Knott’s Berry Farm has returned to the fog for another Halloween season with a new haunted house set in an abandoned zoo where the military is conducting secret experiments that may be one of the best mazes in the 52-year history of the haunted event.
Knott’s Scary Farm kicked off Thursday, Sept. 18 and will run on select nights through Nov. 1 at the Buena Park theme park.
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This year’s edition of Scary Farm introduces two new mazes and brings back eight returning mazes, five scare zones and three shows.
The Knott’s creative team’s focus on quality over quantity has paid dividends over the past few years — but it’s time for the granddaddy of all haunted events to step up its efforts again.
Knott’s typically adds two new mazes and retires two old mazes every year. That cadence needs to pick up ever so slightly to three mazes a year joining and leaving the lineup.
That approach should help Knott’s remain ahead of competitors nipping at its heels, allowing the vastly improved new mazes to shine and jettisoning older mazes before they grow tired and worn out.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the 10 haunted houses at Knott’s Scary Farm and rank them from best to worst.
The new Zoo haunted maze is set inside an abandoned zoo where the military has been conducting animal/human hybrid experiments in an attempt to create a mutant super soldier.
The Zoo may be one of the best new mazes ever at Knott’s Scary Farm.
The maze is filled with tremendous sets, beautiful lighting and a great soundtrack.
The flying birds on the overhead aerial track in the aviary are the maze’s highlight.
The bursts of steam and red lights add a level of heat in the crematorium used for failed experiments. The only thing missing are the spritzes of water spray that Universal’s Horror Nights has begun using with great success.
At 11 p.m. each night, Knott’s turns the lights out in the Zoo maze. Walking through with a dim flashlight turns the experience into a thrilling adventure, like an urban explorer venturing through an abandoned building in the dark.
The 2024 Eight Fingers Nine haunted maze takes Scary Farmers inside the dark fantasy realm of a twisted children’s storybook tale.
Eight Fingers Nine sets up a simple story of a boogeyman who is everywhere and coming to get you.
The villain is around every corner focused on his victims until you get too close and he comes after you.
The detailed sets are incredible. Video screens help establish and support the story rather than deliver the scares.
Eight Fingers Nine would have easily been the best maze of the night if not for the superb debut of the Zoo.
The 2023 Cinema Slasher maze pays tribute to four former mazes from the 1980s to 2010s: Slasher of the Dark, Camp Gonnagetcha, Trick or Treat and Slaughterhouse.
The action-packed Cinema Slasher maze combines the classic mazes into an unified storyline by turning them into a series of slasher movies.
It’s a wonderful way to pay homage to Scary Farm history while creating a meta maze that should appeal to modern audiences.
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Knott’s designers did an amazing job of setting up each of the old mazes by having visitors pass through a movie theater and literally walk through a slashed movie screen. A marquee outside each theater helps set up every mini maze.
It feels like watching a series of trailers before a horror movie with each classic maze reduced to two or three greatest hits scenes.
The cool twist: Exiting through a movie theater that features some of the best scares of the night and sends people running out the door screaming.
The 2021 Mesmer maze descends into the eerie world of madness and torture beneath a traveling carnival tent filled with menacing sideshow freaks that do the bidding of Mesmer the hypnotist.
The sideshow carnival is filled with engaging and interactive performers who help carry the perfectly told storyline.
The hypnotic audio track that follows visitors throughout the maze is mesmerizing — just like Mesmer the hypnotist who preys on your inner thoughts and hidden fears.
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The carnival tricks sprinkled throughout the Sideshow of the Mind are clever, weird and fun — from the tilting room to the spinning mirror.
The skeleton that pops out from behind the grandfather clock was the best gag of the night.
Unfortunately, Scary Farm 2025 will be the final year for the Mesmer maze.
The new Mary — The Haunting of Worth Home haunted maze tells the story of Bloody Mary, who can be summoned by anyone who turns out the lights and says her name into a mirror three times.
Unfortunately, the maze is filled with a lot of mannequins and video screens and not enough Bloody Mary “scareactors.” Video screens are good for setting up backstory, but terrible at delivering scares.
Knott’s needs to use the video screens to help establish and identify the villain and then send Bloody Mary scareactors after visitors in every other room.
The best effect in the maze is incredibly simple: Sheer curtains that blow in the face of visitors with the help of hidden air blasts.
