Knott's Scary Farm 2016: The Shows

Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, CA

Our final update from Knott's Scary Farm comes in the form of the shows.  Once again, this year, Haunt features only two shows--the annual Hanging pop culture parody and another dance and variety show from Elvira.  Lets dive right in with these shows before we wrap up with some thoughts on Scary Farm's entertainment options and some musing on the event overall. 

The Hanging

I mentioned this in my Scary Farm opening night thoughts post, but The Hanging is unequivocably, undeniably, disappointingly bad this year.  There may be adjustments as the show progresses, but it's hard to see them salvaging a show that left me bewildered with its complete lack of flow, sense, and quality.

Lets put aside any commentary on humor and daring (although the non-impactful jokes did play some role in my reception of the show).  Although the show is a pop culture lampoon, the comedy is always relative to the viewer.  To some, the jokes made at a typical Hanging show are very tame.  To others, they might be risque.  And since Knott's Scary Farm is open to a wide target demographic that spans a lot of diversity in terms of age, ethnicity, and culture, they generally need to stick to a broad sweet spot of comedy that precludes anything too controversial.  That's understandable, even if someone like myself would prefer that the park take some chances and risk offense (that is the beauty of comedy--you either think it's funny or not; you like it or dislike it--but being offended is not a valid reaction, because comedy is entirely subjective).

It should also be acknowledged that The Hanging seemed to intentionally go for a different style and approach this year.  Starting off with a dance number, lessening the traditional pointless multiple-cameo fight scenes, and developing the relationship of the Lawman (played by a new actor this year) and new Hangman (Shannon, introduced last year) are steps that run counter to the traditional formula.  It's commendable that the writers (who I understand are also new to the show for this year) wanted to change things up.  Unfortunately, what ended up being presented just didn't work.

The issue with The Hanging is that it has a slow-progressing plot that veers off way too many tangents, beats its jokes to death pretty much immediately, features poor, unimaginative dialogue that sounds like a high schooler wrote it, and lacks a smooth flow and logical order of events.  The overall story itself is something that could take five minutes to tell, yet somehow stretches to half an hour.  By every metric of analyzing the show from a critical and show-writing perspective, this year's Hanging fails.  And it also has by far the least inciteful collection of jokes out of any Hanging I've ever seen.  There were maybe three moments that made me genuinely laugh--two of them innocuous but silly, and one potentially controversial (to over-sensitive people, but still).  And that's it. 

The result is a show that just seems uninspired and runs like a semi-robotic school play.  In fact, it reminds me a lot of Bill and Ted at Universal Studios Hollywood in the couple of years before its closure--rambling, non-sensical, bloated, and trying to be funny but just awkwardly not being so.  And I've honestly enjoyed the Hangings of the past few years and thought they'd been making improvements from their late aughts trend of having too many veering moments.  This year seemed to bring back those inefficiencies all over again in a flood.

I could spoil the show with a summary of what happened, but I have probably purged a lot of that from my brain.  Instead, you're going to get a partially made-up version of The Hanging which will be terrible--but still probably better than the actual show.

We kick off the show with Melania Trump giving the pre-show warning spiel.

She performs an exciting interpretive dance via sign language, to make sure deaf people can hate the Trumps too.

This concludes with a recap of the adult content that the show threatens to contain.  This example is the raciest the entire show gets.

Time to start the show! The Lawman does this with the traditional blowing of his load. 

Ammo load, that is.  He does this using the only long gun that has not been made illegal by California's strict firearms laws.

The Lawman brings out the new age Calico saloon dancers, currently with no wardrobe because all the show budget went into Elvira's show.

To make up for this, the ladies show off their booty...ful stretching techniques.

Then, for no reason, Sia appears on stage to sing a song.  Because when you think of biggest pop culture stories of the year, you think artsy and niche-y Sia?

It turns out that Calico is actually holding its first-annual Halloween BOOty Shaking Contest, and all competitors are welcome, including Jay-Z.

His twerking routing is unacceptable though, and the crowd boos are so violent that heads explode.  Chaos ensues.

