Photo TR: Knott's Haunt, 9/26/08

[dj snow]

Friday, Sept. 26 was the day for me to make my first-ever journey to Knott's Halloween Haunt. The park was dead during the day, and (as expected) got much busier for Haunt, but still lines weren't bad. All 13 mazes and haunted rides were completed by 8:15—not bad! After that, the longest wait for a house was about 10 minutes, but most of them were walk-ins throughout the night.

 

The three "adult content" rated shows were also taken in, and they weren't bad.

 

The Hanging seemed a bit scattered, and the big visual payoff accompanying this year's victim struck me as bizarre, but I was nonetheless entertained.

 

Fangs was a mixed bag—reasonably good song-and-dance numbers with somewhat improvised comedy in between. The audience seemed to like the "spoken word" character segments the most. This show could be tightened up—if they could trim about 10 minutes from the show it would help keep up the pace.

 

Dr. Cleaver's Big Election was one of the dirtiest theme park shows I've seen. In retrospect, the storyline was a paper-thin means of forcing extremely vulgar double-entendres, but it was still a good time. I thought it was funny how Dr. Cleaver would turn to the audience with this big grin on his face as he delivered some of his filthiest lines, as if to say, "yeah, I'm actually saying these words!"

 

Favorite maze: Slaughterhouse

 

Least favorite maze: Alien Annihilation

 

Now on to the pics!

Finally, my favorite shot of the night. Take a moment to enjoy it, and—BOO! Did I scare you? Thanks for reading!

Dolls are creepy.

And now, I'll wrap things up with a few more lovely atmospheric night shots.

Labyrinth by night. Oooh, ahh!

Outside the queue for Slaughterhouse. This was my favorite because the theme began as you entered the queue. I also have a preference for "plausible" houses, i.e., those where you could imagine yourself actually in the situation depicted.

I figured Alien Annihilation could use some love, so I took a photo, even if it wasn't my favorite house.

Nice lighting near the front gate.

Quarantine is new for this year. A fairly short maze, the set design is good and there's a nice effect in the first room (which by its design also limits throughput somewhat).

I enjoyed Killer Clown Kollege, especially the silly soundtrack within.

It's the Bird Lady!

Exclusive VIP scares!

Around 6:30, the ghouls started to appear. This one was a very adept slider. Props to him!

"Corpse wreaths make a lovely display for any season." -Martha Stewart

Super-rare INSIDE-GALLOPING-GOOSE shot!!

First, a few day shots. This is Labyrinth under bright, bright sunlight. I'm not sure what this area is normally, but the maze itself contains stairs. I wonder how many people fall down those stairs.

[dino]

Great TR. Love the night-time shots of scary farm, just beautiful .

[Gnome]

Knotts had some cool things this year. Most impressive was what they did for Asylum and and Club blood by putting them inside of the where house.

 

THe mine ride needs a new theme for next year, and a lot of the midways were to bright, imo. THey should change that. I realize that the rides need to be lit up for safety reasons, but you can still have the rides lit without casting a bright light over the entire midway.

 

Overall haunt was fun. It was some of the most fun I had but it was more for the people I was with then anything. I'd still reccommend Universal if you could get everyone to go out there.

[the ghost]

That was a good TR. I am going to Knotts in 5 days (on sunday) So I can wait. I love haunt.

 

Is cornstalkers any good as that was my most anticipated maze for the year.