The massive Bloody Mary animatronic puppet in the finale looks great, but doesn’t move very smoothly. Knott’s relies too much on a giant version of the villain at the end of its mazes to serve as a payoff rather than a scareactor army of the villain attacking visitors at every turn throughout the experience.
The 2024 Widows maze brings together two types of widows: Black Widow spiders who burrow into the bodies of widowed women living in a convalescent home in the midst of a catastrophic arachnid attack.
Much like the concept, the maze is broken into two parts: a nursing home and a spider lair.
The little old ladies in the nursing home are engaging and creepy, inviting visitors into their rooms filled with mummified bodies wrapped in spider webs.
The spider lair is dark, static and repetitive with a lot of webs and not much interaction. When I went through, there were more employees dressed in black telling visitors where to go than characters in the maze.
The gigantic half woman/half arachnid Spider Minotaur in the finale looks awesome and remains the star of the show.
The 2019 Origins haunted house tells the origin story of the Green Witch — the best known character in the history of the annual Halloween event.
Origins feels tired and played out — something that should never happen to a crucial maze that establishes the overarching backstory for all of Knott’s Scary Farm.
The aging maze has always relied too heavily on video screens to show the Green Witch and her coven rather than unleashing them in the maze as a series of scareactors.
Nothing needs to be changed to the theming of the maze. It just needs a sequel.
After a seven-year run, it’s time for Knott’s to reboot the Origins maze with Chapter Two of the story.
The 2022 Grimoire maze follows a group of campers who discovered a mysterious spell book whose dark stories turned nightmares into a reality filled with demonic creatures.
A campground out in the woods with terrified campers would seem like the perfect setup for a scary story, but the Grimoire fizzles rather than sizzles with a confusing storyline and utter lack of energy.
The frightened campers are supposed to deliver the scares — but that only works as a set-up if the villain is lurking behind the next tree.
The Grimoire unleashes a series of nightmares that feel like flashbacks that a group of teen campers could never have.
The black-and-white 1950s scenes of domestic life, bomb shelters and war trenches look amazing. But what do they have to do with teen campers?
It felt like Knott’s has already said goodbye to the Grimoire maze that is making its final appearance at Scary Farm 2025.
The 2023 Chilling Chambers maze pays tribute to the Ten Chilling Chambers — the first haunted maze specifically created for Knott’s in the 1970s.
In many ways, Chilling Chambers and Cinema Slasher are the same maze. They certainly start with the same concept: A greatest hits package of past Scary Farm mazes.
But where Cinema Slasher shines, Chilling Chambers sputters.
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Chilling Chambers isn’t cohesive and felt thrown together, which makes for a jarring experience.
The half dozen mini mazes in the middle of the experience offer little to no set-up as visitors transition from one to the next.
Chilling Chambers is little more than half-hearted fan service that name-checks every maze in Scary Farm history on a crypt or gravestone.
It’s never a good sign when the best gag in a maze is a trio of farting elephants.
The 2023 Room 13 maze set in the decadent Prohibition Era of the 1920s tells the origin story of the deadly Devil’s Elixir bootleg booze that fills the Gore-ing 20’s scare zone with undead flappers, mobsters and revelers from the Roaring 20’s.
The Room 13 maze perfectly matches the tired, plodding and slow jazz soundtrack. Instead of the Roaring ’20s it was the Boring ’20s.
Tying together the Room 13 maze and Gore-ing 20’s scare zone was a great idea with a ton of potential. Unfortunately, the infectious energy of the scare zone gets completely lost in the lethargic and drowsy maze.
Outside of a few cool effects, Room 13 was a long walk through the Blind Tiger speakeasy and Argive Hotel where nothing was going on.
Is it too late for Knott’s Scary Farm to get rid of Room 13 and keep Mesmer for another year?
The five returning scare zones include Ghost Town Streets, Forsaken Lake, Gore-ing 20s, Carnevil and The Gauntlet.
The entertainment lineup features “The Hanging: There’s a New Tariff in Town” comedy and stunt show (Wagon Camp Theater), “Le Magnifique Carnaval du Grotesque” circus sideshow (Calico Mine Stage) and “Conjurers” magic show (Bird Cage Theatre).
Doors open nightly for the separate admission, after hours event at 7 p.m. The event runs until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 1 a.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
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