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Our roving reporter Stuart Kite headed to California to visit Universal Studios, Magic Mountain and the daddy of all Halloween events, Knotts Berry Farm’s Halloween haunt.
 Magic Mountain
Arriving at Magic Mountain to find a 70ft giant spider on the side of colossus was a bit much for my poor arachnophobic wife who has no problem with chain saw zombies and gore as long as there are no eight legged beasties!
The mazes here have a more of a home made feel than the production values of some of the bigger parks we have visited but for just $5 to get you wrist band for the four mazes it really was great value.
Inside each maze was a collection of nice and unique scares including bungee jumping actors and a giant clown that made all of us jump! Of the haunts, Aftermath Alley was so dark in one part that it was silly but generally we had a few good scares despite the apparent lack of actors.
We also enjoyed the walk through a scare zone to get to the Willoughby mansion, an old (but fun and very long) attraction that has been at the park for years. Our favourite scare zone though was City under Siege in the Gotham City area which had some incredibly made up Jokers assistants who seemed to be all working as a team to get some of the loudest screams in the park (well apart from those coming from the wooden coaster Colossus running backwards!)
As well as the mazes, the park makeovers the queue lines of some its existing rides: The log flume queue was Warehouse 13 which for the size of it had some pretty good scares and some annoying shakers. These were more akin to a baby’s rattle than a decent scare!
Escape the Zombies was the queue line for the tidal wave and the guys and girls here were working hard at every level to scare us with lots of growls and grunts coming form all around us!.
All in all, for the price and the variety we had a really good time.
Universal Studios Hollywood
Universal Studios Hollywood had a lot to live up to as the bigger Universal Studios Orlando had wowed us in 2008 AND won best international attraction at the Screamies.
As we had fast passes we got in 40 mins early to see the Rocky Horror show but this was a bit of a let down as due to some technical problems with projectors there was a giant windows set up menu displayed on the stage! Got to say, if the show was as good as the pre show, we missed a real treat!
 We left there thru a very dark scare zone that was not quite fully open to get on the Backlot Tram (Terror Tram). Jigsaw was quick to appear as Billy, starting the games on the screens on the trams showing fellow guests and pointing out their problems then saying if one of us dies we all die Nice! Then came my 1st surprise as we were taken off the tram and into Who Ville (from the Grinch) where we were met by an army of chain saw men. The 20 minute walk led us thru Whoville to the Bates Motel where a very small Chucky scared the hell out of me. From the Bates Motel it was up a very dark hill past the mad miners from My Bloody Valentine before heading down towards the Psycho House and being split up to meet Michael Myers. The final stop on this walking part of the tour was the War of the Worlds plane crash scene. With added zombies! Going around the back of the plane with seats full of zombies it was hard to tell who was real and who was a dummy until they jumped on you!
After a very exposed and jumpy 20 mins we were back to the safety of the tram for Jigsaw’s final game! We had lost one of our group and she was strung up in a tree with her insides on the outside. “One die, we all die” so we were taken in to the revolving tunnel and sprayed with acid! Fortunately we all survived and got treated to a sneak peak at Saw 6!
After the tram we headed off to the walkthrough mazes:
Chucky was the weakest of the four with it being basically the house of horror that’s open by day (formally Van Helsing attraction) with three or four extra actors. No real scares in either incarnation.
 The Mike Myers maze went back to the great set pieces we were expecting but I think was a bit slow going thru due to some problems ahead. If we had kept moving we would have gotten some better scares. This is the only time that my wife has ever really jumped in a haunted attraction and the final scare made her feet leave the ground as she jumped out of her skin!
The theme of My Bloody Valentine was so dark and moody in the mine followed by some great pick axe attacks in the town set. The room with all the mine suits and helmets was awesome as you never knew which one was going to move.
Saw was maybe not the scariest maze ever but used every trick in the book to make you feel very uneasy. On a physiological level you have two TVs in most rooms of the maze showing you on one side while the other shows a previous group group being bundled thru a door by a pig slave! It really makes you think that you might be next!
