Warner Bros. And legendary horrors have taken over Six Flags Fright Fest to add more tension to the National Coaster Theme Park chain. By combining afraid of metal hemoths of adrenaline-pumping roller coasters is the main feature, but over the years, as competitors began to rely on larger IP to increase ante, Six Flags has made some effort to catch up. Each year has a tendency to improve the last; It has still been surpassed by the bigger names in the theme park industry, but with its 2024, Fusion began with Cedar Fair (which runs Knott’s scary farm), we were hopeful that things might have changed for the better.
IO9 was invited to participate in the media evening for the opening of the annual Fright Party at Six Flags Magic Mountain in southern California, which this year contained haunted houses from a number of cinema garnish, including Magtering forward uNiverse, Trick ‘R Treatand Saw. While the latter two are repeated mazes from 2024, this year Magic The house was updated to reflect the latest movie, The Conjuring: Last Rites. Here’s what we thought about the Halloween offer of this year’s Fright Fest.
The good
The Magic Universe: This house plays like a Warren family studies biggest hits. However, it is good; When you come in, you will be met face to face with Annabelle behind the glass (first) before taking through some of the most scary moments from the Warren files. It is Fright Fest’s best house that perfectly induces the scares of Warrens’ most horrible cases. You get going through their collection of haunted relics when called around you. Yes, there is a nun behind the portrait, but even if you know, you are simply not prepared to have that experience.
Like in the movie, Valak comes out of the walls right by you and your soul flies out of the room faster than you can make your body follow. It feels a little everywhere as the terrifying highlights include the platform session among the chaos in the iconic demon units, where an old-school film strip of the crooked man is expanded on walls warned of his presence and Annabelle was released in so many forms. Then, of course, there are devilish forces waiting to get their claws on you that end up manifesting themselves as a dark hidden shape in the shadows reaching out to you with long black claws when you make your escape.
Trick ‘R Treat: Based on the Halloween anthology film, this house feels so festive and fun when you venture into its horrors. Fright Fest did a really good job of establishing the mood of a welcoming creepy season neighborhood house that you will come in that will only get more and more nightmares as you move on. You encounter teasing of the iconic sam, the ramped pumpkin -headed demon child that connects each of the stories in Trick ‘R TreatWhile reliving the creepy moments from the movie, which is a genre spookshow. There is a teenage -varolvest party in the woods where a girl dressed like red riding hood hides a dark secret. Another major recreation includes the school bus home search of children who died in Halloween years ago, which included the crashed vehicle, as well as the eerie masked children who pop up on you. The fog in this room is perfectly inserted to make you discombobobulated enough not to see them coming. But this is the end where Sam chases you through a mirror maze (I loop it twice) before I met him in his throne, which really shines as one of the park’s most fun Halloween experiences.
So then
Frighten zones: There were several new interesting concepts this year! The TWISTED Wonderland area was a pastel fever dream with food haters and demented -looking rabbits chasing you. And right in time for Oz Renaissance there was a steampunk going on lore with an evil witch, tin man, lion and flying monkeys who were looking for. While the makeup designs were a highlight of inspired monster creations, the settings were really sparse, and there were not much formed environments to feel immersed. At least there was a yellow brick road projection, but both OZ and Wonderland needed a showstopping background. If there was one, it was too dark.
Saw: The Saw House plays up in the torture unit sets pieces in creative and show -stopping ways thanks to the actors in the houses, but they are afraid that are missing. The monsters that come to you are mostly the pig -masked hoody figures that were really repeated. And there was a big shortage of Billy The Puppet. He only appears once on his trike, if It works as undermines why he is so scary when he was to be the figure head that asks, “Do you want to play a game?” As we walked through, he was stuck on his automated tracks and we almost missed him. There was more Billy on Merch!
MERCH: Fright Fest shines with its original art products based on the park’s original houses and roaming characters such as clowns are sliding, Medusa-inspired psychic or retro zombie ladies. These designs really catch the energy that makes Fright Fest unique and is usually an instant purchase. This year it released some creepy Looney Melodies Gears that were great despite the fact that there was nothing Looney In Bugs Bunny World besides an eerie carnival area. I was excited to buy a truly unhinged shirt that contains Sylvester like Bride of Frankenstein and Tweety as Frankenstein’s monster, as in a really weird way I kind of sheep. Merch to the film characteristics, however, was a mixed bag; It would have been cool to get the Six Flags artists to take on the figures in The spell, But these shirts mostly felt like licensed marketing images that have been turned on things.
Carnage: New for this year is a house that leads you into the fortress of an anarchic clown’s hub of madness and recruitment in a “city under siege.” While the house was fun and filled with chaotic jumps, I couldn’t help but think this might have been meant to be a joker house. It doesn’t help that it was literally in the DC Universe area of ​​the theme park! While I went through, some sets of pieces reminded me of joker -moments from Suicide Squad And even Joker In aesthetically. At one point, the clown leader jumps on a car and talks to you. So I was very distracted by how cool a Gotham driven by Joker and his Goons could have been to experience as a maze. The rights that Fright Fest has about how it can use DC characters remain so confusing, so maybe it would have been better to try to avoid the parallels here.
The bad
Theme Food/Drinks: There were a number of different things based on just Halloween, but no one inspired by the large IP houses that I looked forward to. But I will foresee it with I stood up for that disappointment here: I saw the official six flags Instagram promoting drinks based on The magic universe and thought they would be on Magic Mountain. I mean, it’s the park closest to Hollywood and other big haunting competitors, so it would have made sense, right? So I was very surprised when I realized that the drink in question, VIRAK’s vice, nowhere to represent the best house at the event.
Old Houses: The last time I went to Fright party was before I had my now a year old child. So I was a little bummed to find that a good number of houses I’ve already experienced was still there. And if there were recent additions, they felt so generically looked like older houses that I couldn’t tell you what’s new. This is something I hope to change as I hope there is more collaboration in the merger, giving a little of Knott’s Scary Farm Magic the opportunity to be sprinkled at Fright Fest. Knott’s historically is the first park to really transform haunted houses into immersive storytelling, which you can experience through its legendary scary courtyard and differs from the parks that depend only on film and TV properties. Six flags have the opportunity to be the best of both worlds with its WB and DC horror connections and Its original houses within the large amount of plenty of space they were given to build on. Here, the potential of Knott’s fusion hopes to see an upgrade in the coming years.
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