Memories of Your First Halloween Theme Park Event

[Jake S]

We've been talking a little bit about our memories of Halloween theme park events gone by, and it occurred to me that I'd like to hear more from people whose memories of events gone by are better than mine. So, if you've got memories of your first Halloween event, I'd love to hear them! Or perhaps you can share your earliest memories of attending a theme park event, if that's more manageable.

I remember moments more than I remember events, but my first event was at Knott's Scary Farm back in 2006, a little before my 15th birthday. I went with my best friend at the time and while I remember being absolutely terrified (more about the idea of the event than the event itself), the lasting memory is drinking so many energy drinks that I literally could not fall asleep by the time I got home after 2 a.m.

The next year went a bit better. I didn't go to Knott's Scary Farm, but I did attend Halloween Horror Nights for the first time. I was covering the event for a blog that has long since been purged from the Internet and it was only my second time attending anything as a credentialed member of the media. I remember a lot more about this event. I remember the smell of the forest in the Friday the 13th maze and I definitely remember the pungent smells found in every room in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre maze. But perhaps best of all, I remember riding the Terror Tram for the first time.

As a kid who grew up loving the movies, and especially classic horror, being able to walk by the Bates Motel for the first time is a memory I'll never forget. I also remember this video/audio loop, which I believe was used again and again over the next several years. I'll have to dig around to see if I have any photos (no smartphone back then!) but until then... I'd love to hear some of your memories!

 

[MrRoamer]

Mine was HHN 1999 - We were bored in our dorms/apartments and decided this Horror thing sounds like fun and is only like $20 so lets check it out. We walk in the gate and place is very very empty.

It's super foggy everywhere and we're walking down a street with pretty much no one around and see a group of 3 or 4 girls walking towards us down the way. A minute later and we see a guy with a chainsaw start coming into view from behind them and is quickly closing the space. He gets right up on them and revs the chainsaw hard. That group of girls begins Scooby Doo-ing running around in circles and into each other. After bouncing into each other the second or third time I guess they spotted the nearby bathroom and they all darted straight in with the chainsaw chasing the whole way.

Right then I decided this was something for me and would be coming back quite often. Still one of my favorite moments of all time at a horror event.

 

[Jerroddragon]

HHN 2010

I was not into horror movies growing up and was pretty against house/mazes attractions but one day in the summer of 2010 my friend's got me to try out the House of Horrors at USH. I didn't think I would like it but we were leaving the park and it had no line at all.
We go through and I have a blast, by the time we are exiting the park I am telling everyone I'm down to go to HHN this year which my friend's have wanted to but I never wanted to go

So we go and by now I've watched all the Saw Films and ready for the Saw maze, my friend who was really scared lost his show when running and basically got left behind got surround by Pig Mask Chain saw actors and one of the actors picked up the shoe with his chainsaw and handed it to my friend. He was so pissed at us for just walking as this happened but we all wanted to get to the Saw Maze. This is before many people posted online about the events so we were hoping Saw would choose someone in the group to be Fake "tortured" but for many reasons this would never happen but we were young and from all the storius about HHN thought it could be tthat involved.


I also remember the lines, the line for Freddy's Nightmare on elm street was just so long but we really loved it. Also Bill and Ted's was my friend groups and I thing we would always do. It was music we listened to on the radio combined with making fun of the movies we watched so for us we just had such a good time and been coming to HHN ever since. I do think I have a year or two I skipped because the IPs were not anything I needed to do but mainly been at HHN most years and if not then Scary Farm or Fright fest would be where I went because Halloween edges out Christmas as my favorite Holiday.

 

[GAcoaster]

Six Flags Great Adventure "Halloweekends" in 1989. The park decorated with pumpkins and hay bales everywhere and had a small parade and hayrides in the park for the last two weekends of the season. Just three years later they launched Fright Fest company wide and began to really ramp up the season into the busiest time of the year!

1989 Halloweekends At Six Flags Great Adventure

 

[PenguinCowboy]

Oh man, theme parks and Halloween are like peanut butter and chocolate for me; good on their own, but work sooo well together!

First true memories would be of some of the Fright Fest events at Six Flags Darien Lake and (at the time) Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom! We used to travel to Louisville for the Arabian horse national competition, and I vividly remember the giant, menacing, inflatable pumpkin on top of the entrance. We never actually went in, and I was FAR too young, but still sticks with me! Darien Lake, on the other hand, was our "home" park (even though we were ~2 1/2 hours away, haha), so we would usually spend a weekend there during the summer and come back at least once for the fall festivities. I was always a costume kid, so we would always attend in costume and usually enter the costume contest, trick or treat, all the fun kiddie fare, haha. Some great memories of feeling the thrill of getting up on the gazebo stage for the first time after seeing performers on it for years and gazing out at the (tens) of guests I also have a distinct memory of one of the theater shows they put on, which I believe was a loose retelling of the Rocky Horror Show (wild for kids daytime entertainment, lol, but still). I have visual memory of the card board cutout car they used, and the inclusion of Feed My Frankenstein for some reason.

