Knott's Halloween Haunt 2016 Part 2

Now for the things I didn't like so much about Knott's Scary Farm.

Note: The videos are not mine, but the work of ThemeParkHD on Youtube who takes the highest quality videos of theme park attractions.

The Underwhelming

* Shadowlands

This is a brand new maze of undead samurai and vengeful spirits. The music is eerie and well done. The beginning is actually pretty cool as it illustrates the story in an unexpected way. Some parts are interesting. A woman runs down a hallway like Samara from the Ring with a strobe light to make her movements look unnatural. There are too many evil/dead geishas. They don't look too much different than regular geishas and either move suggestively or scream. The final room is supposed to hold the biggest scare, but this one only has a samurai jumping around beheading someone like in the initial room. Disappointing.

* The Dead of Winter: Wendigo's Revenge

Last year, this maze was home to an evil snow queen and now it's a yeti/wendigo. Most of the maze is the same. The blood looks vibrant next to the ice and snow. The torture and death tableau were unique with their use of ice. The giant snow beast is well done and so is the wendigo when it moves. It was broken when I saw it and didn't have the same effect. The mirror maze aspect doesn't really fit with the theme. Overall, not great.

The Bad

* Gunslinger's Grave: A Blood Moon Rises

I've never liked this maze and this is its third year at the park. This maze bores me to tears. Absolutely nothing is scary. It used to be cowboys and then werewolves were added last year. Some scare actor tried to scare me with corn. Corn. It was pathetic and sad. Why is this maze still here but Forevermore is gone? It baffles me and I hope they'll get rid of it next year.

* The Skeleton Key Rooms

With the Fright Pass, we had access to separate, stand alone experiences that took place in one room. These included Zozo about a Ouija board demon, Slasher about a sadistic serial killer, Prey where we were chased through a hay maze by half human animals, and Visions where patrons ghost hunt with historical objects. These attractions are slow to load. Each line was at least a half hour long. Visions was consistently an hour and a half, so we just skipped it. All of that waiting for a 3-5 minute "experience." It's not worth the wait and the experiences themselves aren't very exciting. Avoid these if you go unless you have a lot of extra time on your hands.

Overall, I had fun as always, but Knott's had a bit of a dip in quality compared to last year.