Knott's Scary Farm 2019 Opening Weekend

9/24/2019

Knott's Scary Farm 2019 Opening Weekend

Today we have the first of a few updates from this years Knott's Scary Farm.

We attended all 3 nights of opening weekend and we are pretty confident when we say that this is one of the best years of Halloween Haunt ever (yes, we know it's not called that any more).

Let's head into the fog and check out this years event.

Written by Gregg Condon

After our almost 3 1/2 hour drive down on Thursday afternoon (yeah) it was nice to check into the Knott's Hotel and enjoy some relaxing time at Amber Waves prior to media check in.

We ran into some friends

Amber Waves looks great all decked out (and the service was amazing all weekend)

Technically taken Friday morning, but we have to share the entrance. =)

We're all checked in and ready to get our scare on

The fountain display is amazing this year

Let's start our walk-through of the mazes, because they were amazing this year.

Origins: The Curse of Calico

I honestly don't have enough adjectives to describe how amazing this maze is. It's got everything. Amazing talent. Incredible sets. A stellar story. Easter Eggs galore.

This maze tells the story of Sarah Marshall (not that Sarah Marshall) and the curse she set on Calico with her transition from human to, well, the green witch of course.

Even the queue line looks amazing

Picture slide-show of Origins

Wax Works

In ANY other year, Wax Works would have been the maze of the year, probably even moreso than my beloved Dark Ride during it's first year.

I've always been a fan of Daniel Miller's work, and I think it's safe to say this may be the best maze he's ever done. It's creepy, exciting, tells a great story and has so many hidden things in it that you have to go through multiple times.

We will be posting a tour we had of this maze in a couple of days.

Dark Ride

Now in it's 3rd year, Dark Ride shows no signs of slowing down on the amazingness. Quite a few new things this year, including our favorite on-ride photo ever. We really do wish this was something we could buy.

Also waiting to see if there are any complaints on this yet.

Dark Entities

Now in it's second year, Gus Krueger's Dark Entities is setting itself up as one of the strongest mazes of 2019. In fact, our last trip through this maze on Saturday night was easily our best time through this maze ever. And may be the most fun we've had in any maze so far this season.

Don't sleep on this maze, the talent is finding it's stride and there are a lot of great new lighting effects this year.

The Depths

In it's second year, the stand-out new maze from 2018 is also not showing any signs of letting up on the fun and scares. Some new additions this year including a pre-show that may make waits a bit longer than they normally would be. So get to this maze early.

In fact, later in the night on Saturday they were skipping the new show scene altogether. So it will be interesting to see if it makes it through the season.

Pumpkin Eater

There are some mazes that are instant classics and yet others that kind of take a bit to hit their stride. Pumpkin Eater is one of those that really took about half way through it's opening season to hit all cylinders. But when it did, wow. This is a maze that has gotten better each and every year.

Paranormal Inc

We didn't go through Paranormal on media night so no video this year (we'll post last years below). There weren't any additions this year but the amazing ending from last year is more than enough to keep this maze one of our favorites.

Still, we wouldn't be surprised if next year was the last go-round for this one.

Shadowlands

Now in it's final season, Shadowlands is still one of the most visually stunning mazes at the farm. This one suffers from being the first of the "new wave" of mazes that have taken over the past few years. Still, it's a lot of fun and we look forward to getting our last tours of this maze on upcoming visits.

Infected

We didn't go through Infected on media night so no video on this one either. Infected is also in it's final season and again represents the first of the new wave of technological advances Knott's Scary Farm has implemented the past 5 or so years.

When we went through on Saturday it just didn't seem like there were enough zombies in the maze. We walked out with 8 and 9 kills respectively.

Our favorite video of Infected remains our "Gun POV" that we did a few years back.

Shows

We'll start off with the Hanging, the proverbial "love it or hate it" show every year.

I'll be honest, we're kind of in the middle this year. Unlike the last 2 years they didn't hang a "YouTube" or "Influencer" that 75% of the audience had to ask "who is that". So that was good.

But this years show in particular has produced some interesting discussions as to what the ending could mean for the future of this show. We'll just have to see.

Lastly, we want to take a second to talk about Puppet Up.

I'll be honest, we had no idea what to expect from this show and even on media night we basically just wanted to sit down and take a rest so we decided to do it in the theater. We really aren't "theme park show people".

So when we found ourselves back at the show the next 2 nights that should pretty much tell you how much we loved this show.

Basically it's "Who's Line is it Anyway" but with Puppets, complete with dirty language.

We love that Knott's has allowed the show to go all out. Hopefully there haven't been any complaints about the content because word is spreading about how good the show is. The crowds were bigger on each subsequent night.

On media night here is a great improv on an audience suggestion of a "Tiki Bar Fire at Disneyland". You can tell the cast truly understands Disney culture as this has reference to Annual Passholders, Pin Trading and much more.

The show also features some classic Jim Henson puppet acts. They seem to switch it up at each show, the early show is typically "I've grown accustomed to your face".

A highlight of each show is a performance of "Windy".

So that's what we've got from our first Scary Farm update. We'll be putting together more pics and video from outside of the mazes and shows for our next update in a couple of weeks. The scare zones are amazing as always and deserve their own time in the spotlight.

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Knott's Scary Farm 2019 Opening Weekend

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