Took a number of years before we ventured to the more spooky offerings, or even stayed past dark, which by that time I had a few more local haunts under the belt. The Ghost Town walkthrough area beyond Superman made a huge impact on me as a kid, some fun set design work there! The biggest unique offering was the Fright Night Field Trip, which involved a bus ride through the camp grounds. They ripped the windows off of the busses and pretty much gave the drivers free reign to punch it down the non-actor areas, and so you really felt the speed (even though we were going, I dunno, maybe 10-15 mph tops). Finally, the Road Rage Cage, an enclosed version of their bumper cars, still impacts to this day how I name my Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 bumper cars, haha.

I also have memories of the local Zoo Boo, which wasn't as scary as it was just a fun spooky atmospheric event. Lots of storytellers, treat stops, but I'll count it as theme park adjacent given the 'established family entertainment venue with an overlay" feel, haha

 

[DTH]

Knotts Scary Farm in the year 2000 as a pre-teen. I had gone to a few haunts locally before, but something about it being at Knotts really captured my imagination. I printed out the entire website and was reading it to my parents and my grandparents, trying to convince them to take me and I also got my cousin on board to be obsessed with it. There was a line that said something along the effect of "1000 monsters lurking in the fog." ONE THOUSAND? That blew my mind.

We finally go and I was amazed by the thick fog, the wind howling sound, and thought the sliders were insane (still are). I was in a weird nightmare heaven. However, lines were heinous. Nobody wanted to wait for anything. My brother was older so he went off to do his own thing and he got through some of the mazes, but with my cousin, mom and grandma, I think we only managed to do a few rides because they did not want to wait in those waits. I convinced them to do the Mine Ride, which was titled "Army of the Underworld" that year. We were probably in line for about 2 years. We saw all of the Hanging from there, which I loved because it had the Crypt Keeper, who I was also obsessed with. I also got to soak up the vibe of the Haunted Shack nearby which had Dead Man's Wharf in it.

We finally get on the Mine Ride and I was TERRIFIED -- every little thing worked on me, like the threads hanging down in the beginning. The thought of my back being to the monsters scared the crap out of me. There was a point where the Book of the Dead from Evil Dead was on a mantle and I recognized it, so I was looking at it, but then a monster popped out of a cabin slamming down the door and gave me the jolt of my life (they used this trick pretty much in every iteration of the Mine Ride layovers -- and for years, it ALWAYS WORKED AND SCARED ME). I am fairly sad we don't get traditional maze layovers on the Mine Ride anymore. After that, I really wanted to go on the log ride (which was Camp Gonnagetcha) but my family was burnt out.

I went home and tried to find as many videos as I could to see what I missed. I was amazed to find ThemeParkAdventure and UltimateHaunt which had everything I wanted. TPA had mazes in video form (I saw there was a chainsaw in Camp Gonnagetcha and I was SO MAD I didn't get to ride it so I could see it) and UltimateHaunt had a plethora of history. Honestly, this was probably what started me being on forums and chatting with the Haunt communities. And from then on, I'd look at the BTS picture updates on WestCoaster.

The very next year, I went with a field trip. My buddies were too scared to do anything, so it was like a repeat of the year before where I felt like I was missing out. I convinced them to do the Log Ride and it was Elvira's Red Moon's Revenge and I LOVED IT. Something that sticks out in my memory is Elvira at one point in the audio said "is that hair on your chest?" And my scared friend, without missing a beat, screamed back, "is that sh*t on your face?!" I laugh about that still to this day that he was somehow ready with that comeback despite being afraid. While I was bummed I didn't get to do anything, my brother invited me when he was going to go the very next weekend. And with him, I just KNEW I would finally get into some mazes. It was November so it was EMPTY.

We were walking the streets absolutely alone and all the monsters were targeting us. His high school girl friends were all clinging on to me (which, at that age, was awesome). I put on a brave face and we went to the first maze, which was Alien Attack. I marched in there absolutely alone because I was ready to FINALLY get a proper maze under my belt. I learned very quickly being alone was a pro and a con lol. That night, we went through ALL of the mazes and I finally felt my bloodlust was satiated after missing out on them the year prior and the weekend prior. When I found the maze videos on ThemeParkAdventure this time, I got to watch them with nostalgia instead of with envy. When I saw the photos of that year being added to UltimateHaunt, to me, it was no longer something in the past that I missed, but I was now part of history as having witnessed those mazes. When I went onto WestCoaster to see construction pictures, I actually had a foundation of understanding and excitement as to what those mazes could potentially be.

 

[DTH]

Had to split this up into two posts due to length, sorry mods!

First Halloween Horror Nights -- I heard about the event in 2006 and it sounded just okay with so little amount of mazes (remember, KSF back then legit had like A DOZEN). The only thing that REALLY interested me was the Terror Tram where you could WALK ON THE BACKLOT. As a kid who LOVED the Studio Tour, this was MAJOR for me (I had the opportunity to do it before for a random 5K, but I don't think we were anywhere near the Bates Motel and such for that). I kept hearing how the quality of the event was better. I literally rolled my eyes every time I read that (with only 2 mazes?!) and thought nothing of it until 2007's commercial came out with Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface. Okay, now I'll take this seriously.

