Mutant super soldiers and a classic horror myth will be joining the line-up at this year's Knott's Scary Farm.
Knott's Berry Farm tonight announced its two new mazes for its annual after-hours Halloween event. Now in its 52nd year, this is the theme park industry's original haunt event, featuring 10 mazes and five scare zones.
New among the mazes this year will be The Zoo: "Something has taken over the old abandoned zoo. A military insulation has moved in and is turning soldiers into super soldiers by fusing them with animal DNA and genetic splicing," Knott's Jeff Tucker said of the maze during tonight's Nightmares Revealed event at the park.
And at 11pm each night, the lights will go out in The Zoo, transforming it into a flashlight maze.
"It's two mazes in one," Tucker said.
The second new maze this year will be Mary: The Haunting of Worth Home, Knott's retelling of the classic Bloody Mary myth.
"After the tragic death of her family, Mary was violently murdered and buried alive by jealous townsfolk who were envious of her perfect family and home," Knott's said of the maze in its press release after the event. "Through immense pain and grief of her loss, Mary returns from the grave searching aimlessly for her family as she and her legion of nightmarish creatures will do anything to exact revenge on anyone that steps inside her once beautiful home."
The returning mazes at this year's Knott's Scary Farm will be:
Class of 2024:
Class of 2023:
Class of 2022:
Class of 2021:
Class of 2019:
For coverage of those mazes, including links to our walk-through videos, please see our post about last year's Scary Farm, The scares keep adding up at Knott's Scary Farm.
This will be the final year for Mesmer and The Grimoire, as Origins is set to return for a seventh year next year, which might be a modern Scary Farm record for a maze. (Knott's historians, let us know in the comments.)
Returning scare zones this year will be Ghost Town Streets, Forsaken Lake, Gore-ing 20s, Carnevil, and The Gauntlet. As for shows, The Hanging will be back (subtitled this year, "There's a new tariff in town"), as will Le Magnifique Carnaval du Grotesque and Conjurers. Nothing announced this year for the Walter Knott Theater, however.
Knott's Scary Farm starts September 18 and runs select nights through November 1.
Thanks for that. I loved Origins the first time around, but it's been showing its age the last couple of years, with fewer effects running than when it debuted. It's the heart of Knott's mythology, so I hope that the park shows it some love with improvements this year and next.
Yeah, I think it’s the thesis of the event in many ways, though to be honest I’d rather see it as a show than a maze. It’s just a very tricky medium for coherent storytelling.
Knott’s used to always refresh mazes that stayed around. How many refreshes did Trick or Treat get even before lights out? It got a new ending and potion room. Then it got the amazing lights out refresh.
Voodoo was basically an entire new maze from its opening year to closing. I could go on and on.
Now it seems they don’t do much to change or refresh a maze once it opens.
I think those were always the exceptions, not the rule. Unfortunately these days it seems like once a new maze opens it’s not given much refurbishment budget as the years go on.
WaxWorks, Paranormal Inc., and Pumpkin Eater are good examples of mazes that changed over the years. One of my favorite jokes in WaxWorks, the Invisible Man figure, disappeared at the end of its run because they changed the layout of the maze.
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Trick or Treat ran for seven years (2012-18) but no others jump to mind. That is a good, long run ... for a maze I'm not a huge fan of. Ah well. Good to see Mesmer and Grimoire retired; the former because it's long in the tooth and the latter because I just never found it very compelling.
Edit to add: Asylum ran for a whopping 9 years (up until 2011). That's the record as best I can tell.