Another Haunt Season has passed away, so now it’s time for us to reflect back and rank the best and worst of our 2012 haunt stalking.

As you all know, haunt experiences can be a highly individual and subjective experience; what may scare one person might not be frightening at all to another, and what scares you one night might fall flat on a return visit. In addition, this season, like horror movie victims, we split up and did some individual haunt stalking so we will feature separate rankings from both Scare Zone ‘terrorspondents’ M. Leota and Matt E. Horn.

We visited a few great haunts across the country, so this year’s rankings will include haunts we visited in California, New York, and Florida. For a list of all the places we visited and to read our full reviews, please click here. Now, on to our 2012 Top Haunts   

To understand the ratings please see our ratings guide.

 

M. Leota’s Rankings

Best Maze Design:

  1. Blumhouse of Horrors
  2. Haunted Play Presents Delusion: The Blood Rite
  3. Trick or Treat (Knott’s Scary Farm)
Best Maze Theme:
  1. Trick or Treat (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Blumhouse of Horrors
  3. La Llorona (HHN Hollywood)
Scariest Maze:
  1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Saw is the Law (HHN Hollywood)
  2. Reign of Terror
  3. Sinister Pointe

Coolest Scene in a Maze:

  1. Blumhouse of Horrors – magician’s quarters
  2. Los Angeles Haunted Hayride: church
  3. Haunted Play Presents Delusion – Blood Rite: hallway/bathroom scene

Best Maze Name:

  1. Pinocchio: Unstrung (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Deadrise (Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor)
  3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Saw Is the Law (HHN Hollywood)

Best Scare-Actors/Monsters:

  1. The Haunted Play Presents: Delusion – Blood Rite
  2. Blumhouse of Horrors
  3. The Walking Dead: Dead Inside (HHN Hollywood)

Most Improved Maze (compared with  2011):

  1. Uncle Willy’s Slaughterhouse (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Fallout Shelter (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  3. Terror of London (Knott’s Scary Farm)

Best Scare Zone:

  1. Ghost Town (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Klownz (HHN Hollywood)
  3. Toyz (HHN Hollywood)

Most Unique Haunt Experience:

  1. Trapped (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. The Haunted Play Presents: Delusion – Blood Rite
  3. Blumhouse of Horrors

Best Value Haunt:

Knott’s Scary Farm

Best Maze of 2012:

Blumhouse of Horrors

Top 2012 Stand Alone Haunt

Blumhouse of Horrors

Top 2012 Theme Park Haunt

Knott’s Scary Farm

Matt E. Horn’s Rankings

Best Maze Design:

  1. Blumhouse of Horrors
  2. Alone (Howl O Scream)
  3. Tie: Dead End (HHN Orlando) & Gothic (HHN Orland0)
Best Maze Theme:
  1. Blumhouse of Horrors
  2. Pinocchio: Unstrung (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  3. Tie: Gothic (HHN Orlando) & Circus of Superstition (Howl O Scream Tampa) 
Scariest Maze:
  1. Gothic (HHN Orlando)
  2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Saw is the Law (HHN Hollywood)
  3. Sinister Pointe

Coolest Scene in a Maze:

  1. Blumhouse of Horrors – Finale magic act on main theater stage
  2. Alone – Stretching steel hallway with machete man (Howl O Scream Tampa)
  3. Gothic – Cathedral balcony overlooking the church (HHN Orlando)

Best Maze Name:

  1. Pinocchio: Unstrung (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Deadrise (Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor)
  3. Times Scare

Best Scare-Actors/Monsters:

  1. Alone (Howl O Scream Tampa)
  2. The Haunted Play Presents: Delusion – Blood Rite
  3. Blumhouse of Horrors

Most Improved Maze (compared with  2011):

  1. Uncle Willy’s Slaughterhouse (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Village of the Damned (Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor)
  3. Fallout Shelter (Knott’s Scary Farm)

Best Scare Zone:

  1. Ghost Town (Knott’s Scary Farm)
  2. Toyz (HHN Hollywood)
  3. Klownz (HHN Hollywood)

Most Unique Haunt Experience:

  1. The Haunted Play Presents: Delusion – Blood Rite
  2. Blumhouse of Horrors
  3. Tie: Alone (Busch Gardens) & Trapped (Knott’s Scary Farm)

Best Value Haunt:

Knott’s Scary Farm

Best Maze of 2012:

Blumhouse of Horrors

Top 2012 Stand Alone Haunt

Blumhouse of Horrors

Top 2012 Theme Park Haunt

Knott’s Scary Farm

Scare Zone’s Worst Rankings

This is where we load up the buried skulls and drive them off to the crematory. Of course, being in the world of horror, we’re aptly aware that not everything will die immediately or forever, but until the sequels here’s our call for the worse of 2012.

