Castle Dark at Castle Park: 2019 Review
Castle Park, Riverside, CA
We thought we were done with SoCal theme/amusement park haunts when we visited Dark Harbor, but it turns out there was one other haunt on the list. It’s an amusement park we’ve never actually covered on Westcoaster, but which has ties to a park that we cover frequently, and factored into the childhood of a certain founding member of this site!
I’m talking about Castle Park, located in Riverside, and its haunt overlay, Castle Dark. Founded in 1976 as a family entertainment center with an arcade and 72-hole miniature golf course, Castle Park was the brainchild of Bud Hurlbut, who Knott’s Berry Farm fans might recognized as the legendary designer of the Calico Mine Ride and Timber Mountain Log Ride at Knott’s. The park became his project after he left the Berry Farm, and Bud designed and operated the park for many years, until his passing in 2011. Through the years, the park grew from a simple recreation center to a legitimate amusement park that today has over two dozen attractions, including three roller coasters.
Bud also had a legacy in haunted events. Not many people know that he is considered the very first Haunt monster at Knott’s, having donned an ape costume to scare guests on the Mine Ride the year before the very first Knott’s Scary Farm. Today, this spirit lives on in his park, as Castle Park transforms every fall into Castle Dark.
Welcome to Castle Dark!
Before we dive into the scary stuff, though, lets get a lay of the land. The property itself is separated into two halves—an amusement park side on the west half, and the arcade and golf course clustered around the centerpiece castle building on the east. Both are included as part of a regular day ticket.
The amusement park side is surprisingly charming, with a myriad of rides that are almost all family friendly. There’s a carousel, a scrambler ride, a dragon swing, Gravitron, railroad, and more. There’s also the West Coast’s only Double Shot attraction, an S&S ride that shoots guest up to the top, then shoots them back down. Dragon’s Tower actually does this twice, making it a double Double Shot. Three roller coasters—Little Dipper and Merlins Revenge (a Miler kiddie and Vekoma family coaster, respectively) and Screamin’ Demon, a spinning wild mouse that has been standing but not operating since 2014. Other popular thrill rides include the Log Ride, the Fireball looping “coaster,” and Sky Rider.
There’s also a sprawling miniature golf course featuring four different 18-hole layouts, each charmingly themed, with a medley of themed architecture and verdantly landscaped surroundings. It’s included in a regular day’s admission and is also a part of this year’s Castle Dark separately ticketed event—adding to the value of the hard ticket.
Ghost Blasters
Inside the arcade located within the striking castle of Castle Park lies a charming Sally interactive dark ride. Though not an official featured attraction of Castle Dark and not specially themed or plussed with scareactors, Ghost Blasters is nonetheless worth a stop to check out the adorable theming and light-hearted, spooky trip into Blackstone Manor.
Ghost Blasters is a can’t-miss at Castle Park.
Guests board 2-passenger cars with built-in guns, and there are targets littered throughout the ride that trigger various effects, from moving scenes to unfolding figures and more targets. The ride keeps score as it progresses, and ultimately, the sense of competition adds to the appeal. It’s a wonderful ride, and though the low capacity can inflate the queue, it’s worth trying as long as the wait is not too terrible!
There is an abundance of whimsical, spooky scenes and effects triggered by shooting targets.
This year, Castle Park has undergone new management, having been acquired by Palace Entertainment. This has brought a renewed focus on the park’s Halloween event and a desire to improve and market the event to be a little more competitive in the highly saturated Southern California haunt market. Castle Dark itself is nothing new, and we’ve even listed it in past years’ SoCal Haunted Attraction Guides, but it’s always been seen as a inexpensive, locally-oriented, little runt brother of Knott’s Scary Farm. The quality has traditionally been low—more on par with a family endeavor than a full fledged, sophisticated commercial haunt.
Year one of the plan under new management is to consolidate and improve in small ways, and to bring in a new attitude and passion to the haunt. There is limited budget to make markedly obvious improvements, but the talent who work the event can be trained to be more engaging, and the haunted attractions themselves can be more focused. That is the mission, at least.
