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The Long Halloween Diaries - The 17th Door

9/29/2015

(For those new to this article series, please check out my introduction to The Long Halloween.)

Even though theme park Halloween events are intense and oft gory, they've still got a limit for how "extreme" they're going to go because they cater to a fairly broad audience that usually contains a fair number of kids despite many a sign suggesting otherwise.

Individual haunts, on the other hand, don't usually have those restrictions. Often having age limits of 18+ and requiring liability waivers, individual haunts are free to be a bit more experimental when maximum capacity isn't as much of an issue. Boundaries are pushed quite regularly, with greater theatrical elements, deeply involved stories and more "extreme" scares becoming the norm. More and more in the few years we've been doing this we've seen houses try and be more intense and gimmicky in an effort to compete with every other house on the market. A lot of these gimmicks work, and a lot don't, but all the same we enjoy finding out for ourselves just what limits a lot of these houses are willing to go to.

Which brings us to our third stop on The Long Halloween, The 17th Door.

The 17th Door wasn't initially on my radar when we started planning The Long Halloween, mostly because it's a new event, and we tend to be wary of events that don't have an established history after having been burned by a few subpar ones in the past. The fact that it's in Tustin (more than an hour away from where we live), made ignoring this one seem like an easier option. However, after looking into it a bit more, I began to reconsider. I'd read preview articles on a few websites I trust (namely the fine people at Theme Park Adventure and HorrorBuzz) about the high quality of work that was going into the show, and after reading on their website about how this was going to be a house that takes about half an hour to get through (impressive considering most independent haunts only last about 10 minutes, give or take), with 17 rooms of increasing intensity and a safe word available if you want to opt out, I was intrigued.

A little wary, but intrigued. You see, in line with what I was talking about how people are pushing boundaries with haunts, there are a lot of houses out there that are considered "extreme", like Blackout or McKamey Manor. These are houses that will, well, from what I've read have you sign yourself away to be tortured for a short while. While I'm all for pushing boundaries and people doing what they consider fun, that's just not for Fi and me. We love being scared, but we still like having fun in our own way.

Long Halloween Tip # 8: Know your limitations. Research all events in advance and see what kinds of warnings they've got, then use your judgment from there on whether or not it's for you. There's nothing worse than paying for an event and then arriving only to realize it's something you cannot or will not do. A lot of events will require you to sign waivers these days; don't let that be an immediate turnoff as this is a) pretty standard text for liability purposes and b) often a sign of a fairly fun event.

That said, while the warnings for The 17th Door did sound like they bordered on extreme, they didn't sound too bad for us, so we made the long drive out to Tustin to see just what The 17th Door had in store.

The first thing that caught our attention, and not in the best of ways, was that the lines to claim your tickets weren't exactly laid out particularly well, so when the attraction opened for the night there was a bit of a mad, confused rush, and the multiple lines (presumably for standard and VIP entrance) were confused, to say the least. That said, it was opening weekend, so I'm sure they were still working out the kinks. After our tickets were scanned and waivers were signed, we got in the first group for the night. We were led into an amazingly recreated classroom, instructed on the rules of the event by the teacher and told the story of Paula, a young woman escaping her troubled past by going to college, only to be faced with her own fears and spiral into madness. The shocking jump scare that follows in the room is of a kind I've never seen before, and really sets the surreal and unsettling mood of the event to come.

This shock over, we are led into a hall and told that we will be going through 17 rooms, one at a time, and, well...

Well this is the point where I'm going to be quiet to avoid spoilers, but I'll share some teases of this exquisite haunt because I think it's one that everyone should know about.

The journey through Paula's psyche is a twisted and bizarre one, but unlike a lot of similar haunts that just usher you from creepy scene to creepy scene, this one actually had a story progression that was at once both welcome and sad. Paula's made into a fairly sympathetic character to understand and follow as she descends into greater depths of madness, leading to what's a surprisingly sad ending for a haunt. Coupled with the stellar makeup work and the unbelievable sets (seriously, a lot of these feel like film quality sets, I had a hard time believing I wasn't in a school much of the time), and this was a professional event from top to bottom that would've been worth remembering.

