Coffinwood Cemetery: 2018 Review
Coffinwood Cemetery, Santa Clarita, CA
We’re sneaking in a late #ShriekySunday post to continue our retro Halloween updates, since we visited so many haunts this year that we couldn’t review them all before actual Halloween! Our visit this evening returns us to Santa Clarita, where we’ve already checked out a pair of home haunts in Shiver Haunt and Club Fear - Nightmares. And while those two represent a pair of relatively new, up-and-coming haunts in the area, our journey in this update brings us to a long-running community tradition: Coffinwood Cemetery!
Some days, you just feel like you're in over your head.
A blinking creature hides within a coffin, ushered by several skeletal pall bearers.
This elaborate yard display and partial walk-through winds visitors through the residence’s front yard and into the garage, where a pair of haunted scenes are set up. The haunt operates no-scare nights as well as regular scare nights, depending on the evening. This year, our visit on a Friday evening coincided with a non-scare night, so the action was less intense. But on nights when the monster prowl, Coffinwood Cemetery takes on a vibe not unlike that of Boot Hill in Irvine!
In the garage, a skeleton scene is full of whimsy and detail.
This skeleton drinks some beer that is apparently illuminated as it travels down his not-body.
As far as the actual theming, Coffinwood Cemetery features an interesting mix of highly realistic gore, unnerving creepys, a couple cartoonish displays, and a fully loaded, detail and prop-laden pair of haunted dioramas in the two garage scenes. We found the corpse holding his own severed and blood-dripping head to be graphically morbid, but we also loved the swaying zombie low to the ground who initially looked like an actual scareactor talent on approach! The technology implemented—projections on the second floor front windows and some sinister eyes projected from the coffin in the yard, to name a couple—also adds a sense of fun to the whole haunted attraction. It’s actually pretty fascinating how Coffinwood Cemetery can take on a range of vibes depending on where in the walkthrough one is, and if live actors are present.
The next room: dolls. Tons of them.
Creators Tony Monton and his friend, Tom, have been running Coffinwood for two decades (part of that at a prior location), and the experience and level of sophistication clearly shows. This haunt is a delight to take in and part of a cluster of Santa Clarita home haunts that are all within short, 10-15 minutes max. driving distance from each other. It’s definitely worth putting on an itinerary for a home haunt tour next year!
Coffinwood Cemetery is a great-looking haunt well worth a quick stop on a tour of other Santa Clarita haunts!
Coffinwood Cemetery is located on 27159 Waterford Dr, Santa Clarita, CA 91354 and was open Friday and Saturday, October 19-20, Friday through Sunday, October 26-28, and Halloween night this year. I imagine the schedule will be similar next year, just with the a dates adjusted to follow the respective evenings of the week.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
