Where Nightmares Never End... At least generally until the end of October.
Established in 1973, Knott's Scary Farms is one of the largest, and the longest-lived Halloween events in the United States. The event runs for more than a month note , and whose professional production has led it to be an industry-defining event.
Like other Theme Park Seasonal Halloween Events, Scary Farms is broken into a mix of haunted houses,note , and scarezonesnote , and shows. The houses and scarezones are populated with "scareactors", either wandering about the scarezones and jumping or screaming at passerbys, or poised in "booholes" and strategic places in the houses to scare you right out of your pants.
While other Halloween haunts like Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios use established Intellectual Propertynote , Scary Farms deals mostly in original ideas for its zones and mazes. As of 2022, the event featured 9 mazes and 5 scarezones.
On account of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the event took a break in 2020, returning in 2021.
Knott's Scary Farm provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abandoned Hospital: Paranormal Inc. is supposed to be a more tame ghost hunt through an abandoned sanitorium, but the hunters quickly realize they've awakened something dangerous when the many spirits of the tortured patients and malicious staff begin to overtake the building.
- Action Horror: Bloodline 1842 (2022- ) mixes traditional haunts with laser tag, allowing guests to blast away at the scareactors harmlessly for points
- Alien Works: Dark Entities (2019- ) is a take on this, featuring an "extraterrestrial mutation" wreaking havoc on an isolated space station.
- Artifact of Doom: The Grimoire from the maze of the same name is an evil book which seems to corrupt the innocent and bind their souls to its pages.
- Ax-Crazy: Many of the creepy characters that wander through the Scary Farms zones and mazes.
- Special Shoutouts to Dr. Augustus Scratch from Wax Works (2019 - ) a former Plastic Surgeon turned serial killer who turns innocent victims into wax "masterpieces" to add to his collection.
- Black Comedy: It spills in quite a lot, especially when dealing with scareactors.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The Chilling Chambers (2023- ) is a 50-year anniversary attraction, and as a result, all of the rooms and interlocking areas are based on previous inactive or retired attractions.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: If there's a prop corpse in a maze, it's probably some shade of this.
- Flesh-Eating Zombie: Seems to be the case with Special Ops: Infected (2014-2019)
- The Freakshow: Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind (2021- ) is themed around this, with the titular hypnotist trying to turn the guests into his latest attraction as they try to escape through the sideshow tent.
- Hostile Show Takeover: Dark Ride outwardly appears to be a more tame, low-budget attraction, but it's been overrun by the clowns of Carn-EVIL, who are ready to make it a far more authentic and blood-soaked experience.
- I'm a Humanitarian: With a name like Uncle Willy's Slaughterhouse (2008-2013), what else could it possibly be?
- Slasher Smile: The clowns in the Carn-Evil scarezone (2000- ) are known for this.
- Splatter Horror: And how!
- The Slaughterhouse/Uncle Willy's Slaughterhouse (2008-2013) was an old-town country barbecue spot from hell, rife with gory indiscretion.
- Dark Entities (2019- ) has a rather gruesome scene with a robot attempting to perform surgery on an unfortunate station employee. It didn't go well.
- Monster Clown: Quite a few!
- Uncle Bobo's Bigtop of the Bizarre (2009-2012) was a maze practically full of them.
- The same goes for the Carn-EVIL scarezone (2000- ), where clowns will walk and knee slide about to get a rise out of party goers. Some have also been known to stop and joke around with guests.
- Scary Scarecrows: The Hollow Scarezone (2016-2022) had a number of these.
- The Undead: A common sight, but especially in the Ghost Town scarezone (1973- )
- Vampires Own Night Clubs: The concession of Club Blood (2008-2010)
- Up Close with the Monster: Short of actually touching you, scareactors seem to make it their mission to have No Sense of Personal Space. Especially true of photo op monsters and the clowns in the Carn-EVIL scarezone (2000- )