But how extreme was it? Well, the quick answer I have for that is, moderately. There wasn't anything I couldn't do, anything I didn't want to do, but it got pretty close at times. In between standard haunt jump scares, there were moments where we were shown footage of real surgeries, endured mild electric shocks (a trend in haunts I still don't approve of), forced to walk through a floor covered in real dead cockroaches, walking through a room at near-freezing temperatures, and were forced into a small room with the 8 people in our group, had the lights turned out, and were buried in... things. Between rooms we often got to watch video footage of our responses to the previous room, and, well, I'm not entirely sure they didn't use our reactions to customize experiences the way they antagonized certain members of our group.

In the course of the event I was forced to eat a piece of bacon by a disgusting pig man, and had a tongue depressor shoved into my mouth by a large monster doctor. The ending sequence, where we were put in individual, small and pitch black isolation rooms in a mock mental institute and were assaulted on all sides by random, loud noises, sprays of water and foam, and the occasional invader, were disturbing and enough to make me wonder if I might just be going mad at points.

Long Halloween Tip # 9: In the event that you go to an event where you might have to eat something, even something not that bad, bring gum as a just in case for afterward.

Long Halloween Tip # 10: For any haunt, bring comfortable clothes, but as an addendum to my earlier rule, wear comfortable clothes that you don't mind getting messy. I'm not saying you'll be covered in blood (though that's always a possibility), but wear and tear and crawling around aren't impossible.

We survived The 17th Door!

This was an intense, fun and truly unique experience, and I would go so far as to calling it one of my favorite standalone houses we've ever done for The Long Halloween. If you don't mind scares that'll push you without pushing you over the edge, I cannot recommend The 17th Door highly enough.

With the way we started this year for The Long Halloween, it's feeling like what we've done so far will be hard to top. Prove us wrong, October! Prove us wrong!

Thank you for joining me this Halloween season, and as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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The Long Halloween Diaries - Knott's Scary Farm

9/27/2015

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(For those new to this article series, please check out my introduction to The Long Halloween.)

The second stop on our 2015 Long Halloween is Knott's Scary Farm. Yes, we're doing the two big theme park haunts down here in a row. Normally we try and space things like that out a little for variety's sake, putting a few solo houses in the middle, but when it came down to it, there were so many things we wanted to do this year that were only running in October, that the few that were open in September we just had to jump on. This is one of them.

From past experiences, I'll say that Knott's isn't quite up to comparing with Universal Studios. They lack the same quality and dedicated special effects/production design/makeup people and have always had a slightly lower quality, with more mazes based around cheap, loud-noise based jump scares (having actors with gloves covered in washers slamming against plywood does get the job done, though). As well, they tend to keep their mazes on for several years at a time, offering only a few new attractions each year alongside other mazes that have been around for up to five years. All told, while I love constantly rotating variety like at Universal, I also do love the familiarity of keeping stronger mazes from years past and mixing them with new blood.

The one thing that Knott's does have going for it, though, is volume. While Universal usually only has about 6 mazes and their Terror Tram, Knott's tends to average about ten mazes each year, along with some other odds and ends interactive attractions.

We skipped last year's Knott's, and their introduction of the interactive Infected, zombie hunt attraction, due to a number of other haunts demanding our attention, but with some of our favorite haunts from previous Long Halloweens not making a reappearance this year, Knott's got added back to the schedule. Will the returning mazes still scare? Will the new mazes offer anything, well, new? Let's find out!

Welcome to Knott's Scary Farm

This year's Knott's Scary Farm has a total of 11 haunted attractions; 9 mazes, 1 haunted train ride and the interactive Special Ops: Infected experience. With our Skeleton Key ticket upgrades granting unlimited front of the line access, we knew we could make a good year of the attractions. Still, we skipped the My Bloody Clementine train ride this year because of memories of lackluster modification to the train experience from Scary Farms past, so we kept to the mazes and Infected this year. With so much to do, we instituted a long-ago learned Long Halloween tip.