Worst Design

  1. All Haunted Hollywood Sports Mazes
  2. Terror Tram: Invaded by The Walking Dead (HHN Hollywood)
  3. Evil Dead (Knott’s Scary Farm)

Worst Theme

  1. All Haunted Hollywood Sports Mazes
  2. Tie: Virus Z (Knott’s Scary Farm) [Matt E. Horn] & Alice Cooper Goes to Hell [M. Leota]
  3. Terror Tram: Invaded by The Walking Dead (HHN Hollywood)

Least Scary Maze

  1. Tie: All-American Armageddon & Cannibal Caverns (Haunted Hollywood Sports)
  2. Penn & Tell New(KD) Vegas (HHN Orlando)
  3. Terror Tram: Invaded by The Walking Dead (HHN Hollywood)

Worse Value

  1. Haunted Hollywood Sports
  2. Haunted Grimm House (Orlando)
  3. Tie: Times Scare & L.A. Haunted Hayride

Worse Haunt of 2012

Haunted Hollywood Sports

2012 Repass

This year we observed that the Haunt industry is rapidly growing with more haunts (good, bad, or worse) opening up all over the country and with Theme Parks extending their haunt offerings and calendars between September and October. There’s also a growing popularity with the general public as we saw, and experienced, some of the biggest crowd attendance at haunts across the country. Haunting is really a   popular world-wide pastime now.

‘Stand Alone Haunts’ really set the bar this year, giving us some of favorite experiences this season. In the Southern California area we were very fortunate to have two very unique, celebrity produced, haunts that really impressed and scared us – Blumhouse of Horrors and Delusion: Blood Rite. Both of these attractions seamlessly combined storytelling, state-of-the-art effects and scares. They were able to give haunt stalkers  something fresh and scary instead of just relying upon the standard haunt formula. Other places like Sinister Pointe and Reign of Terror also expanded their respectively unique haunt experiences; making them some of our highest rated haunts of the year.

For the theme park haunts such as Halloween Horror Nights (both coasts) and Knott’s Scary Farm, it was pretty much business as usual. They are still fun and provide quite a few thrills. However, it seems that this year many of the themes were either commercial tie-ins or recycled/remixed themes. There’s no question that Knott’s has made a nice come back and in our opinion is back on top as the best theme park haunt. Universal still has some of the most elaborate mazes in the business at both of their parks but as an overall Halloween experience Knott’s couldn’t be beat this year. We hope that in the coming years the theme park haunts work to refine and create more original mazes that not only capture our imaginations (and wallets) but continue to push the boundaries of fear.

As we’ve said before, we take haunting and our earned dollars seriously, so we don’t have tolerance for the haunts that are more interested in taking people’s money than putting effort into a quality production. While some of our reviews may seem harsh or scathing we’re doing our best to provide the best information on where to spend your money. We realize that for many, they will only choose 1 or 2 haunts to visit so with more haunts to see we want to help you find the best one.  With that said, there were many high-quality haunts and mazes that didn’t make our top list, but they did offer a great time and good scares such as Howl-O Scream, Then Empty Grave, and Fear’s Gate. We also acknowledge all of the great haunts out there that we didn’t get to this season, like The Haunted Hotel, Coffin Creek, and Eli Roth’s Goretorium just to name a few.

We thank all our fellow Haunt Stalkers and Haunt reviewers for joining us on our 2012 scare-ventures. We appreciate all of you who shared your own experiences and ratings with us this season and throughout the year. We appreciate all your support and engagement with our site, and we look forward to having more scare-ventures together.

Scaringly yours,

M. Leota & Matt E. Horn

Co-Founders & Writers,  Scare Zone

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