Knott's Scary Farm Halloween Haunt 2009
Oct. 17th
Anais had to head back for the next Hanging perf, so Dariush and I went through the Dia De Los Muertos maze, one she warned was so-so at best. She was right.
There was some interesting scenery in this one, and for sure, it wasn't any worse than Lost Vegas, the maze that took up this position last year. But still, not enough spooks and a bit too brightly lit to get any shivers going. I liked the wedding - I mean, deading, mwhahaha! - chapel with one freaky Padre, but otherwise, it was pretty forgettable.
And right next door, there's this great gift shop:
Cool name! I wonder if they sell mouse pads...
We took a Johnny Rockets break and had one of those Chocolate and Peanut Butter shakes. Delish. And sitting outside, we had a great view of various monsters terrorizing young women. (As advice goes, this one is really a big "Duh!" but for the newbies, here it is: bring an attractive woman with you to the Haunt. The monsters flock like starving pigeons to the babes. Anais' presence made the mazes more entertaining.)
The last run of mazes started with The Slaughterhouse, Knott's Texas Chainsaw Massacre-ish tribute.
Also, not bad. Good music and sound fx, love the hanging nastiness, the big meat grinder, all that stuff. Definitely leans more towards the dark horror than some of the other mazes. Also be sure to hit this one.
Alien Annihilation is the sci-fi monster maze and the day-glo goofiness in here is fun, what with all the bizarre space worms comin' at ya. The "boss" monster towards the end earns points with me, even if it's more neato than scary.
Late in the evening, we were running out of steam and decided to skip Cornstalkers, a maze I wasn't too impressed with last year, and Pyromaniax, the retrofitted log flume - didn't feel like getting damp. But we did do two more.
Labyrinth was a returning favorite and it held up pretty well. Awesome indoor-outdoor environments, very elaborately decorated, thoughfully costumed characters, highly original from start to finish. And the rock monster is sweetness. As always, I wished for more scares...
And our final maze was the Quarantine movie-themed headliner.
I was sure that this one, so kick-ass in its debut a year ago, would be good. But alas, it was a let-down. The opening stunt should knock your socks off; this time, it was more of a muffled "thud." And the performers were just okay, not the ravaging semi-zombies I'd encountered before. Even the "elevator reveal" seemed hokey instead of horrifying. Was I numbed to the surprises? I guess so.
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