I bet you are good at digging up the past and taking it for granite.
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All things Knotts Berry Farm
- Thread starter Phroobar
- Start date
AJFireman
Well-Known Member
Schedule sent to associates only not posted on the app for today 09/28. It seems to be the same everyday
Camp Snoopy
Slider Show @ Gauntlet 10:30 pm
The Witching Hour @ Gauntlet 9:15 / 11:15
Ghost Town
Rope Drop 7pm
Mission Row
Funeral Procession 8:45 / 11:45
Walter Knott Theatre Terrace
Blind Tiger Red Hot Jazz Band and the Tigers Tail Dancer 8pm/9:45pm/11:30pm
All other shows should be posted to the App
As with any none public schedule it could change. I know when I went they did not have the slider show due to technical difficulties, but they knew in advance. You can always ask the show folks in all black or a Monsters.
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We will check it out tonight
I'm at Knott's Spooky Farm. Kids are having fun trick or treating in ghost town. They are all in costume. I've seen people with bags of candy. They probably get more free candy here than at Oogies.
I'm riding the Galloping Goose around the park just to see the mazes. The log ride has all of the Halloween characters up.
I'm riding the Galloping Goose around the park just to see the mazes. The log ride has all of the Halloween characters up.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
Were you at the show with "idiot?"
Yes!!!! You were there too?
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
I was! Great show, despite one grumpy Gus. I just wish there was some mention of Ed Alonzo's hosting years, even if they didn't want to add another segment. But that Host was fantastic.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
What did the 'idiot' do?
He is supposed to give his name and the guy wouldn't do it. So the host gave up and call him an idiot. His name was now Idiot - King of the Handjobs! He was referenced the rest of the show.
Disneyland/DCA
Active Member
The vibe of the hanging in the wagon camp was fantastic. The script was as lame as ever, which is great. Nice to have the show back.
Cinema Slasher and Chambers were fun little throwbacks; the Incredible Thingy should be honored and revered forever and always. Room 13 was nice. Bloodline needs a complete overhaul to compensate for the loss of the guns.
Cinema Slasher and Chambers were fun little throwbacks; the Incredible Thingy should be honored and revered forever and always. Room 13 was nice. Bloodline needs a complete overhaul to compensate for the loss of the guns.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
Room 13 had some great production quality and ideas (the scaffolding room was cool concept), but my group found it to be far too redundant without enough variety or escalation.
Anyone have any leads on why the water features for Cinema Slasher were drained? That maze felt like a series of missteps. The chainsaw room finale....I just don't even get what they were going for. The opening was great with the lobby and such and I loved the goofiness of the projector monster midway, but it felt like we were walking through a discount Halloween maze from Universal, but without the context to make scenes memorable.
Mesmer and Wax Works were my top mazes by far. Chilling Chambers was a lot of fun with the middle portion being a slight weak spot for me.
The maze did highlight an issue I've been feeling with Knotts. They have leaned into one aesthetic for their mazes and it makes them all kind of blend together after awhile. Walking through Carnival of Carnivorous Clowns, it made me realize how much I miss some other type of maze design. I'd love to see another 3-D maze and some variations in the art style.
Nirya
Well-Known Member
Ok, I went to Scary Farm this past Friday, and as usual will offer my review of the mazes and overall vibe from a long-time patron.
Overall: I still love Scary Farm, and I think this year did a lot to highlight why. Getting in was relatively painless (we did get there early and were inside the park 30 minutes before rope drop, which was new for our group) and the opening ceremony was exactly the kind of fun and campy I expect from this event. The mazes in general were all well-done, the scare zones all solid to great, and operations were running pretty smooth. We didn't get to any of the shows or really ride any rides outside of one, but the fact that we were able to get through all the mazes with an hour to spare still feels notable, especially because we did not pay for the extra front-of-the-line pass as we originally were going to. I'm going to be overly critical of a few mazes here, but that comes from a place of genuine love for what this event continues to be.