Mazes
In execution, the mazes still have a long ways to go before they are anywhere near the level of Knott’s or Dark Harbor or even Six Flags Magic Mountain. This year, Castle Dark consolidated its maze line-up down to three to better focus resources, theming, and sets. But even this has not cured the overall quality level. By and large, the level of the quality of the haunted mazes is equivalent to a home haunter who has emerged from the temporary garbage bag partitions and is starting to build walls and scenes. There are still noticeable blank walls and spaces that are often cavernous and simplistic, and the lack of maze soundtracks also detracts from the experience, but these are all things that management aims to change, improve, and invest in during the next few years, especially with an increasing budget upon each successive year.
The Crooked Man
The first maze is located to the side of the castle building. The Crooked Man tells the story of a murderously crooked fellow how commits all sorts of atrocities. We know, because it’s literally written out across the various walls of the maze. This is the longest maze in the park, and there are a fair number of scareactors within to keep things interesting, but it’s an example of the level from which Castle Dark is starting.
The beginning is actually not bad, with a shadowy pathway lit only by a few lasers winding its way to the proper maze entrance into the cursed home of the Crooked Man. Once inside, guests follow the story along, occasionally running into some of the wretched inhabitants of this dwelling. There are some pop-out scares and even a chainsaw monster, and there are certainly signs of effort here. But elements like the lack of a soundtrack, minimal theming and furnishings, and the amount of empty space show that The Crooked Man still has a ways to go.
The Crooked Man is apparently a Chainsaw Man.
Meltdown
Located next to Dragon’s Tower, this maze was actually our favorite of the night, and the one that best points to the promise that is offered at Castle Dark. Themed to a nuclear waste spill that deforms and mutates victims, Meltdown is a colorful and vibrant maze bathed in black light and high contrasting paint, with a few props and bits of theming mixed in.
The layout winds its way around corners that offer great hiding places for startle scares, and there are even a few moments where guest need to duck under slightly low-hanging elements, creating a bit of claustrophobia. There are still plain walls, and a lot of the artistic direction involves how the nuclear waste is across the walls, but there are also a few set pieces to help create a bit of atmosphere, plus a nice scene in the finale featuring a trick red button. The talent in this maze is passionate and very active, hitting their scares with a good amount of aggression and utilizing physicality with back bends and lunges to impart a more visceral scare.
Meltdown features dastardly demented fiends.
Jinxx & Havoc’s Twisted Circus
The third and final maze at Castle Dark is a circus-themed clown maze that is unfortunately rather brief and somewhat empty of monsters. The best parts of the maze come outside, from the dramatic barker to the twisted clown posing (sometimes sexily, if you have a camera ready), to the female clown who urges guests to step right up.
Inside, the layout features a lot of standard walls with murals and flat reliefs painted onto them. The lighting can be a little sharper, but the clowns do show a wily sense of unhinged silliness. The maze feels the shortest of the three mazes at Castle Dark, and needs a few more monsters to help add more excitement.
You can’t have a haunt event without some crazy clowns, right?
Our trip to Castle Dark also allowed us access to the backstage makeup and props area, where we learned that many of the masks used at Castle Dark are hand made, with a few others being purchases from well known Halloween effects companies such as Larry Bones’ Boneyard Effects. It was pretty cool to see the creative characters on display, and it indicated Castle Park’s commitment to making its Halloween event better and better.
Scare Zones
Castle Dark has five scare zones this year: Dark Harvest at the entry, The Lady in White, Día de los Muertos, Nigthmare, and The Midway. And they are a lively collection of screams and activity. The ambiance is also enhanced from previous years, because for the first time, the entire park has been themed. This is nothing especially lavish—mostly decorations draped across trees and over poles and buildings that feel more decorative than enveloping. But again, ti’s a sign of the more serious direction the park is taking with its haunt.
Where the mazes still show capacity of great improvement in the upcoming years, the scare zones already show signs of improvement over prior years—at least according to those we spoke to who have gone to Castle Dark in the past. Castle Dark has enlisted the help of some great veteran haunters as well as coaching of the greener monsters by the famous Decayed Brigade, in order to encourage its monsters to be more interactive, more character-driven, and more committed to their scare zone’s theme.
