve missed them. To be fair, our latest trip through suffered from severe overcrowding; we had to shuffle around the whole damned maze in a conga line of other sweaty, noisy haunt guests and that is a real mood-killer. But it still earns points for originality and alluring babes, so I’ll keep coming back.
If we were giving out awards to Haunt mazes solely for their environments, this one would be a likely winner – very elaborate, lots of detail, great execution. Too bad Haunt mazes also need to be scary. This is a bright, colorful maze with many areas where you can see the Scareactors well before they are up in your grill. (Granted, I understand that the "3D" effects require the brightness, but I'd rather they toss that gimmick and just make this full-on horrific; I mean, a "Day of the Dead" theme just begs for it.) I enjoy walking through Meurtos; there’s lots of cool stuff to look at. But do I yelp much? Not really. And I’m in it for the yelping.
While this pair of mazes didn’t rock my socks off last year, they seemed much improved this year. The overall anarchy in Lockdown felt pretty intense; this maze should be part of every "Scared Straight/Stay Out of Jail, Kids" program. And Club Blood had plenty of that yummy vampire gal hotness goin’ on. Also, there’s one Scareactor bit in Club Blood’s post-“club” scene that just freaked me right the hell out. May have been the best single scare in the whole Haunt, so you simply have to go through these two.
This maze should be utterly horrifying and it certainly tries hard, what with all the meat grinding and chainsaw sound effects and other ghastly gore. But even though we pretty much had the 'House all to ourselves, it didn't quite chill like I'd hoped it would. Truth be told, since Universal Studios Hollywood's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" maze from a couple of years ago ripped my guts out, figuratively speaking, anything that aims for the same brand of terror better bring its A game. And this one doesn't quite.
Really wasn't much of a fan of Cornstalkers two years ago, and we skipped it last year, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see a much-revised version. And it's definitely better. The layout is different, he corn rows seemed taller and the scares within were more potent. It's hard to make a primarily open-air maze really spooky, as the outside world intrudes a bit, but this one worked pretty well despite that element. Plus, I must admit, "Cornstalkers" really is a bitchen name. Nice work with the revamp, Knotts!
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