The Lawman attempts to bring order back to the proceedings by encouraging everyone to fight the power.

"I recognized that you are all outraged, but we have a solution!"
 

"We have heard your cries to bring it back this year, so we have changed our Hanging victim to actually be... Fear VR: 5150!!"

This brings out Ryan Lochte, who supports the decision to hang FearVR because the attraction robbed him at gunpoint.

To quell a dissatisfied crowd, the Lawman introduces Knott's new haunted VR attraction: CalicoachellaVR: 420, a terrifying muddle through hipsters and man buns and body odor.

Out comes Shannon, the Hangman, to protest the offensiveness of Calicoachella, since it perpetuates the stigma that people with man buns are soulless, drug-addled creatures with no morals and also tiny parasitic winged monstrosities who live in said man buns.
 

She introduces her online petition to have Calicoachella removed and announces that she will be circulating more information at a local convention.

Very quickly, random C-list celebrities who have never been to Calicoachella jump aboard the anti-Calicoachella bandwagon, since the event clearly encourages the demonization of America's youth.

"Mr. Charlie Sheen, have you actually attended Calicoachella?"
"No, but I asked three of my escort girls who did go what it was like, and they said it was smelly, so that makes it abominable and not winning!"

When the Lawman presses forward with a compromise to change the name to "Calicolla" so that the ache can be removed, rendering the event pain-free, Sharon responds with a kick to the groin, citing that a name change is not sufficient if the event is still going to contains offensive content.

Upon hearing the term "offensive content," Donald Trump takes his cue and makes his grand appearance.

The Trump announces that he is here to rid Calico of everything that is offensive... to him.

This naturally excludes himself, because though he is offensive, he is not offensive to himself.

A random PTA mother comes out to indicate the hypocrisy in this, but everyone ignores her.

When Bill Clinton shows up and shockingly agrees with Trump's initiative to build a yuuuge wall around offensive things, everyone is shocked.

Bill is chased away by an emerging Beyonce, though, who rails against all cheaters.

This prompts the ADD cast to argue over who is the biggest cheater of all.

Out comes Bernie Sanders to voice his grievances about the ultimate cheater.

He drops a dubstep track all about Cheating Hillary and rallies his Berners around him.

That beat is hot--so hot that it literally lights his hands on fire.

The Lawman and Shannon bring things back to focus by turning the discussion back to how to get rid of offensive things, which prompts the biggest whiner in the galaxy, Kylo Ren, to make an appearance and voice his grievances.

He is interrupted by Chewbacca Mom, though, who is promptly removed for offending women who look like werewolves.

Kylo is then removed for offending people who are whiny b!tches.

Tired from the action, Shannon sits down for a healthy snack.

When Mowgli stops by for a visit, he is removed for offending grown men who dress up like little toddlers.

"I'll go, but these ladies have to be the ones who forcibly remove me, right?"

"This is crazy!" the Lawman shouts, referencing the unraveling of the show.

"Did somebody say crazy?"  And out drops Harley Quinn.

Harley makes an articulate and impassioned speech about offense and simply removing oneself from something that might be offensive, rather than try to remove it, but this is ignored by the Lawman, who does that thing referenced in that Lonely Island song that I can't post here because it will be censored.

Sick of all the political correctness, Deadpool appears to make a statement.

He pistol whips the over-sensitive out of the frame.

The town of Calico realizes the message, and they decide to hang the least offensive thing they can find, rather than the most offensive.

Unfortunately, the first victim they find is a Pikachu, which they catch with a Pokelasso.

Pikachu is then hung for his crimes of being cute and shocky.

Realizing the trainwreck of a show is now over, the stage attempts to self destruct.

This is unsuccessful, and the cast is left wondering what to do.

With no other options, they YMCA their way off the stage.  The end.