Long Halloween Tip # 6: Research what you can in advance. For smaller, or newer haunts, research can tell you if events are worth your time and money, while for bigger events with multiple attractions, research can tell you what to hit first to avoid the really big lines and make the most of your night.

With Infected being an experience that you can attend via a limited number of timed tickets handed out at the beginning of the night, we knew we had to get to the ticket handout first, which is sometimes easier said than done.

Especially with a crowd this densely packed at the beginning of the night.

As soon as the floodgates opened and the night began, it was a mad rush of bodies to get to the few people they had handing out tickets. With tight quarters and many low planters and decorations, I'm amazed nobody tripped and got trampled in the mess.

Things didn't get much better once we got to where the tickets were being handed out. There were maybe a half dozen Knott's employees standing at the entrance of the Camp Snoopy area, each of whom had a small stack of tickets and handed them out at their discretion to the swarming mobs that gathered around them like ants. There was no order, lines were non-existent, and I'm also impressed things didn't get violent the way the people mobbed the employees. In short, I guess I'm saying that this was something that could have had better logistics and more organization, but with a little effort and a little more yelling, I was able to get Fi and me tickets for 10:00 pm.

With this done, we finally got to wander the park. Like Universal, there are a few scare zones around Knott's Scary Farm, though they aren't as well marked, or populated. While they've got a bunch of sliders (guys with special knee pads that allow them to noisily slide along the ground, a very creepy and fun effect when done well) who do great work, most of the scare zones were too dark to see the characters, or in the case of the "Ghost Town" scare zone, too foggy to really see where we were going. Still, there were plenty of scares to be found in these zones, you just had to go looking for them (well, except for the always entertaining clown area; they were pretty hard to avoid).

And with that, we were off to the mazes!

The Mazes

Paranormal Inc.

Even the Jason on my shirt is embarrassed by how much I blinked in these pictures.

A new maze this year, and one of the most heavily hyped, Paranormal Inc. is played as a ghost-hunting show gone awry in an abandoned mental institute. With a lot of special effects and some stunt work in play, it was supposed to be the must-see maze of the night, so naturally we headed there first. We were ushered in in groups to see an opening scene with a ghost hunter crew that accidentally unleash the ghosts, and, well, I'd tell you more details but I couldn't be sure what they were, since the setup of this opening room made it impossible to hear the lead ghost hunter unless you were right in front of him. We got a few words of story, then some scares, and were then sent into the maze itself. The maze itself was cool, albeit sparsely populated by actors, relying more on special effects projection and an admittedly cool giant robot at the end. Was it a fun maze? Most definitely. The must-see of the night? Eh.

Maze Ranking: # 6

The Tooth Fairy

One of our favorite mazes from Knott's Scary Farm's past was called Delirium, and it was a descent into madness done in the best ways, made of surreal, disturbing imagery. When we heard last year that it was being replaced by a new maze called The Tooth Fairy, we were more than a little upset.

Then we got to do The Tooth Fairy this year, and my thought was, Delirium who?

The Tooth Fairy was the maze of the night, utterly terrifying with its many portrayals of dental trauma and children being kidnapped and mutilated by a demonic tooth fairy. I'd almost say this one was too much, too disturbing for an event like Knott's Scary Farm which has a lot of kids in attendance, but we had a blast getting scared out of our minds by the tooth-obsessed psychos of this maze. The additional room we had at the beginning, thanks to our Skeleton Key passes, got us a little more backstory of the maze, starting in a suburban bedroom with a child (well, a 20ish-year-old child) looking for his lost brother before ripping out one of his own teeth in front of us.

Pleasant dreams.

Maze Ranking: # 1

Voodoo: Order of the Serpent

I'm sure I could've taken a more generic picture of this maze's facade, I just don't know how.

Voodoo was a pretty basic maze, set wandering through a haunted bayou in Louisiana, and, well, that's really about all I've got to say about that. There weren't many people inside working to scare us, compared to most mazes, but what it lacked in actors it made up for in some pretty impressive set design. We were walking on actual bridges above actual water, and they did a fairly convincing job making this indoor facility look like we were wandering through an actual dark bayou. The Skeleton Key extra room that came with it was a fun little jump scare, while the zombie skeletons actually coming out of the water were a real highlight.

