Knott’s Scary Farm 2009

For the first time in the event’s history, attendance for Knott’s Scary Farm’s Halloween Haunt was catching up to the summer crowds. Universal’s star-powered Halloween Horror Nights revival didn’t last a year into the new millennium. Freed of its biggest competitor, bolstered by record ticket sales, the Haunt had nowhere to go but up. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take long to become the event’s most tenuous decade.

Elvira’s long tenure with Halloween Haunt came to an end in 2002 as a cost-cutting measure in the post-9/11 tourist recession. It might’ve been the biggest penny pinched, but it was far from the last. Sold-out crowds started showing up later and later into the season, leaving day-of discount tickets to lure in curious stragglers. Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest kept some Californians north and the Queen Mary’s Shipwreck kept others south.

After trying it briefly at the end of the ‘90s, Knott’s made another play for name-brand popularity with mazes based on recent releases like The Ring 2 and Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf. The limited-time licensing, however, didn’t fit with the event’s new rhythm of running each maze for four or five years before replacing it with something new. The legally dubious workaround was mazes merely inspired by recognizable horror films. Not Army of Darkness, but Army of the Underworld. Not Killer Klowns from Outer Space, but Carnivorous Clowns from Outer Space. Haunt’s pursuit of Hollywood synergy would largely come to an end in 2009, when a planned Zombieland scarezone was cancelled by Sony Pictures less than a month from opening night.

With the 2006 resurrection of Halloween Horror Nights, this time to stay, Knott’s adjusted its aim. The park that started as a fried chicken restaurant couldn’t compete with Universal’s century-old backlog of famous, frightful faces. But Haunt had something Universal didn’t - homemade heritage. Soon enough, that would make all the difference.