Two new haunted mazes coming to Knott's Scary Farm will complete a five-year reboot of the granddaddy of all Halloween events that had grown tired and creaky as it crept into middle age.
The turnaround began in 2010 with the introduction of the Terror of London maze based on the Jack the Ripper tales and continued with the apocalyptic Endgames (2011), the puzzle-solving Trapped (2012) and the Harry Houdini-inspired Black Magic (2013). This year, Voodoo and Tooth Fairy carry on the Knott's Haunt revival.
During an exclusive preview, Halloween Haunt masters of mischievous mayhem Lara Hanneman and Daniel Miller offered a walk-through tour of the two new mazes debuting at the 42nd annual event.
Spoiler alert: What follows are detailed previews of the Voodoo and Tooth Fairy mazes. Consider yourself warned.
Behind the Ghostrider coaster, the Voodoo maze travels into the swampy backwoods of a Louisiana bayou brimming with witch doctors and zombies.
Out front, the maze's elaborate facade sets the New Orleans theme as "scareactors" throw beads from the wrought iron balcony to visitors queued up below as a creepy jazz soundtrack plays.
For those who have paid for the upcharge Skeleton Key experience, the pre-show room offers an interactive explanation of the maze's backstory that I won't give away -- other than to say it's not for the claustrophobic.
For everyone else, the maze starts with a choice: A paranormal voodoo lounge with walls that rattle to life or an alligator museum run by a redneck proprietor with an itchy trigger finger. The varying experiences are designed to encourage repeat visits.
Visitors exiting each room join together again only to face another choose-your-own-path option: An idol worship temple haunted by a vengeful demon or a human sacrifice chamber filled with horned beasts.
The tandem encounters empty onto a bayou village populated with stilt shacks standing in brackish water covered in low-lying fog. The swamp shanties are connected via a series of catwalks and bridges of varying reliability - be careful where you step. Gators, skeletons and other animatronic creatures regularly pop out of the water.
The faux realism of the scene is so complete that it makes you feel like you've stepped onto a Hollywood movie set for "Deliverance." Cue the dueling banjos and squealing pigs.
Bathed in blue moonlight, the back third of the maze is dominated by a forest of Cypress trees baring exposed roots. Meandering visitors encounter zombies that pop out of above-ground burial crypts. The atmosphere is such a stunning achievement that you forget you're in a converted storage warehouse. Knott's pulls off the difficult-to-achieve outdoor environment in an indoor space with textbook perfection.
Also backstage near the Ghostrider coaster, the dark, brooding and gritty Tooth Fairy maze is an ingenious mash-up that combines the creepy sneak-in-your-room-while-you're-sleeping legendary creature with the whirring drills and pained screams of the always-terrifying trip to the dentist's office.
The common denominator here is teeth, but stitching the two concepts together proves tricky -- one doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the other. I would have made the sadistic dentist a demented tooth fairy who collects molars and incisors to satisfy some sick obsession.
Knott's added one twist too many to this maze, making the tooth fairy a vengeful predator who turns children into her winged minions. Dentistry is just sort of tacked on as an afterthought, making the story a bit convoluted in the middle.
But none of that takes away from the experience inside this wonderfully detailed maze with plenty of opportunities for scares. Among my favorite moments: A gaping mouth-like portal into the realm of the tooth fairy that opens on one wall of a child's bedroom, a black fur-covered tunnel filled with fuzzy human shapes you encounter while pawing through the dark and a caged entrance to the dental office that forces you to crouch down as a demon dentist prowls overhead.
Be forewarned: The Tooth Fairy maze focuses the brunt of its punishment on young children, a demographic most family theme parks typically avoid tormenting during haunted events. Knott's knows where the line is and gleefully steps over it. None of this should come as a surprise to anyone entering the maze, though: Video screens surrounding the entrance show kids climbing into bed in what can only be described as a foreshadowing of the nightmares that lie within.
The very best scenes in the Tooth Fairy maze involve familiar dentist chairs turned into instruments of torture, including a patient with a carpenter's hand drill boring into her mouth and a bloodied young boy missing the bottom of his jaw.
The maze ends with a wicked animatronic tooth fairy dripping with gelatinous goo that will make you glad you've lost all your baby teeth.
The 42nd annual Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm runs on select nights from Sept. 25 through Nov. 1.
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