The best immersive Halloween venues don’t need a franchise

The West Coast continues to be the premier destination for Halloween events and horror hounds flock to it from all over the country for a reason. from The original immersive theatre like Haunted illusion To provincial parks that hunt like howl-o-scream and Six Flags of Fear FestivalPlus local Los Angeles destinations including Dark Harbor and los angeles haunted hayride, Halloween is alive and well.

This is partly thanks to creepy knott farm, Which was the blueprint that influenced the world of theme parks Over 50 years of operationprecedes Universal Halloween Horror Nights (which started in 1991). It has really shaped the Halloween culture across the country and the types of events you can attend now.

Although the spooky season has become its own fanbase for those who embrace it year-round as a way of life, it’s not entirely based on modern horror franchises. Halloween has always been about ghost stories and wearing masks. Therefore, although there is a significant film and television presence within the stalking subgenre, it would still thrive without it. This evidence is found in the original work put together by the hunters in their experiments.

Close to 55 years old at this point, Knott’s Scary Farm has largely stuck to traditional storytelling built on cultural horror folklore. It has its own Green Witch, an icon of sorts, along with all sorts of goblins, ghouls, ghosts, zombies, vampires, and even aliens. Hey, they’ve covered a lot in half a century.

io9 were recently invited to attend this year’s festivities and were able to experience three new mazes with fun legends that truly represent how Halloween is often bigger than Hollywood. There was zoo, A maze that takes guests through a crazy maze of experiments on human-like animals. It was very nice Island of Dr. Moreau. then, Slasher cinema A maze-like, literal rip-off (as in the screens you pass through). It’s a parody of a terrifying cinematic universe come to life in the theater, with a popcorn bucket mascot chasing you with a knife. But our absolute favorite was… Mary.

If you grow up and go to sleepovers, it goes from chattering about a crush to descending into a “Hey, let’s call a Bloody Mary” mess in the bathroom mirror, Mary It truly embodies the horrors of what saying her name three times in the mirror can lead to. In keeping with the park being ahead of the curve in the immersive aspects within the mazes, these mazes had a fun level of interactivity, where if you said their name in any of the mirrored rooms while going through this maze, their macabre presence would activate.

Likewise, Six Flags Fright Fest, when it’s not being counted on Sorcery Universe has the potential to live up to the legacy of what is now its sister park (thanks to its merger with the owners of Knott’s Cedar Fair). In past years we have seen well-executed homes such as Willoughby: Resurrection, It is a spacious building of an eccentric Victorian mansion haunted by a large number of spectral entities. It, along with the other Six Flags houses, only needs the energy and production quality we see at Knott’s Scary Farm. Hopefully this dream collaboration will become a reality as the brand teams continue to meld together into an even greater superpower for the spooky season.

Immersive entertainment continues to dominate the West Coast for this reason. Sleep no more He disappeared on the East Coast, and has since been replaced by Andrew Lloyd Webber deny-but Haunted illusion It remains the premier immersive theater show in Los Angeles. In early 2010, creator John Braver ambitiously set out to produce plays that had a huge participatory element for attendees with the premise of engaging in an ARG-style scary story. As a returning member of his captive audience year after year, I can’t get enough of Braver’s powerful, vivid horror stories.

Past years have introduced lost vampire children who discover they can force vampires into the ceiling (via deadly wire stunts) to save their mother in The Witches. His scarlet queen And the crazy fans who break into the author’s house in search of a lost manuscript as the writer’s horror-filled world comes back to life. lies inside. Nobody does it like Braver and company.

This year’s show is an atmospheric story inspired by Dante Hell It is co-produced by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, where Braver also serves as Director of Immersive Entertainment. The play takes place in the heart of downtown Los Angeles and turns a historic building in the city into the nine circles of hell.

The thirteenth floor is private Queen Mary Dark Harboura haunting set aboard the famous ship anchored in Long Beach, boasts lore inspired by sea chases and real-life ghost stories of tragedies on board. It’s truly exhilarating to wonder if you’re seeing someone wearing makeup or a real-life haunting on the ghost-filled ship.

The company also recently collaborated with international stars Elvira and Janelle Monáe with their innovative flavors for Halloween mazes at the LA Haunted Hayride.

It’s very interesting to see these strange icons in modern pop culture representing their own brands of sexy, creepy and creepy. Monáe, long known for its epic Halloween costumes, has produced a version of its annual Halloween event in the form of a maze where you walk through the “Monáe Manor” and encounter all kinds of twisted horrors and even the occasional Singer (Last year she navigated her own maze with a chainsaw).

This year, Elvira joins the fun with “Elvira’s Trick or Treat Mayhem,” a maze narrated by the Dark Lady herself. In the film, she’s a radio broadcaster whose inspired experience echoes with creepy comedic puns and a charmingly creepy energy.

Then there’s Howl-O-Scream, which is the newest in the game. SeaWorld San Diego is based and has pushed its own stake into the horror scene with original mazes in its parks inspired by bayou creatures, alien invasions, and nightmarish brain experiments. Both Howl-O-Scream and Dark Port Features immersive searches for pubs within its maze to lift your spirits. They both also use original stories to create their creepy canon and try their hand at sourcing hidden gems like secret bars within their labyrinthine world.

In the past years, Dark Port They even had a frozen ice bar where you could meet a butcher from one of the haunted houses – the backstory was that they had a penchant for spooky spirits of the drinkable persuasion. In the ice bar, there were walls of real ice with (fake) dismembered body parts that could be looked at while drinking vodka from an ice glass.

As these attractions show, horror experiences don’t need to rely on pop culture franchises to create memorable horror films. More often than not, the original settings offer more scares that feel festive and genuinely scary. Suspension of disbelief can come more easily in a labyrinthine or immersive experience with well-crafted and executed interactions.

Studio-quality haunted houses, especially on the West Coast, were starting to feel over-produced; They’re starting to feel like hawker marketing boxes strung up with black walkways where a masked artist jumps out at you from his hole. It’s tiring, and no one wants to pay a lot of money to stand in line for hours for that anymore.

Fans want to feel like we’re in reality, as if there’s a real ghost in there Queen MaryThe boiler room is with us, or Bloody Mary can penetrate our mirror thanks to Knott’s Scary Farm, or as if we were crossing the river of lost souls by dying in Illusion. These are the kinds of fun, original, and real horrors that make Halloween remain one of our favorite seasons.

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