The wait is over.
On Aug. 30, Knott’s Berry Farm announced what it will have in store for the 46th annual Scary Farm.
The biggest change is that the entire park will be an immersive experience, from the decor as you walk in the gate to the monsters in every shadow. Seven popular mazes will be returning, Dark Ride, The Red Barn, Paranormal Inc. Pumpkin Eater, Shadow Lands, Special Ops: Infected and Trick-or-Treat: Lights Out. Each one will feature a new twist, tweak or surprise.
There will also be two new mazes.
Former Knott’s designer Jon Cooke was contracted to create The Depths. The backstory goes like this: In the 1940s, the Nightwatch mining crew disappeared. Over the years there have been many stories about mythical creatures who may have led to the men’s demise and you will take a journey to uncover the truth.
The Depths takes a cue from horror author H.P. Lovecraft and even has a kraken. It has a few water features, including a large finale with a working waterfall so you may also get wet. And one of its most interesting scenes incorporates a moving room.
“Because you are going through a water environment, you are going to be going onto a pirate ship and, as you’re walking across there, the idea is that the ship is rocking, so there’s the motion of the ship,” Knott’s maze designer Gus Krueger said.
Like all of Knott’s mazes, this one has many little touches to make it a more “real’ experience.
“You want to make it as full as possible to make it a living, breathing environment where things are happening as opposed to ‘Oh, there’s a couple of decorations on the wall’,” Krueger said.
Krueger was thrilled that Knott’s decided to have a sci-fi themed maze again and that he was going to be a part of it. He created Dark Entities, in which you have been sent to investigate a space station under attack by an unknown being.
“Now, with our production quality as high as it is, we’ve really been able to take you there and be that stark, gritty horror in space that’s so prevalent and wonderful in film,” Krueger said.
The maze incorporates 1,200 controllable lights, along with an assortment of technological tricks and an atmospheric soundtrack to make you feel as if you are in space. There are also touches that reflect the personalities of the crew, adding to the feeling of a place where people have been living and working for a long time.
The Timber Mountain Log Ride: Halloween Hootenanny is back with original music by Krazy Kirk and the Hillbillies. During the day it will be a family-friendly Halloween-themed adventure, but at night the monsters will emerge to add to the fun.
Other rides will get into the spirit this year too with themed lighting or you can ride Sierra Sidewinder, Ghost Rider and Silver Bullet in the dark if you dare.
Scare zones, Ghost Town Streets, The Hollow and CarnEVIL are returning. CarnEVIL has also enlisted Knott’s new roller coaster HangTime for some special moments. But you will definitely want to venture under the Silver Bullet for the opportunity to experience the new zone, Forsaken Lake.
“We wanted a sense of discovery,” Knott’s maze designer Daniel Miller said. “When you go into the zone you see something completely different than what you did 10 minutes before.”
A lot of inspiration for Forsaken Lake was from a visit Miller took to New Orleans 10 years ago. The space is set in an abandoned graveyard in the Victorian era. Gothic creatures have climbed out of the lake’s murky water seeking fresh victims to join them and occasionally pause their hunt to join in an eerie funeral procession.
“The thing I really like is trying to create an environment that changes throughout the night,” Miller said.
If you listen, you will notice the music in this zone is drawn from the funeral dirges of 1800s New Orleans and mashed up with dark, heavy metal.
The Knott’s team also shared that Forsaken Lake may eventually be teamed up with a maze, in the same way that The Hollow is paired with Pumpkin Eater.
“Shows have always been a part of the Knott’s Scary Farm tradition,” Knott’s vice president of entertainment Ken Parks said. “When the park first opened and did the Halloween Haunt there were very few mazes and the shows helped make up what the overall entertainment package was.”
The focus over the past few years has been on improving the mazes, Parks said, and now Knott’s is looking to upping the quality and selection of its shows.
As she told us last year, Elvira is not returning this year, but the popular pop culture parody “The Hanging” is back with “Shhh it Happens.”
There will be a new dance party in Fiesta Village with Awaken the Dead, sugar skull go-go dancers and live DJs and two new shows.
“Conjure” brings comedy and magic to the Birdcage Theatre with performers from Fox’s “Masters of Illusion.” Dana Daniels is on deck the first weekend, Taylor Hughes will be there for the second weekend and Chipper Lowell, who was a Scary Farm staple in the 1990s, will take the stage for the month of October.
Improv is coming back to Knott’s too with “Hacks: Cutting Room Floor” in the Charles M. Schulz Theatre. This time the troupe will improvise dialogue to old B horror and sci-fi movie clips, and in one skit they will borrow cell phones from the audience and use their text messages for their lines.
“We have something planned for next year that we think is pretty big and innovative,” Parks said. “It will be something that no one has done before.”
The Nautilus shop will become Bizarre Bazaar, the place for your Scary Farm shopping, as well as the home of the exclusive “Into the Fog: Tribute to Scary Farm” curated by Knott’s show producer Eric Nix. The exhibit boasts just under 40 pieces representing 35 artists, including paintings, digital work, sculptures and more.
One of Nix’s favorites is a laser-etched wood spirit board with a custom-made planchette by Chris Williams.
“Instead of trying to shoehorn the artists into a specific theme, what I said was, ‘This is our first Scary Farm art show so go big,’” Nix said. “’The sky’s the limit. Anything Scary Farm is on the table right now.’ All the pieces in the show are stunning.”
And most are for sale. There are also prints by many of the artists available for purchase.
After seeing “Into the Fog,” you can slip into the arcade next door and play the seasonal VR game, “Time Zombies,” for $5.
The Boo-fet dinner will be available again with Mrs. Knott’s fried chicken, a chef carving station, boysenberry pie and more. For $31.99-$36.99, you will enjoy an all-you-can-eat meal, plus receive a 2018 souvenir bottle, which gives unlimited complimentary refills on the event night and $1 refills for the rest of the 2018 season, and early entry to Paranormal Inc., Trick-or-Treat: Lights Out, Dark Entities and The Depths. You must have a Scary Farm ticket to attend the dinner.
Knott’s Scary Farm will be open select evenings Sept. 20-Oct. 31. Tickets are available now online at https://www.knotts.com/tickets-passes/scary-farm. Advance single ticket prices through Sept. 16 are $42 and up per night, $120 with Fright and Fast Lane and $149 with Fright and Fast Lane, Boo-fet and parking and a season pass is $95.
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