Maze Ranking: # 5

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat's a maze that's been around since we started doing The Long Halloween, and it hasn't changed much. Made to look like a suburban witch's house that you've invaded on Halloween night and protected by the ghostly trick or treaters she's killed and enslaved over the years, it's about as basic and classic a haunted house as you'd expect to find. Literally, if you think of the most basic haunted house possible, this is probably what you'd think of, and that's not a bad thing. What it does, it does well, and its special effects and set pieces are high quality, while its actors are enthusiastic. It's not a standout for me, but it's fairly well done all the same.

Maze Ranking: # 7

Forevermore

As you can see from the picture, this is Fi's favorite maze.

Now we're getting to the really cool ones. Forevermore is based on the premise of a serial killer who themes his crimes to the poems and stories of Edgar Allen Poe, and with this premise you tend to get one room or section based on its own dedicated story, which is executed well. The Raven, The Pit & The Pendulum, The Telltale Heart, The Masque of The Red Death and more are represented in awesome, twisted representations of the story. The additional Skeleton Key room themed to Eleonora, a story I'm unfamiliar with, was a fun bit of improvised heart surgery. As huge fans of Poe's work, this is a favorite of ours from year to year, and as long as they run it, I don't imagine that'll change.

Maze Ranking: # 3

Pinocchio Unstrung

Still blinking, Jason's still sad. This is offset somewhat by my favorite facade, with its giant moving puppet arms.

My personal favorite maze from year's past, moving down a bit in the rankings only because The Tooth Fairy was that awesome. Pinocchio Unstrung goes along with the premise that the Blue Fairy gave Pinocchio life, but never made him a real boy, transforming him into a twisted, bitter puppet obsessed with making himself real by flaying people and wearing their flesh. Pinocchio on its own is one creepy story, and every creepy bit from the original story is twisted into something dark and worse here, making it a pretty awesome and scary maze. Twisted puppets, donkey-men, giant crickets hiding in the bowels of a monstrous whale. Consistently one of the scarier and more fun mazes, I cannot recommend this one enough.

Maze Ranking: # 2

Dead of Winter

This maze is pretty unapologetic about its lack of facade.

Dead of Winter is a new maze this year, and a pretty high concept one at that. Billed as a well lit and low temperature maze, it's essentially played as a twisted version of Frozen, where a bitter snow queen has unleashed an army of undead Vikings upon the land. I was excited for the maze at first, but a little underwhelmed by the final product. It was bright, and cold, but its setting in a mirror maze was a bit odd, and it wasn't as well lit as boasted, still relying on a fair few dark corners for scares. Combined with the fairly low population of actors (probably because of how cold this maze is), and I'd call it one of the weaker mazes of the night.

Maze Ranking: # 8

Black Magic

It was a pretty hot night; can you tell?

Black Magic is another maze that goes back a few years, and it's one of the better ones. Set in a magic theatre beset upon by evil spirits after a seance of Houdini goes horribly awry, it's thematically one of the better pulled off mazes. The magic theatre sets combine to create a colorful and horrific environment where spiked walls close in, mutilated magic assistants stalk the halls and a giant hat with an even bigger, vicious rabbit leaping out of it don't seem out of place. While not one of the scarier mazes, it was definitely one of the more fun ones.

Maze Ranking: # 4

The Gunslinger's Grave: A Blood Moon Rises

Since much of Knott's Berry Farm has an Old West theme, it makes sense that they'd have at least one Old West maze, and The Gunslinger's Grave does that job. It just doesn't do it very well, unfortunately. Set in an Old West town beset upon by werewolves, it's not particularly scary, and the werewolf population is strangely limited given its premise, with most of the scares being pulled off by creepy(ish) western archetypes. Probably the biggest problem I can see with it is the fact that most of the maze is set outdoors, which is weird for a maze, because one of the things most good mazes do is completely control your environment, making you lose yourself in this world they completely create for you. When you can see the sky, remember there's an outside world, and see and hear roller coasters in action around you, that illusion and the fear it creates kind of disappears.

