Knott's Scary Farm keeps up with competitors in season 51 – Orange County Register

The natural progression of Halloween remains unchanged this year: Knott's Scary Farm ushers in its 51st frightening season in gruesome fashion, continuing its bloody chase against a relentless rival and fending off the attack of an upstart.

Knott's Scary Farm returned to the fog on Thursday, September 19th for its annual ghost event, which continues at the Buena Park theme park on select nights through November 2nd.

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This year, Knott's Berry Farm is introducing two new mazes, updating the stunt show “The Hanging,” and bringing back a familiar face from previous Halloween Haunts.

The new Eight Fingers Nine and Widows mazes join a series of eight recurring haunted houses that continue to hold up well even after years.

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The ghost labyrinth “Eight Fingers, Nine: The Boogeyman” takes Scary Farmers into the dark fantasy world of a twisted children’s fairy tale.

The Eight Finger Nine Maze is entertaining and scary whether you delve into the backstory or not. The Boogeyman appears in many scenes and forms – but he has to push back his bushy head of hair to be even more terrifying. It's hard to be afraid of someone when you can't see their eyes.

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The Widows ghost maze brings together two types of widows: black widows who burrow into the bodies of widowed women living in a convalescent home during a devastating spider attack.

The biggest scare of the evening came from a spider “scareactor” that scurried across the floor at visitors' feet. Giant animatronic spiders leap from their hiding places throughout the maze with fantastic effect. The spider goddess in Arachne's cave in the finale is truly spectacular.

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Here are the overall ratings of the 10 haunted mazes at Knott's Scary Farm in 2024 with their debut year.

1. Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman (2024)
2. Widows (2024)
3. Origins: The Curse of Calico (2019)
4. Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind (2021)
5. Room 13 (2023)
6. Bloodline 1842 (2022)
7. Cinema slasher (2023)
8. Magic book (2022)
9. Cooling chambers (2023)
10. Wax Museum (2019)

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The Origins: Curse of Calico maze tells a basic origin story full of stories surrounding Scary Farm. It's still in good shape five years later and could easily be relaunched in 2025 to take Scary Farmers even deeper into the complex backstory of the legendary event.

Room 13 remains the best of last year's new mazes, which haven't aged particularly well. Cinema Slasher and Chilling Chambers suffered from the typical premiere polonais. The talented and hard-working scareactors bring the mazes to life – but that's difficult when visitors are brought to a standstill in crowded mazes.

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The comedy and stunt show “The Hanging: The Errors Tour” slaughters a new lineup of pop culture celebrities – including, as the title suggests, Taylor Swift.

“The Hanging” feels poorly paced, slow and, worst of all, boring. It’s never good when the audience heads for the doors during the big finale.

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Fortunately, Knott's always tinkers with The Hanging on opening weekend and with a few tweaks should be able to reduce the dialogue and increase the action.

Too much time is spent throughout the show on artificial intelligence taking over power. It's unsatisfying to kill AI in the bloody and violent ways that audiences expect and demand from The Hanging.

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The “Yours Cruelly Elvira XXperience” celebrates Elvira’s 20 shows of the last 40 years at the annual Halloween Haunt event.

Most nights, that means video highlights from “Mistress of the Dark,” playing at the Walter Knott Theater. Knott's staff turned fans away from the theater on opening night while Elvira star Cassandra Peterson signed autographs for an additional fee.

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Over the years, Knott's Scary Farm has established itself as a major competitor to perennial champion Universal's Horror Nights, fending off attempts by Six Flags Fright Fest to climb up the rankings. The natural order of Halloween will not change this year.

The rankings remain unchanged for another Halloween, although Horror Nights scales back its Hollywood horror franchises and follows Scary Farm's homemade horror manual.

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Six Flags Magic Mountain tried to take on Horror Nights, with major horror franchises and more mazes than its competitors. But its attempt to escape the perpetual third place failed again – because Fright Fest Extreme took on too much this year.

It will be interesting to see how new corporate partners Magic Mountain and Knott's work out how each park will pursue their Halloween goals next year.