Scare Fest 07': A Year in Review

Ah, Halloween is such a festive, happy time of year for me. You get that first hint of briskness in the air. The leaves start to change color. It starts to get a little darker at night. These are the signs to me that Halloween is coming soon. The time to be scared is upon us! Unfortunately 2007's season has come and pass leaving me to look forward to the next. But what makes this season so special?

Typically, I like to enjoy Halloween by going to several Haunted Houses and to Disneyland. I prepare myself for this special month by seeing lots of scary movies. Since I never watched scary films until seven years ago, I have missed quite a lot, and there are plenty for me to digest every year. I say every year like I have been doing this for a while. In all honesty, I have only been celebrating Halloween seriously for the last two years. Those two years have been such a good time, I now consider it a tradition! And by far, going to Haunts is the most fun tradition to have.

Going to Haunted Houses is such a great rush. This year I went to three different haunted houses. The first Haunted House I went to this season was Knott's Scary Farm. This particular haunt has been around for 35 years. They started the haunt business. For those of you who have not heard of it, it's Knott's Berry Farm dressed up for Halloween. The nice people at cedar fair haunt the ENTIRE park. That includes 13 mazes (more like labyrinths) and four scare zones. Scare zones are areas of the park where monsters like to be sneaky, and try to catch you off guard and scare the pants off you. They are very good at that. Tomorrow I will upload a map of the park but for now here is a list of the mazes, scare zones and shows:

Mazes:

• Feary Tales
• The Asylum
• 13 Axe Murder Manor
• The Doll Factory
• Lost Vegas in 3-D
• Black Widow's Cavern
• Pyromaniax
• Killer Klown Kollege
• Dark Realm - Laser Rage
• The Grudge II
• Lore of the Vampire
• Red Beard's Revenge
• Labyrinth into Darkness

Scare Zones

• Ghost Town
• Silver Bullet Mining Town
• The Gauntlet
• CarnEVIL
• Fortune Tellers

Shows

• The Rocketz
• The Hanging
• Death of Dr. Cleaver
• Hacks!
• Inferno
• The Chipper Lowell Experience
• Zamora's Side Show of the Bizarre
  

Now I'll be the first to tell you that this is almost impossible to do in one night, even on a slow night. You might be able to do half of the park on a very busy night. But as you can see, that is a lot of stuff to do. So where do we start? Everyone loves a good maze.

One of my favorite mazes is Red Beards Revenge. This maze is set aboard a pirate ship...surprised right?! It was well decked out with a unsteady bridge that you cross with pirates coming down from the ceiling which absolutely terrified me.

Pyromaniax is terrifying. Let me try to paint the picture. Have you ever been on the Matterhorn at Disneyland? If not picture yourself on a canoe going down a white water river. Now, imagine yourself going down a white water river where toxic waste has mutated all of the townsfolk. Monster's pop out of every hidden corner and get right in your face. This was by far the best maze Knott's had to offer.

Another maze I liked this year was the doll factory. Knott's put a lot of detail into this one! This might have been mimicked from the movie Dead Silence, and that was pretty creepy. Anything involving dolls is creepy!

I just realized this post is getting quite long so I am going to break up my review of Knott's Scary Farm into a two part special treat. I will post the map tomorrow so you can get a general idea of what I am talking about.