By snoadmin
Upon entering Knott’s Scary Farm, I expected to see the average Halloween décor: skeletons hanging from the trees, cobwebs draped over the railings and the occasional monster with a rubber mask and devil’s horns. I had never been to a theme park that was Halloween-ized before, and I was in for a big surprise.
Right when I walked through the gate, I felt a warm breath on my neck. I turned just in time to hear it growl at me, about half an inch from my face. I jumped back and ran into the arms of a friend. Then it dawned on me: Oh yeah, this is Halloween, the monsters are going to get up close and personal.
Everything was decked out for the holiday, from the log rides to the restrooms. There were all kinds of mazes, which varied from the dark and funny to the downright disturbing. Two particular mazes stood out in my mind:
“The Asylum,” which scared me to death and caused me, like an idiot, to curl up into a ball in my friend’s arms, which of course makes the monsters even more likely to jump at you with their plastic knives and evil smiles.
It wasn’t the jumping out of corners that bothered me as much as the imagery that the maze was made up of.
I don’t know who thinks of these things, and while I give them credit for being incredibly imaginative, to me it’s just plain gross. It included everything from electroshock therapy (which included torturous screams echoing in my ears) to girls in hospital gowns throwing up every three seconds all over the floor. Patients lay in their beds, sawed in half and the walls were even garnished with red markings that read sentences like “Where is my mind?”
The next maze, called Terror Vision (which was in 3-D) had some scary things, but aimed more at making you laugh than making you scream. They mocked shows like “I Love Lucy” turning it into “I Loathe Lucy,” showing the famous chocolate factory scene, except there were chopped up body parts on the table instead of candy. “American Idol” became “American Idiot.” “Happy Days” became “Unhappy Days.” The monsters were not as aggressive as some of the other mazes and I found myself laughing more than I had the whole night.
By far the most entertaining feature of the evening was “The Hanging.” It ridiculed every celebrity that made the tabloid headlines this year, which included Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise and their infamous “silent” birth, Britney Spears with her baby and her husband rapping in the background and of course, a “Brokeback Mountain” spoof. The person they finally hanged was Mel Gibson, and even though it was morbid, I laughed the whole time.
The scare zones, which are the hangouts for the majority of the monsters, included fog thick enough to cut, so you could not see them jump out at you, from around the corners. Sometimes they didn’t have to jump, they slid. They were appropriately named “sliders,” coming out from behind walls on wheels to get you from below. Oh, and the monsters with the chainsaws (cardboard that included a chainsaw recording sound) kept me on the look out so I could see them coming. Even though I kept reminding myself it wasn’t a real chainsaw, I was one of the suckers that kept forgetting.
Whatever you do, don’t run from the monsters. They will chase you. A clown chased me for a good 10 minutes as I attempted to free myself from her grasp. Just look them square in the eye and they’ll move on to the next poor soul.
For a scaredy cat like myself, Knott’s Scary Farm is a place I would be fine to visit once a year. But it’s got plenty of freaky surprises for those who love a good fright fest.