Maze Ranking: # 9

Special Ops: Infected - Patient Zero

One of the highest concept attractions I've seen at any theme park Halloween event, Special Ops: Infected - Patient Zero has an interesting premise on paper. Led around in groups of about ten people by a squad leader, we're given laser guns and made to fend off zombies as we accomplish missions in Knotts' Camp Snoopy area. While this sounded a bit large a concept to pull off on this level, and after some skepticism from the experience earlier in the night getting the tickets, I was pretty pumped to shoot some zombies once 10:00 pm rolled around.

And, well, that only really lasted for a few minutes. While the initial part of the excursion went well and I killed a fair number of zombies, the ambiguous description of how zombies could hurt us, combined with the ease of dying and the difficulty in coming back from the dead, left me unable to do any of the shooting and video game fun that one would expect from such an experience for close to half of our run. For half the time I was just wandering around with a useless gun, getting yelled at occasionally by our "squad leader" and watching everyone else have a great time. No doubt I missed some important rule or didn't take a full opportunity to recharge my weapon, but I think in designing an experience like this, they made it too easy to fail and not easy enough to live out the kind of zombie video game experience that you'd expect in something like this. Perhaps if death only meant being disabled for 15 seconds or so, I'd have different words for the experience, because while I was alive, this was quite a bit of fun, and because of that I would still highly recommend this experience.

And so that was our Knott's Scary Farm experience. Despite my complaints above, this is still a very fun and worthwhile Halloween experience, and is one of those ones that you must do once in your life if you live in the LA area. Before signing off on this topic, though, I have one more thing that must be added:

Long Halloween Tip # 7: There's no better way to end a night at Knott's Scary Farm than some boysenberry funnel cake.
It's a scientific fact.

Thank you for joining me this Halloween season, and as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/mattcarterauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MCarterAuthor

-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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The Long Halloween Diaries - Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights

9/20/2015

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(For those new to this article series, please check out my introduction to The Long Halloween.)

While most Halloween events tend to wait for October, a few of the bigger haunts (and some odds and ends smaller ones) begin quite a bit earlier, in mid-September. Which, for us, is great, because if it were up to us we'd do Halloween year-round. Probably the first to open is also a strong contender for our favorite every year: Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights.

Or as it's become known in recent years, The Walking Dead: The Theme Park.

Featuring a number of mazes, scare zones, and their infamous "Terror Tram" mostly based on licensed properties like hit movies and TV shows, they've got the benefit of a major movie studio's team of production designers and special effects technicians to make this one of the highest quality Halloween events in the country (so I'm told), and every year we've gone has been consistently great. In every year we've gone there has been a very heavy presence of The Walking Dead, featuring a maze, a scare zone and the themed Terror Tram, and after a while it's started to get monotonous. This year they've scaled back The Walking Dead's presence to just a maze, as well as scaling back the event as a whole (featuring 6 mazes to last year's 7 in the wake of Universal's House of Horrors attraction being torn down).

While this year's event features some stranger choices for maze themes and will be difficult to top last years amazing An American Werewolf in London maze, we're excited as ever to see what they've got in store for us.

BUT FIRST! Some general notes and tips to enhance The Long Halloween experience!

NOTE: For the sake of this series of articles, the term "maze" will actually very likely never mean maze. The terms "maze" and "haunted house" are pretty interchangeable from everything I've seen, though from what I can tell "maze" is usually used by larger events and theme parks when they are running a number of haunts. They are usually straightforward and offer little in the way of getting lost, but hey, you never know, they might surprise you.

Long Halloween Tip # 1: When it comes to Halloween events, always consider comfort a top priority. Wear practical clothing that you can move around freely in and shoes you wouldn't mind standing around all night in. While most haunts won't touch you (though some will), quarters are often dark and tight, you don't want anything that can get snagged or tripped on. For this reason, my wife always ties her hair back, wears small earrings (to avoid snagging) and leaves her purse at home when we're at a haunt. As a corollary, a lot of bigger Halloween events will have pretty impressive security, often just a shade below an average airport. My advice is to take everything out of your pockets but the essentials, and leave everything they could consider a weapon (even ballpoint pens) at home.