I'll also note that our group had a mix of people going for a long time and people for whom this was their first Scary Farm experience. I think that helped soften my opinion on a few mazes and I'll try and include those varied perspectives where I can.
New Mazes
Cinema Slasher: This was the first of the new mazes we did, and it had a lot to live up to replacing one of my all-time favorites in Dark Ride. Happy to say it did not disappoint, as this maze had something for everyone. For the new people, this was a great maze that had a nice cohesive theme and played on some hit tropes (killer at a sorority house, spooky camp, and backwoods) in a clever way. For me, a Knotts vet, I loved the callbacks to previous mazes, and I was fully in the bag for this maze when we walked into the Trick or Treat segment and they hit us with that iconic opening staircase with the pumpkins. Just a really good maze that has some potential for improvement over the next few years.
Room 13: I really wanted to like this one because I love the Gore-ing 20s zone, but this one really fell flat for numerous reasons. I'm normally not one to mention lines, but the line for this one using the ramp up to the Walter Knott Theater is rough and makes the wait unbearable, so I was already not in a great emotional headspace for this one. Inside, I get what it was trying to go to, and there are some decent sets (I liked the opening bar, and the walk along the scaffolding was well-done) but it just lacked any real cohesion or a proper story, which feels weird since it's the signature maze for the scare zone that is all about story. They really could have used something to set that up better, maybe throwing some actors throughout the line or TVs or something, idk. For a first year, it wasn't bad, but there's a lot of room for improvement before this one becomes a shining jewel for a section of the park that really deserves one.
Chilling Chambers: We did this one last because it's right near the front, and I'm so glad we did because this was the best maze we did all night. Much like me with Cinema Slasher, the other Knotts vet in our group was apprehensive because this replaced her favorite maze Pumpkineater, so having the maze start with the big Pumpkineater animatronic was a good way for her to just completely buy in to this maze. I loved the set design here starting with the opening church and stained glass, and all the mazes chosen to highlight were well-done and hit all the high points. This maze can really stick around forever and keep feeling fresh as they just change out the various scenes, and I really hope that's what the plan is here moving forward, to just create a living museum for all of the best mazes that have graced the Farm.
Returning Mazes
Bloodlines: I'm talking about this one first because it absolutely needs some work at this point. I was happy with the removal of the guns because, in general, I find the guns to be gimmicky and really hurt guest flow, but after walking through this one I'm guessing the decision to remove the guns came at the last minute. Whole sections of the maze story and events went unchanged, with the finale still referencing shooting the final monster with guns which made 0 sense. I'm hoping this maze is in line for a big revamp next year, because I think the setting is good and the actors are fully committed to their characters, it just needs a lot of work.
Wax Works: Still great! Small changes to the flow of the rooms this year but overall nothing to complain about. We're probably a year away from a mid-life refresh a'la Trick or Treat, but it's helpful for the park to have a solid workhorse maze that they can safely trot out while they work on other mazes.
The Depths: One of our two departing mazes this year. I've never been the biggest fan of this maze for a variety of reasons, but I decided to go in with an open mind with this being the last year and being one of the more anticipated mazes for the new people in our group. Overall, I felt this maze was going out on a high note. The major set pieces all still work, like the fog water section and the giant squid and boat, and there were more actors out and about than previously. I still wish they had figured out a way to make the opening work, and I'm not sad to see this one go, but this was a good final outing for what had long been a troubled maze.
Dark Entities: On the flip side, I'm fully ready to move on from this maze. Don't get me wrong: this maze is perfectly fine and does a lot of things right, but I just feel it never got to that next level to make it one of the great mazes, and Knotts never seemed to want to commit to making it one. This maze would have been perfect for the laser guns treatment honestly, and maybe that's the biggest tragedy here. Oh well, excited to see what they do in this space next year, as they've often put some wild mazes in this spot.
Mesmer: Still a banger maze, no complaints here, and I appreciate the change-up of having a maze that goes for psychological horror rather than just straight gore. All the effects were working when we went, which is always a plus, and the actors were all on point and fully invested in this one.
