Despite running in some form or another since 1993, Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain is usually not a major part of the Spooky Season conversation in Southern California. You have the heavy hitters like Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Scary Farm. Then there are mainstays like Reign of Terror, Dark Harbor, and the Haunted Hayride. But no one is ever psyched to attend Fright Fest.
And that may be because the mazes just aren’t very good.
This year, Fright Fest has seven mazes and a handful of scare zones. Of the seven mazes, three are based on IP, The Conjuring, Final Destination, and Trick ‘r Treat, and four are originals. Unlike Universal and Knott’s, the park doesn’t shut down for the event, and the mazes can be purchased as a separate add-on. So, you can just visit Magic Mountain and take in the Halloween vibes and the rollercoasters without ever stepping foot in a maze.
Overall, the event and mazes feel a bit amateur-ish. I went in knowing not to expect anything near the level of Horror Night’s production value, but there’s still a flatness to the whole thing. It often felt like the scareactors were just kind of there, jumping out from behind walls to try to elicit a scare, or vaguely yelling at you, and in one case literally yelling “Boo!” Some of the makeup effects are okay, and then there are masks that look cheap that pull you completely out of the scare.
There are some portions of some mazes that are kind of interesting, but it isn’t the norm. The layouts are certainly not helping; they feature some wide open areas where it’s hard to make something scary and don’t make use of the customary narrow hallways that you see at other events that help make everything feel more tense.
The main positive note for Fright Fest is that they seem determined to not turn their mazes into conga lines. They send small groups through with plenty of space between them which does make it easier to take in the look of the mazes and to give the scares a better chance to land.
Weirdly, out of all of theme park haunts, Fright Fest is the one that makes some light attempts at making things feel more immersive. The start of four of the mazes feature some kind of intro with an actor or video that helps set the scene while offering some very light interaction. It’s not anything groundbreaking and the scripts fell as flat as anything else, but the effort was appreciated.
The Final Destination maze is the most interesting of what’s on offer. It’s less a traditional maze and more of a walkthrough of a few skits where a poor soul has some Final Destination-esque accident befall them. My main gripe is that these aren’t Rube Goldbergian kill sequences, they’re someone getting their hand torn up by a printer or some other piece of office equipment. Kind of bizarre for a maze with the Final Destination branding! However, this does have one pretty good gag where an actor sneakily joins your group before tripping and falling into a wood chipper.
The Conjuring and Trick ‘r Treat mazes make some usage of their IP with Annabelle and Sam, but are mostly lackluster. Wolves’ Blood is the best of the original mazes on offer, mostly because it actually tries to tell a story throughout. In it, a town is being overrun by werewolves, so the infection builds during the maze from wolf-ish features to full-blown werewolves by the end. This one really suffers from the mask problem, even if they do try to keep some of the creatures in lower light to hide it.
Again, everything at Fright Fest feels flat, it’s missing a spark to give it any kind of edge over its cousins. Even the parts of the event that are interesting feel like I’m giving a polite nod for trying something a little different rather than something that would blow folks away. The appetite for anything Spooky Season related in Southern California is off the charts, so between access to the rollercoasters and the price of the pass for the mazes, it’s not a bad deal. But with so much competition and talent in the area, it feels like Fright Fest could be something more.
Fright Fest presented by SNICKERS® at Six Flags Magic Mountain runs through November 1st in Valencia, CA, tickets start at $25, in addition to park admission.
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