LH Tip # 2: Arrive early! Lines at Halloween events, especially the bigger theme parks, tend to get absolutely insane, sometimes hours long. If you're at an event where you have a timed ticket, this isn't usually a problem, but if you're at a free for all like at most theme parks, the earlier you're in, the better. The line may still be pretty bad, but compared to the 3 hour waits you'll get later in the evening, getting there at opening can really free up your night.

LH Tip # 3: Weigh front of the line options. Most theme parks and a lot of smaller haunts have options to skip these lines for an upcharge to your standard ticket price, and while these are usually timesavers, they aren't always necessary. At a lot of smaller events, if you've a timed ticket, or get there first thing, front of the line upcharges will just leave you out a few bucks. At theme parks and other larger events (like Queen Mary's Dark Harbor), they're often worth it, though do the math to find out what's most convenient for your budget, as some places have an upcharge that's like a 20-30% add-on, while others go close to doubling the ticket price (I'm looking at you, Knott's).

For the record, Universal Studios is consistently one of the best values when it comes to their front of the line tickets for Halloween Horror Nights, and fairly necessary given how obscene the lines can get.

LH Tip # 4: Hydrate! This may just be a Southern California thing, but most haunts get pretty damn hot due to the number of people and special effects crammed into small areas. You're going to sweat like crazy, so be sure you've got water on hand at any time, or at least know where to get some.

LH Tip # 5: Have fun! If you're not, why are you even doing this in the first place?

The Halloween Horror Nights 2015 Experience

As always, the people behind creating the ambiance at Halloween Horror Nights were at the top of their game. While there were fewer mazes and scare zones than there were last year, they were all still exquisitely done. The Dark Christmas and Exterminatorz (spelling aside) scare zones were true standouts, with their twisted mix of evil Christmas characters and anthropomorphic and oversized vermin respectively.

Like I always say, it's hard to do a bad evil Christmas scare zone when you've got enough Krampus' walking around.

The Mazes

While Universal still operates as a theme park during Halloween Horror Nights, you really come for the mazes, and while this year had some odd choices for maze subjects, it turned out to be a really solid year (as always).

Halloween: Michael Myers Comes Home

Halloween Horror Nights has always specialized in mazes based on movies that feel like you're actually walking through the movies, and this year's Halloween maze was no exception. Based off of the original John Carpenter classic, and one of my favorite horror movies of all time, this was one I was greatly looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. From walking into the dilapidated Myers house, seeing the clown-costumed young Michael Myers holding a bloody knife at the top of the stairs, to the finale of Dr. Loomis shooting him through a window, this was a nearly scene by scene recreation of the film in the best ways possible, with a few trippy scenes thrown in to throw you for a loop. Unlike most Horror Nights mazes, this one was relatively bloodless in keeping with its faithfulness to the film, and would have been a strong contender for one of my favorites of the night.

But it won't get close to that spot.

Why's that?

Because the iconic Halloween theme was mostly absent for the maze. When most mazes keep full soundtracks from their films to really suck you in, this absence was distracting.

Major, major foul.

Maze Ranking: # 4 (if just for the lack of theme)

The Terror Tram: Survive the Purge

I'm putting this in with the mazes, even though it's not really a maze and I won't rank it, because it's one of Universal's signature experiences.

Every Halloween season, the Terror Tram takes us to the familiar backlot sets like Bates Motel and the plane crash set from the recent War of the Worlds film. Then instead of driving around, as usual, they let us out to follow a path through these sets and get attacked by monsters hiding within. It's a fun experience, but lacking in a lot of repeat value as, well, there's only so much they can do from year to year to make this experience different, aside from a new paint job and characters. While the last three years have been themed to The Walking Dead, this year they themed it to The Purge, a theme that works well for the Terror Tram, as it can fit in the crazy randomness and violence of the purge quite well. While the actors were very enthusiastic this year, I don't have a whole lot to add here other than saying we had fun, so I'll continue.

