Of the major annual Halloween events in Los Angeles, the Haunted Hayride is the one of the few that isn’t at a theme park. Instead, it aims for a vibe that’s much more fall festival featuring the namesake hayride, a few haunted houses, live music, and a few other activities. It does help set it apart from everything else because it feels like a place where you can hang out and soak in the spooky season atmosphere without feeling like you have to go go go to get through all of the haunted houses in a night. Plus, the overall intensity level is also on the lower side, which makes this a more family-friendly affair, though there are still scares to be had.
The setting for the Haunted Hayride is the fictional town of Midnight Falls (the event is in Griffith Park), and there is some level of associated lore, though I’m not sure if that’s an every-year-thing or a this-year-thing. The theming overall is pretty light and is more a way to loosely tie things together across the whole event. Plus, making it a fake town also helps make it feel more like a real fall festival.
I kicked off my evening by checking out Madame Aurora’s Seance Theater, which turned out to be a show that helpfully explained some of that lore. The show itself is, as it says on the tin, a seance. You’ll get the requisite gats: there’s a floating table, things falling off shelves, a jump scare or two, plus a few other touches. It’s a short proscenium-style show that offers world building and explains some of the characters who are roaming the space. It’s nothing major, but I found myself charmed and appreciated the effort of building out the theme more.
The hayride itself is the centerpiece of the event, and the most unique thing on offer. Audiences board a large open-air wagon that’s hooked up to a tractor and take a spooky 10-15 minute journey around the grounds. The actual experience is sort of like a dark ride, with a number of scenes and tableaus of the frightening happenings going on in Midnight Falls. Those scenes really run the gamut of horror, featuring zombies, witches, chainsaw-wielding clowns, aliens (?), churchgoers (??), creepy children, maniacs in animal masks, and what I think were miners. Each of these groups will menace the hayride when it reaches them, banging on the rails and sticking things in your face to try to scare you
Some of the scenes are quite cool and take advantage of the space that they’ve got. The church, zombie, and witch sequences are the standouts, incorporating cherry pickers to get actors way above you, dance, acrobatics, and a few other neat tricks. I mostly expected people jumping out and found myself pleasantly surprised when the hayride did that, but added more creative flair to it.
Other than the hayride there are three mazes, Hellbilly Halloween, Fallen Angel, and Elvira’s Trick or Treat Mayhem. Hellbilly Halloween is a pretty standard Texas Chainsaw Massacre type maze featuring plenty of slaughterhouses, cannibals, and chainsaws. Fallen Angel is about a now-dead band and has you going through appropriate areas including concert halls and mixing rooms while you’re attacked by roadies and groupies. The story of this one doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it did sound like it featured original music. Elvira’s Trick or Treat Mayhem features, well, Elvira, and she comments on different things while you’re in the maze. It’s largely a haunted house and town setting, but features some Elvira-like kitsch and schlock. For instance, Elvira asks if you’d like to see her “body of work” before you go through a giant facade of the woman herself into one of those inflatable claustrophobia tunnels.
All of the mazes have pretty good production design and the layouts help get some actual jump scares (maybe I’m just grading on a curve because of my disappointing experience with Fright Fest at Magic Mountain). If Fright Fest is at one end and Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios is on the other, Haunted Hayride falls somewhere in the middle. Like Fright Fest, they give groups plenty of space so you’re not in a conga line, which is always appreciated.
I had never been to the Haunted Hayride, but had heard mixed and middling reactions about previous years. Something may have changed more recently, because what’s on offer this year is pretty good! The hayride is fun and has neat elements, the mazes have interesting themes and some good scares, and the whole fall carnival vibe works for me (though that might be my reaction to the California weather more than anything. It was hot and humid when I went; it’s 100 degrees in October when I’m writing this).
Los Angeles Haunted Hayride from Thirteenth Floor can be found at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, CA through November 1. Tickets start at $34.99.
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