The actual sets of the traps were nothing short of amazing, with the needle pit making me squirm, And looking for the keys in the guts of a live person with a nasty water jet out of the belly was just grossly wrong!. The same water jet technique was used with the original Saw guy cutting his own leg of! Of course, whilst you are looking at the sets and actors the scares come from the pig slaves that use the distraction to their full advantage!
As with Orlando the atmosphere (smoke, lighting, fire music) was so great and even with less mazes than Knotts it has to be quality over quantity and the atmosphere made Universal MY Screamie winner for this year.
Halloween Haunt at Knotts Berry Farm
I must get my gripe out of the way first. There were FAR too many shakers used in the mazes which end up just being annoying instead of scary! They only work in a few places such as the Pyromaniacs log ride when the logs are moving so fast that voices wouldn’t be heard!
Looking at each maze in turn:
Slaughter House was the bloodiest maze and one of the best. The radio advert for Farmer Willy’s was so funny and then the mincing machine inside was just completely messed up!
Alien annihilation was quite possibly the weakest of the bunch. So much so, that nothing special sticks in my mind from this maze.
Lockdown: The Asylum was a nicely themed attraction with bigger actors so was quite intimidating going around. I did find myself comparing it to the prison we did at Busch Gardens last year which had more original effects .Good scares none the less. Also, we took a look in the washing machine and what we saw was just so wrong.
I enjoyed the nightclub atmosphere of Club Blood and the dance floor scene with the lasers and light show was every impressive. They could almost have done the whole maze like this and it would have been very disorientating. Another memorable scene from this was the one with drained bodies in plastic all lined up in the walls!
Terror in London was a very well presented maze with the Bow bells echoing and the sky line silhouetted against the night sky in the background! We did this maze early on pretty much on our own so got quite jumpy It had a very gothic mood and the feeling of going into the sewer was awesome.
Doll factory was a very cool maze as at a few points I could not tell who the dummies and the actors were! Whenever I expected one to move it didn’t and the ones I thought were dummies got me! I think this was the maze that had a bit lit with LED strobe tubes that totally disorientated me! Watch out for the BIG ass teddy bear!
Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in 3D seemed very weak after the last three mazes. It was very bright inside but some how we got in with out the 3D glasses so this maze didn’t really make much sense to us
The Circus of the bizarre was another very well lit maze with lots of clowns. We jumped a few times but there were no memorable stand out scares.
We had one of the best scares on our trip in Quarantine, where the actors must have been waiting for us due to the fact there was no line and we went straight in. When we got to a big room with multiple exits we got hit from every available angle whilst trying to work out which door to use. It all happened so quick that we both really jumped! Special praise for this best attack of all three parks!
Black Widow’s Cavern is basically the gold mine with lots of humongous spiders everywhere but there were some great surprises with live actors. A highlight for me was the way the waterfall looked lit up in the strobes – a simple but very impressive effect!
 Corn stalkers was a nice maze that seemed very organic with corn walls and, being almost straight, shows what you can do with a spare strip of land! This maze is very near the edge of the park and a taxi driver’s horn actually made me jump as much as the actors!
The last maze we did was Labyrinth which was almost too magical to be scary which, was a shame as it looked nice.
Connecting the mazes are some of the largest and over populated scare zones around. The roaming acting talent here (including the infamous sliders) were working hard all night .In fact one of the actors by Ghost Rider got me a least three times in exactly the same place!
As well as the mazes and attractions, we got to see the famous Hanging show. It was a very funny show that takes potshots at many stupid celebrities and this years highlights include the hanging of Susan Boyle and Dumbledore from Harry Potter doing the YMCA!
We had a great time at Knotts and the sheer volume of scare actors is very impressive. It’s just a shame that so many of them relied too much on using the tedious shaker cans!
Looks like Stuart had a great time – even though he’s not the first to point out that shaker cans aren’t scary! It seems a shame that a park that is regarded as such an industry leader has got stuck in a rut when it comes to the type of scares it uses. Hopefully they can rectify this soon.
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