This is the End 3D

Oh man, I really can't say how much I wasn't looking forward to this maze. This isn't anything against Universal Studios or the movie This is the End (which I found enjoyable in an unmemorable sort of way), it's just that this didn't strike me as maze material. It didn't have, from what I could see, enough set pieces to make solid maze scenes out of, and, well, just wasn't scary. To top it off, the fact that it would be this year's 3D maze, a concept that usually means gaudy paints and wackiness and not a lot else to remember it by, and I wasn't that excited for it.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find this actually a pretty fun maze. I don't remember the movie much, but the scenes from it they had were recognizable and fun. The 3D effects were actually pulled off quite well and fun, with their giant demon heads and day-glo Satans popping in their environment and actually proving a lot of fun. The only thing about this maze that struck me as weird was how the f-word was bleeped out in every quote from the movie they used, which was weird not just for how many times this happened, but for the fact that it wasn't ok to say this while you could cut a person in half and have people eating their guts in the same maze.

Maze Ranking: # 5 (a lot of fun, but the rest of the mazes were better)

Alien vs. Predator

Special Note: This picture was from last year's HHN because this year's maze not only didn't have a facade, it didn't even have a poster like this maze from last year.

One of the standout mazes from last year's Horror Nights was Alien vs. Predator. It was an awesome maze featuring a battle between the two iconic movie extraterrestrials, including top notch special effects, amazing costumes and puppets, and some of the coolest scenes I've ever seen in a Halloween maze. When I heard they were doing it again this year, I was excited.

When I went through it again, I was kinda underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, the maze itself was every bit as amazing as it was last year (you can't go wrong ending a maze with a 16-foot-tall Alien Queen puppet), it's just that the lack of freshness just didn't do it for me. I would still highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't gone through it before, but if you attended last year's event, you can easily skip this one and wouldn't miss anything.

Like this 2 hours + line.

Maze Ranking: # 6 (only because it offered little new; this is still an awesome maze otherwise)

Crimson Peak: Maze of Madness

Guillermo del Toro is one of those directors I keep telling myself I need to familiarize myself with, because I've always enjoyed what I've seen. Pacific Rim was stylized goofy done right, and Pan's Labyrinth was one of the coolest and most stylish movies my wife and I have seen in recent memory. So when we saw the trailers for his newest film, Crimson Peak, we were both quite excited.

When we saw there would be a maze for it at Halloween Horror Nights, we were intrigued, if a bit wary.

The maze itself is an awesome experience, full of bizarre monsters, well pulled off jump scares, and some really cool gothic sets. The only problem with it is that this movie hasn't come out yet, so we really can't judge how good a job it does at interpreting the work. Still, it gives a lot to look forward to, and was a trippy, weird maze.

Maze Ranking: # 3

The Walking Dead: Wolves Not Far

So I'm a bit hefty to be a walker. I'll go for a cheesy picture anytime.

The Walking Dead mazes have become something of a tradition at Horror Nights, and not always a welcome one from what I've heard online. That being said, this year's maze is probably the best of The Walking Dead mazes they've ever done. Taking inspiration from the recent fifth season, this maze brings to life some of the more memorable and grisly scenes from it, including (but not limited to), the gruesome butchers and trough scenes from Terminus, the horrible and weird melted zombies of Atlanta, and the gruesome death of Noah in the revolving glass door.

However, my personal favorite scene from the maze is a fairly cliched one you'll see in a lot of mazes that this one managed to make feel fresh. Oftentimes in mazes you'll find a hallway with hanging rubber corpses you'll have to push through, and once you've seen one you've seen 'em all, generally. However, one of the final scenes this year took place in the back of a truck full of hanging half corpses (the Wolves of the latter half of the season), and there was just something about the setup they did this year, with so many hanging half corpses, all swinging wildly from the people pushing through, with occasional jump scare walkers bursting from the walls, that made this scene fresh and exciting instead of cliched.

Is there a possible way of saying it was the best done hallway of hanging half corpses I've ever seen without sounding like a serial killer? Because if so, this is it.