Origins: I'm starting to reach a point with this maze where I wonder what the long-term plan is, because right now this feels like one of the most essential mazes in the park for how it ties into the whole story of Ghost Town and even has its own spin-off maze. This maze still hits all the right notes between classic horror and fanservice, and they even had the finale sequence running properly with Sarah Marshall flying around overhead. But this year is Year 4 of the maze, and the 5th/6th year is usually when Knotts starts looking to wrap things up, so this will be the one to monitor going into next year. I think they could maybe do a refresh just to keep this maze around a lot longer.
Grimoire: Ending with this maze because, while I still like it a ton, this was a step back for the maze. Dropping the opener throws off the story for the rest of the maze, as the newbies in our group were just left confused as to why things were happening and why we were doing things like walking through a WWI trench. There's a lot of subtext and if you know what you're looking for you get a ton out of the maze, but most people aren't going to put in that kind of effort so it helps to spoonfeed information. To compare to Origins, that maze has the brilliant actors in the queue that set up the story by talking about going to hunt Sarah Marshall and the bounty on her head. It's interactive and combines with the first room to make the story of the maze easy for guests to understand. For Grimoire, they have the TVs which are clever but off in the corners so most people don't watch or pay attention, and losing the opening makes the story even more incoherent for guests. This maze is so clever but it feels like they need to rework some parts to make things more clear to the average guest.
Scare Zones
Ghost Town, CarnEVIL: Still slaps, no complaints.
Forsaken Lake: This was the first year I spent any extended time in this zone, and maybe it was because we were here early, but this was honestly a pretty fun little area. There seemed to be more props out than in previous years, and there were a solid number of scare actors interacting with guests while we were here. The zone still feels like it's missing something, probably because there's no maze over here so you have to go out of the way to experience it, but this felt like a step in the right direction.
Gore-ing 20s: I love this zone so much, all of the scare actors here understand their roles to perfection and are doing a ton in the zone to tell an overarching story. The addition of a maze here, as lackluster as I found it, also did a lot to improve the zone by giving the actors something to bounce off of. There is so much meat on this bone left to take advantage of.
The Gauntlet: I loved the Gauntlet in its initial run, and was so happy to see it coming back for the 50th, but this version felt very lackluster. I think it's a combination of factors, from a real lack of props to having no real mazes to draw guests over, so you have to actively seek this area to interact with it (yes I know Chilling Chambers is at the exit, but its location basically means you never have to even interact with the scare zone if you don't want to). Knotts has basically abandoned this corner of the park ever since moving SpecOps out of the area, and I get why they have seemingly done so, they really should consider reversing that and bringing a maze back to this corner in future years.
Didn't See Live But Saw a VOD/Did in the Past
Halloween Hootnanny/Candy Mountain: I've ridden both of these in the past, and without any major changes or scare actors these just remain fun rides that I'll probably never ride again unless it's late at night. It's nothing against these rides, but I've got priorities here.
The Hanging: I'm happy the Hanging is back. Not because this is a great show - it very often is a bad show with a few good jokes and passable stunts - but because I think it's important for Scary Farm to have a wide variety of activities to feel well-rounded, and the Hanging scratches a particular itch that was missing the past few years. Here's to more years of this show going forward.
The One Ride I Went On
Ghostrider: Not all of our group was at Knotts by opening, so as the few of us were walking towards the first set of mazes (the corner four behind Ghostrider) I looked at the ride, realized this would be our best shot at riding it, and we jumped in line. I can complain about this line all day (and we only waited 30 minutes because we walked in essentially 5 minutes after rope drop) or the operations of this ride (whoever wrote down the operations procedures for this ride, from loading/unloading to the ratio of regular to Fastpass guests, should be tried for war crimes) but at the end of the day: this ride still whips. It is by far my favorite wooden roller coaster in the world, and riding it at night when it's been running all day means you're getting a really special ride with a ton of speed and G-forces. A+ ride over 20 years later.