My girlfriend and I made a plan to go. We then broke up that October, but we still planned to go anyway. The day comes and she doesn't answer her phone. I was waiting and waiting and waiting...but I couldn't miss this. It was the very last day of the event on Halloween night -- who knew if this would ever happen again. There was just no way. It was already like 7 or 8pm and I lived 2 hours away, but I just HAD - TO - GO! I got in my car and drove by myself. Waited in line to get my ticket and it was already 10pm...the event closed at 12! I didn't care, I had to at least do the Terror Tram! It was already much different than Knotts Scary Farm. I remember thinking the scarezones sucked -- there was a zone on NY Street with some military guys just standing around doing nothing and a helicopter light flashing down. It was called Zombie Invasion but I don't remember seeing a single zombie. Nowhere near the energy we get now, this honestly just felt like an atmospheric scarezone than anything...maybe I walked through too fast, I don't know.

Hit up the Terror Tram with little wait and ventured through. This was the coolest thing ever being able to walk onto the Psycho set. It was pretty gnarly and felt like it took a long time to go through which was a plus in my eyes. Camp Crystal Lake was by far the best part. Seeing Jason hanging up dead teenagers was a dream come true. Back to the upper lot, it was already around 11. I heard Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Back in Business was by far the best maze in reviews (they were even giving out pamphlets when you got your ticket that said DO NOT MISS THIS MAZE) so I went all the way down. You could hear the chainsaws were abundant down here, revving into the night. I get off the escalator and I had my first run in with The Flasher -- I laughed and was sickened at the same time, it was awesome, I didn't know "monsters" could do that or be that creative in design.

Now remember when I said the NY zone was tame, weird, and boring, and I immediately thought KSF's zones were better? All that out the door -- this zone on the lower lot felt like the scariest scare zone I had ever been through. You wouldn't know it now, but back then, they had actual set pieces on the lower lot -- for this, there were cages and stuff for the chainsaw guys to interact with and hide behind. At the end of the street (where Transformers is now), you could see clips of the TCM remake playing in the fog with that classic picture taking sound echoing down the street -- this felt like hell. Anyway, I make it to the end of the street and the queue was way into the Backdraft area and OUT of that. It was a 90 minute wait. I knew this would all I'd be able to do with the time I had left, but I waited anyway. I didn't come all this way for nothing! It was more like an hour wait so that was good, plus the clips on the monitors were helping the boredom.

Walking up to the maze, it felt like I was about to die. The music and tone was so dreadful and you could hear people SCREAMING FOR THEIR LIFE in there. Went through the maze and yeah, SCARIEST MAZE EVER. The entire mood, tone, and feel was perfect. It felt just like the movies and going through alone was even more terrifying. I mean, I wasn't alone for long, the group behind me immediately grabbed onto me during the "sheets maze" portion and I was basically with them after that. The biggest scare I've ever had in a maze though was the dinner table scene -- you're forced to walk around the table (feels so customary now), and at the very end, you are standing directly next to a wall -- and the wall just opens up with Leatherface attacking you with a chainsaw inches from your face. I'm not exaggerating, back then, mazes were much more claustrophobic -- I really thought I was going to die. Left that maze feeling like I had survived going through hell. I was changed -- I knew Horror Nights was now THE PLACE TO BE.

Got back to the upper lot again and over the intercom: "Due to popular demand, the theme park will now be closing at 1 AM." I was ecstatic. I now had time to do everything else I wanted. So I ran over to Friday the 13th (which is where Universal Plaza is now, in the old Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show arena), as that was the second most anticipated. Some pretty good scares and AMAZING detail. The Jasons were AWESOME. Great maze but it didn't have that scare factor that TCM did. That queue was about 30 minutes even though it zig zagged through the entire auditorium, but once again, Jason clips were played overhead and that helped (seriously, why don't we do this anymore?). Went over to Nightmare on Elm Street, moderate line that went through really quick. Didn't care much for this maze but it was still pretty cool. Went over and got myself a souvenir cup and sat my happy ass down for the last showing of Bill and Ted for the night. There was nothing like it and it made The Hanging just seem downright stupid. I remember so vividly the feeling I had during the finale, when "Welcome to the Black Parade" played as all the cast were on a platform spinning them in circles while sparks rained down -- it was so epic, and I was inspired, and I felt like everything was going to be okay and that I now had a new place I could call home. Drove back home tired as all hell and alone but it was worth it. I couldn't wait for the next year. All those mazes would be repeated and this time I would go with a friend, but TCM was just as scary, confirming it wasn't just a first time/first maze/alone bias. Knotts Scary Farm was facing a downturn in quality at that time while HHN's was rising -- HHN quickly became my new "go to" place, while I still feel KSF is my first love. My first times at both were very special.

I miss those days. It was so much more simple back then, for both events.