Maze Ranking: # 2

Insidious: Return to The Further

Oh man. Oh man oh man this was an awesome maze.

Have you seen the Insidious movies? If no, I would enthusiastically recommend them. They're not the freshest or the most innovative ghost movies of all time, but they're a lot of fun and exquisitely handled haunted house stories, which line them up excellently into becoming haunts. Universal did an Insidious maze a couple years back, and it was a lot of fun, but we weren't expecting a lot new to be added in this year's maze but for some upgrades from the most recent movie.

We were wrong. So very wrong in so many ways.

I could go into detail here about everything they did and did differently, but that'd be doing a disservice to what is an utterly fantastic maze. As with the others of this night, the scenes in this maze felt straight out of the movies, which is nothing new, but this had possibly the most enthusiastic and utterly insane actors I've seen in a Universal maze, especially for the character of the red-faced demon (if you've seen the movies, you know who I'm talking about). There were times he'd appear literally from nowhere, getting in my face and screaming, hissing and leaping for me, getting me to nearly fall to the floor screaming at the top of my lungs (I'm a screamer at Halloween, so sue me).

One moment with him will likely make one of the great moments of our Long Halloween history, as we were mesmerized by a special effect in the maze where an ordinary hallway melted away into an alternate dimension hellhole, and while we were distracted he leaped straight in front of me and scared the hell out of me.

This is a top notch maze from a top notch event, and one of the best I think we've ever seen.

Maze Ranking: A well-deserved # 1 for the night

So, ladies and gents, that was our Halloween Horror Nights experience. As always, this experience was a blast, and an excellent way to kick off The Long Halloween. Stick around next week as we take on one of the other big theme park haunts, and start exploring some of the new independent haunted houses Southern California has to offer.

Thank you for joining me this Halloween season, and as always, please drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter! I'm big into liking/following back!

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-- Matt Carter

(We know there's a lot of Matt Carter's online you could spend your time with, so thanks for hanging around this one!)

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The Long Halloween Diaries - Introduction

9/15/2015

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If you’ve been around my blog at all, chances are you might have seen once or twice that I kinda like horror. I’ve written about it a few times on this blog (and am in the process of writing my first dedicated horror novel now), watched more movies in the genre than I can count, and have adventured to more than a few horrorish locations in my life (The Winchester Mystery House, Sleepy Hollow and the Monroeville Mall from Dawn of the Dead to name a few). I’ve even been lucky enough in my life to have found a partner who, while she didn’t initially, would ultimately share my love for the genre, to the point where I proposed to her on Halloween while we were both in costume.

It’s hard to tell since she tore my mask off, but I was Ghostface from Scream, and she was Carrie. Incidentally, the guy who took the picture was dressed like Jason from Friday the 13th. It was a good Halloween, is what I’m saying.

Our mutual love for horror and the Halloween season has brought about a tradition for every year of our marriage that we’ve called The Long Halloween (a name which admittedly comes from our mutual love for Batman). For the month of October, and, well, some of late September too (because this area is awesome), we do our best to hit as many haunts and Halloween related events in the Los Angeles area, and given the large number of Hollywood people and haunt fans in the area, we get a lot to choose from. We’ll hit up theme parks and professional haunts, escape rooms and local haunted houses, displays of jack-o-lanterns and plays and whatever else seems cool that we can find the time for. It’s what we look forward to every year, and this year, dear readers, I’m bringing you along for the ride.

Yes, that’s right, while I’ve written some about The Long Halloween in the past, this year, for our Fourth Annual Long Halloween, I’m going to be sharing the entire experience on this blog, with pictures and reviews, tips and recommendations and amusing anecdotes for all the adventures we have. There will be occasional celebrity guest stars (well, less celebrity, and more our friends and family, but we love ‘em enough that their celebrities to us), screams and good times to be had all around.

Will we survive The Long Halloween? Stick around and find out. The adventure begins this weekend…

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The Long Halloween Diaries - The 17th Door

The Long Halloween Diaries - Knott's Scary Farm

The Long Halloween Diaries - Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights

The Long Halloween Diaries - Introduction

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