Overall: I still love Scary Farm, and I think this year did a lot to highlight why. Getting in was relatively painless (we did get there early and were inside the park 30 minutes before rope drop, which was new for our group) and the opening ceremony was exactly the kind of fun and campy I expect from this event. The mazes in general were all well-done, the scare zones all solid to great, and operations were running pretty smooth. We didn't get to any of the shows or really ride any rides outside of one, but the fact that we were able to get through all the mazes with an hour to spare still feels notable, especially because we did not pay for the extra front-of-the-line pass as we originally were going to. I'm going to be overly critical of a few mazes here, but that comes from a place of genuine love for what this event continues to be.
I'll also note that our group had a mix of people going for a long time and people for whom this was their first Scary Farm experience. I think that helped soften my opinion on a few mazes and I'll try and include those varied perspectives where I can.
New Mazes
Cinema Slasher: This was the first of the new mazes we did, and it had a lot to live up to replacing one of my all-time favorites in Dark Ride. Happy to say it did not disappoint, as this maze had something for everyone. For the new people, this was a great maze that had a nice cohesive theme and played on some hit tropes (killer at a sorority house, spooky camp, and backwoods) in a clever way. For me, a Knotts vet, I loved the callbacks to previous mazes, and I was fully in the bag for this maze when we walked into the Trick or Treat segment and they hit us with that iconic opening staircase with the pumpkins. Just a really good maze that has some potential for improvement over the next few years.
Room 13: I really wanted to like this one because I love the Gore-ing 20s zone, but this one really fell flat for numerous reasons. I'm normally not one to mention lines, but the line for this one using the ramp up to the Walter Knott Theater is rough and makes the wait unbearable, so I was already not in a great emotional headspace for this one. Inside, I get what it was trying to go to, and there are some decent sets (I liked the opening bar, and the walk along the scaffolding was well-done) but it just lacked any real cohesion or a proper story, which feels weird since it's the signature maze for the scare zone that is all about story. They really could have used something to set that up better, maybe throwing some actors throughout the line or TVs or something, idk. For a first year, it wasn't bad, but there's a lot of room for improvement before this one becomes a shining jewel for a section of the park that really deserves one.
Chilling Chambers: We did this one last because it's right near the front, and I'm so glad we did because this was the best maze we did all night. Much like me with Cinema Slasher, the other Knotts vet in our group was apprehensive because this replaced her favorite maze Pumpkineater, so having the maze start with the big Pumpkineater animatronic was a good way for her to just completely buy in to this maze. I loved the set design here starting with the opening church and stained glass, and all the mazes chosen to highlight were well-done and hit all the high points. This maze can really stick around forever and keep feeling fresh as they just change out the various scenes, and I really hope that's what the plan is here moving forward, to just create a living museum for all of the best mazes that have graced the Farm.
Returning Mazes
Bloodlines: I'm talking about this one first because it absolutely needs some work at this point. I was happy with the removal of the guns because, in general, I find the guns to be gimmicky and really hurt guest flow, but after walking through this one I'm guessing the decision to remove the guns came at the last minute. Whole sections of the maze story and events went unchanged, with the finale still referencing shooting the final monster with guns which made 0 sense. I'm hoping this maze is in line for a big revamp next year, because I think the setting is good and the actors are fully committed to their characters, it just needs a lot of work.
Wax Works: Still great! Small changes to the flow of the rooms this year but overall nothing to complain about. We're probably a year away from a mid-life refresh a'la Trick or Treat, but it's helpful for the park to have a solid workhorse maze that they can safely trot out while they work on other mazes.
The Depths: One of our two departing mazes this year. I've never been the biggest fan of this maze for a variety of reasons, but I decided to go in with an open mind with this being the last year and being one of the more anticipated mazes for the new people in our group. Overall, I felt this maze was going out on a high note. The major set pieces all still work, like the fog water section and the giant squid and boat, and there were more actors out and about than previously. I still wish they had figured out a way to make the opening work, and I'm not sad to see this one go, but this was a good final outing for what had long been a troubled maze.
