Warner Bros. and Legendary horrors have taken over Six Flags Fright Fest to add more thrills to the national coaster theme park chain. Combining scares with metal behemoths of adrenaline-pumping rollercoasters is the main draw, but over the years, as competitors began to rely on major IP to up the ante, Six Flags has made some effort to catch up. Every year tends to improve upon the last; it’s still outpaced by the bigger names in the theme park industry, but with its 2024 initiated merger with Cedar Fair (which runs Knott’s Scary Farm), we were hopeful that things might be changing for the better.
io9 was invited to attend media night for the opening of the annual Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California, which this year featured haunted houses from a host of cinema greats, including the Conjuring universe, Trick ‘r Treat, and Saw. While the latter two are repeat mazes from 2024, this year the Conjuring house was updated to reflect the latest film, The Conjuring: Last Rites. Here’s what we thought about the Halloween offerings at this year’s fright fest.
The Good
The Conjuring Universe: This house plays as a Warren family investigations greatest hits. It’s good, though; as you enter, you’re met face-to-face with Annabelle behind the glass (at first) before venturing through some of the scariest moments from the Warren files. It’s Fright Fest’s best house that perfectly evokes the scares of the Warrens’ most horrifying cases. You get to walk through their collection of haunted relics as they’re summoned around you. Yes, there’s a nun behind the portrait, but even though you know it, you’re simply not prepared to have that experience.
Like in the film, Valak comes out of the walls right at you, and your soul flies out of the room faster than you can get your body to follow. It does feel a little all over the place, as the fearsome highlights include the Perron possession case among the chaos of the iconic demon entities, an old-school filmstrip of the Crooked Man being expanded on walls warning of his presence, and Annabelle being freed in so many forms. Then, of course, there are devilish forces waiting to get their claws on you, which end up manifesting as a dark hidden form within the shadows that reaches out to you with long black claws as you make your escape.
Trick ‘r Treat: Based on the Halloween anthology film, this house feels so festive and fun as you venture into its horrors. Fright Fest did a really good job at establishing the vibe of an inviting spooky season neighborhood house you want to enter that only gets more and more nightmarish as you make your way further in. You encounter teases of the iconic Sam, the mischievous pumpkin-headed demon child that connects each of the stories in Trick ‘r Treat, while you relive the creepiest moments from the movie, which is a genre spookshow. There’s the teenage werewolf party in the forest where a girl dressed as Red Riding Hood hides a dark secret. Another great recreation includes the school bus haunting of kids who died on Halloween years ago that included the crashed vehicle, as well as the creepy masked kids who spring up on you from beyond. The fog in that room is perfectly deployed to make you discombobulated enough to not see them coming. But it’s the end, where Sam chases you through a mirror maze (I looped it twice) before meeting him in his throne room, that really shines as one of the park’s most fun Halloween experiences.
The So-So
Scare Zones: There were several new interesting concepts this year! The twisted Wonderland area was a pastel fever dream with mad hatters and demented-looking rabbits chasing you. And just in time for the Oz renaissance, there was a steampunk take on the lore with an evil witch, tin man, lion, and flying monkeys lurking about. However, while the makeup designs were a highlight of inspired monster creations, the settings were really sparse, and there weren’t very fully formed environments to feel immersed in. At least there was a yellow brick road projection, but both Oz and Wonderland needed a showstopping backdrop. If there was one, it was too dark.
Saw: The Saw house plays up the torture device set pieces in creative and showstopping ways thanks to the actors in the houses, but it’s the scares that are lacking. The monsters that come at you are mostly the pig-masked hooded figures, which got really repetitive. And there was a big lack of Billy the Puppet. He only really appears once on his trike, if it’s working, which undercuts why he’s so scary when he’s supposed to be the figurehead that asks, “Do you wanna play a game?” When we went through, he was stuck on his automated track, and we nearly missed him. There was more Billy on the merch!
The Merch: Fright Fest shines with its original art merchandise based on the park’s original houses and roaming characters, such as the clown sliders, Medusa-inspired psychics, or retro zombie ladies. Those designs really capture the energy that makes Fright Fest unique and are usually an instant buy. This year it released some spooky Looney Tunes gear that was great despite there not being anything Looney in Bugs Bunny World besides a creepy carnival area. I was excited to buy a truly unhinged shirt that features Sylvester as the Bride of Frankenstein and Tweety as Frankenstein’s monster, which in a really weird way I sort of get. The merch for the movie properties, however, was a mixed bag; it would have been cool to get the Six Flags artists to do a take on the characters in The Conjuring, but those shirts mostly felt like licensed marketing images slapped on things.
Carnage: New for this year is a house that takes you into the fortress of an anarchic clown’s hub of madness and recruitment in a “city under siege.” While the house was fun and filled with chaotic jump scares, I couldn’t help but think this was maybe meant to be a Joker house. It doesn’t help that it was literally in the DC Universe area of the theme park! While going through, some set pieces reminded me of Joker moments from Suicide Squad and even Joker in aesthetic. At one point the clown leader jumps on a car and talks to you. So I was very distracted by how cool a Gotham run by Joker and his goons could have been to experience as a maze. The rights that Fright Fest has on how it can use DC characters remain so confusing, so maybe it would’ve been better to try and avoid the parallels here.
The Bad
Themed foods/drinks: There was a variety of items based on just Halloween, but none inspired by the major IP houses, which I was looking forward to. But I’ll preface that with I was setting myself up for that disappointment here: I saw the official Six Flags Instagram promote drinks based off The Conjuring universe and thought they’d be at Magic Mountain. I mean, it’s the park closest to Hollywood and other major haunt competitors, so it would have made sense, right? So I was very surprised when I realized that the drink in question, Valak’s Vice, was nowhere to be found to represent the best house at the event.
Old houses: The last time I went to Fright Fest was before I had my now one-year-old child. So I was a little bummed to discover that a good number of houses I’ve already experienced were still there. And if there were recent additions, they felt so generically similar to older houses that I couldn’t tell you what’s new. This is something I hope changes, as I hope there’s more collaboration within the merger, allowing for a bit of the Knott’s Scary Farm magic to get sprinkled onto Fright Fest. Knott’s historically is the first park to really turn haunted houses into immersive storytelling you can experience through its legendary Scary Farm offerings and stands apart from the parks that rely on only movie and TV properties. Six Flags has the opportunity to be the best of both worlds with its WB and DC horror connections and its original houses within the sheer amount of good space they were given to build on. Here’s hoping the potential of the Knott’s merger sees an upgrade in years to come.