Elvira's Danse Macabre

I can't believe I'm writing this, but Elvira easily owns the most entertaining show of Knott's Scary Farm this year.  I am not an Elvira fan, and though I have no bad opinions about the Mistress of the Night, I mostly just don't really care about her act.  However, in comparison to The Hanging, Elvira offered a fun, silly, entertaining show with impressive dance and acrobatics, her usual cheesy jokes (that were edgier than The Hanging's jokes), and a good half hour of spectacle. 

Those who don't care about Elvira can probably skip the show, as there's nothing incredibly amazing or must-see for those who weren't going to anyway.  Elvira fans will absolutely love it.  And those looking for an entertainment break will probably appreciate things as well.  Lets take a look.

Welcome to Elvira's third year back at Knott's Scary Farm!

Here we are inside the "Ghoultime" Theater.

First, a musical intro, done this year to the tune of Cage the Elephant's "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked."

And there's Elvira!

That's quite a dress...

But it turns out part of Elvira's dress is people!!

And so the Mistress of the Dark kicks the show off.

She is joined by her troupe of dancers and performers.

She sings as they dance.

It's all a flashy production.
 

Lights and pizzazz and stuff.

Big flourish!

After the opening segment, the show settles into a typical pattern.

Elvira has an opening monologue with her usual corny risque jokes, and the audience of Elvira fans eats it up.

And then, there is a performance.

Dancers herald the next act.

It's a combination of a flame twirler...

...and aerialists.

Here, the aerialists are on silks.

Swallowing fire (I got a bad angle, but take my word for it).

There's a lot of action going on here.

Dramatically, the aerialists let themselves fall and roll down the silks.

All pretty impressive stuff.

Back comes Elvira with more jokes.
 

Prerequisite topical social media humor joke.

Onto the next act.

It's basically a masquerade dance routine.
 

Jazzed up and more energetic, of course.

Well, that's flexibility...

Contortionists in the background too.
 

Elvira is back with her favorite segment of the night.

It's Elvira's Scary-oke!

Three audience members are plucked from the crowd and asked to lip sync to songs.  The first one goes at it right away.

And he dances up a storm while lip synching.

With the bar set high, the second contestant dances to "Gangnam Style."

She didn't really lip sync though.

The third guy, who introduced himself as "Elvira's [future] Husband," got "Baby Got Back."

So he showed off his.

Everyone's a winner, and we move on.

The chandelier comes down, and two acrobats come out for an aerialist hoops performance.

Flying up!

Twirling and twirling.

They were not safety tied, which I think is a first that I've seen in these shows at Knott's.

I thought this was pretty cool.

More aerialist moves.

And ta-da!!

The entire cast reconvenes for one last big dance number.
 

Elvira's on a boat.

And now she's helped off.

Big song and dance!

Time to do the Thriller. Because Halloween.

Pyros shoot off...

...and that's the show!
 

Overall, a solid half an hour spent.

This is the third year that Knott's is going with only two shows at the Halloween Haunt, far down from their previous years featuring half a dozen entertainment options or more.  As I've mentioned with Universal, it would definitely be nice to have some more show options in some of the other venues such as the Wild West Stunt Show Theater and the Birdcage.  The smaller and more intimate shows offered a different vibe and variety for those who revisit Knott's or just don't want to only do mazes.  Be they comedy improv, magic, freak show, or other, hopefully, Knott's can get the diversity back up to past par, now that they've been able to bring a large number of mazes up to the high quality standard needed to compete with the likes of Universal Studios.

And overall, Knott's Scary Farm is putting up a quality offering this season.  The scare zones are full of energetic and enthusiastic and entertaining talent--even in Fiesta Village and The Hollow, where two weekends of work has the talent really rounding into form and terrorizing guests on busy and slow nights.  And there are no bad mazes this year.  Even the lower end offerings like Dead of Winter, Voodoo, and Gunslinger's Grave are middle of the road compared to many previous years' mazes.  Of course, mazes are always subjective and often subject to luck of the draw.  But over may several visits so far, they've averaged out anywhere from solid to spectacular.  And with haunted mazes like Shadowlands, Special Ops: Infected, and Paranormal Inc leading the way toward a new era of quality, things are looking really good for the Granddaddy that started it all!