Dark Entities: On the flip side, I'm fully ready to move on from this maze. Don't get me wrong: this maze is perfectly fine and does a lot of things right, but I just feel it never got to that next level to make it one of the great mazes, and Knotts never seemed to want to commit to making it one. This maze would have been perfect for the laser guns treatment honestly, and maybe that's the biggest tragedy here. Oh well, excited to see what they do in this space next year, as they've often put some wild mazes in this spot.
Mesmer: Still a banger maze, no complaints here, and I appreciate the change-up of having a maze that goes for psychological horror rather than just straight gore. All the effects were working when we went, which is always a plus, and the actors were all on point and fully invested in this one.
Origins: I'm starting to reach a point with this maze where I wonder what the long-term plan is, because right now this feels like one of the most essential mazes in the park for how it ties into the whole story of Ghost Town and even has its own spin-off maze. This maze still hits all the right notes between classic horror and fanservice, and they even had the finale sequence running properly with Sarah Marshall flying around overhead. But this year is Year 4 of the maze, and the 5th/6th year is usually when Knotts starts looking to wrap things up, so this will be the one to monitor going into next year. I think they could maybe do a refresh just to keep this maze around a lot longer.
Grimoire: Ending with this maze because, while I still like it a ton, this was a step back for the maze. Dropping the opener throws off the story for the rest of the maze, as the newbies in our group were just left confused as to why things were happening and why we were doing things like walking through a WWI trench. There's a lot of subtext and if you know what you're looking for you get a ton out of the maze, but most people aren't going to put in that kind of effort so it helps to spoonfeed information. To compare to Origins, that maze has the brilliant actors in the queue that set up the story by talking about going to hunt Sarah Marshall and the bounty on her head. It's interactive and combines with the first room to make the story of the maze easy for guests to understand. For Grimoire, they have the TVs which are clever but off in the corners so most people don't watch or pay attention, and losing the opening makes the story even more incoherent for guests. This maze is so clever but it feels like they need to rework some parts to make things more clear to the average guest.
Scare Zones
Ghost Town, CarnEVIL: Still slaps, no complaints.
Forsaken Lake: This was the first year I spent any extended time in this zone, and maybe it was because we were here early, but this was honestly a pretty fun little area. There seemed to be more props out than in previous years, and there were a solid number of scare actors interacting with guests while we were here. The zone still feels like it's missing something, probably because there's no maze over here so you have to go out of the way to experience it, but this felt like a step in the right direction.
Gore-ing 20s: I love this zone so much, all of the scare actors here understand their roles to perfection and are doing a ton in the zone to tell an overarching story. The addition of a maze here, as lackluster as I found it, also did a lot to improve the zone by giving the actors something to bounce off of. There is so much meat on this bone left to take advantage of.
The Gauntlet: I loved the Gauntlet in its initial run, and was so happy to see it coming back for the 50th, but this version felt very lackluster. I think it's a combination of factors, from a real lack of props to having no real mazes to draw guests over, so you have to actively seek this area to interact with it (yes I know Chilling Chambers is at the exit, but its location basically means you never have to even interact with the scare zone if you don't want to). Knotts has basically abandoned this corner of the park ever since moving SpecOps out of the area, and I get why they have seemingly done so, they really should consider reversing that and bringing a maze back to this corner in future years.
Didn't See Live But Saw a VOD/Did in the Past
Halloween Hootnanny/Candy Mountain: I've ridden both of these in the past, and without any major changes or scare actors these just remain fun rides that I'll probably never ride again unless it's late at night. It's nothing against these rides, but I've got priorities here.
The Hanging: I'm happy the Hanging is back. Not because this is a great show - it very often is a bad show with a few good jokes and passable stunts - but because I think it's important for Scary Farm to have a wide variety of activities to feel well-rounded, and the Hanging scratches a particular itch that was missing the past few years. Here's to more years of this show going forward.
The One Ride I Went On
Ghostrider: Not all of our group was at Knotts by opening, so as the few of us were walking towards the first set of mazes (the corner four behind Ghostrider) I looked at the ride, realized this would be our best shot at riding it, and we jumped in line. I can complain about this line all day (and we only waited 30 minutes because we walked in essentially 5 minutes after rope drop) or the operations of this ride (whoever wrote down the operations procedures for this ride, from loading/unloading to the ratio of regular to Fastpass guests, should be tried for war crimes) but at the end of the day: this ride still whips. It is by far my favorite wooden roller coaster in the world, and riding it at night when it's been running all day means you're getting a really special ride with a ton of speed and G-forces. A+ ride over 20 years later.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Sounds like a great visit! Looking forward to getting to Scary Farm in a week or so.
What should I know about Grimoire to help make sense of it? There's nothing from the description that would have made it seem like Sarah Marshall was ever involved, and for some reason I was picturing something about fairy tales (I suppose because of the Brothers Grimm), so now I feel like I'll be expecting something wildly off from what's actually there inside the maze.
Nirya
Well-Known Member
Ok, so the reason Grimoire is a spin-off of Origins is because in the first few years of that maze, the finale room featured Sarah Marshall flying around the final room with a book propped up prominently in the center. That book was the Grimoire, and it is implied that the book is helping Sarah with her magic.
It would be easier to think of the Grimoire in the same sense as the Necronomicon from Evil Dead or the Darkhold from Marvel. It's an evil book that has existed throughout time, and that's the basic story of the maze. I don't want to give away more because, like I said, conceptually it's one of my favorites and I really don't want to give away some of the set pieces, but that's the general idea.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
Mesmer and Waxworks are still my favourites of the current line up. Room 13 had so much potential, but the scenes and music are all the same for the entire maze. Let us wander through the back alleys with car scares and tommy guns. Let the maze progress instead of just being an endless stream of bedrooms, bathrooms, foyers, and elevator lobbies.
I had never experienced Grimoire and without the pre-show....it didn't work for me. I like the concept for it, but I would have loved to see the last 3rd be more creative and to utilize the Mystery Lodge preshow room instead of randomly walking into it and then out of it.
Origins is good, but I am not a fan of using TVs unless it is meant to be one, like Mesmer's uses don't bother me. But asking me to believe its a portrait or an interactive element feels cheap. I had the same first impression from them on Bloodlines.
I was sad that this was my first and last time experiencing The Depths and the ship wasn't working. I assumed it had been cut until I watched some walk throughs.
Cinema Slasher is huge miss for me.
I had never experienced Grimoire and without the pre-show....it didn't work for me. I like the concept for it, but I would have loved to see the last 3rd be more creative and to utilize the Mystery Lodge preshow room instead of randomly walking into it and then out of it.
Origins is good, but I am not a fan of using TVs unless it is meant to be one, like Mesmer's uses don't bother me. But asking me to believe its a portrait or an interactive element feels cheap. I had the same first impression from them on Bloodlines.
I was sad that this was my first and last time experiencing The Depths and the ship wasn't working. I assumed it had been cut until I watched some walk throughs.
Cinema Slasher is huge miss for me.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
I hope you're saying that they just cut the book and not the flying bit at the end of Origins. That's such a perfect capper for the maze that it would be a shame if they've gotten rid of it.
Thank you for explaining the idea behind Grimoire.
choco choco
Well-Known Member
For operational and cost saving purposes, I think they should shut Fiesta Village and Camp Snoopy down for Scary Farm and route the performers to other places. That area has been dead for years now, and Scary Farm is big enough without them to absorb the crowds elsewhere. Just a better use of money: populate the other scare zones and mazes more, and have a little extra design and placemaking budget for the rest of the farm.
D.Silentu
Well-Known Member
Not to worry, that scene is intact! I also appreciate the extra context behind Grimoire. I am aware of what the book is, but found the maze's plot convoluted as I experienced it for the first time over the weekend. I felt the same about Bloodlines; both had fantastic aesthetics, but poorly presented throughlines. It's consternating that I will have to watch youtube walk throughs from last year to understand what the designers intended.