Choose to join a sinister cult at Dark Harvest, or suffer the consequences.
Really, the scare zone interactions are the highlight of this year’s Castle Dark. The twists begin from from the start, in Dark Harvest, where one might come face to face with a preacher-type who’s a mix of The Undertaker and Bray Wyatt (did I just toss in two pro wrestling references across two different eras… yes I did), carrying a Bible that catches fire upon opening. This preacher calls for obedience and loyalty, and he will mark guests who agree to the challenge. Beware, for though this affords protection and camaraderie within Dark Harvest, in the other scare zones, the mark makes guests a target.
The Midway is where clowns can be found prancing around and acting somewhat psychotic. This is no surprise, given that Jinxx and Havoc’s Twisted Circus empties out into here. A little further down the path, the Lady in White is a foggy thoroughfare where guests can encounter a mysterious female phantom, clad in a white gown. Guests might also meet what appears to be a military man missing an eye. Meanwhile, dark and hideous creatures lurk in Nightmare, and Día de los Muertos takes on the colorful tone of its holiday inspiration.
Overall, the street monsters seem to be in constant motion, hitting guests with ambush scares and interacting with them with their best creeps and startles. As lackluster as the aesthetics of the mazes are, watching the scareactors perform their craft is that much entertaining. Some of the monsters seem to have a certain recognizable look and extra charisma, suggesting they may be recurring characters in future haunts. Developing some more memorable, iconic characters is a smart move to build up longterm retention and guest return. It also doesn’t hurt that a large component of the street monsters are veteran talent from other professional haunts, like Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, Knott’s Scary Farm, Dark Harbor, and more.
New haunt manager, Matt Gagnier has given a freer reign to his talent, encouraging them to have fun, flex their improvisational skills, and display their passion. Rest when needed, have fun, and make the guest experience more meaningful and memorable. And the results have proven fruitful, as the talent is one area that we can say does start to rival the big boy haunts that Castle Dark is chasing.
Ultimately, Castle Dark is a work in progress, and though it’s not as lavish or complex as the other park haunts that we’ve reviewed, there is definitely a lot of potential that we can see. If the monsters can continue to excel in their scares, energy, interactions, and originality, that alone will go a long way toward demonstrating the improved nature of Castle Dark. Additional budget for the mazes will help enrich them and provide more thematically rich walk-throughs for guests to partake, and build better atmosphere.
In the meantime, Castle Park offers several deals that are unmatched in value when compared to all the other haunts across Southern California (even Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest, which has been our previous bar for best SoCal haunt value):
For the first time this year, Castle Dark is a hard ticket with its own operating hours, kicked off by an opening moment where monsters gather for a ceremony and then turn and spring upon the guests. The $20 ticket includes access to the mazes and scare zones, plus all the open attractions, arcade, and golf course.
There’s also a $40 pre-scare dinner that includes admission; early interaction with some of the street monsters; a meal of two ribs, one piece of BBQ chicken, 2 corn muffins, mac ‘n’ cheese, and coleslaw; and a little swag bag of stickers and a souvenir mug with free refills through the night.
Looking for repeat visits? The $50 annual pass includes full admission to all Castle Park events without any blackout dates, and various discounts.
And if you’re looking for the grand Cadillac experience, Castle Dark offers a $100 VIP Experience that includes everything the $40 pre-scare dinner and admission includes, plus more swag, plus the opportunity to receive make-up and costuming and be an actual Castle Dark street monster for the evening. What other haunt offers that? Our friends at Parks and Cons and Midsummer Scream even tried it out this past weekend!
We left Castle Park with an appreciation for the charm and family-centric model of the the park, as well as an understanding of the current caliber of the Castle Dark event, but also optimism for where this is headed over the next few years. This is year 1 of a five year plan to reimagine Castle Dark into a competitive haunted attraction that will attract warranted attention from Halloween fans all across Southern California. The attitude is there, the budget is coming, and promise is genuine.
We wish Castle Park the best in their continued revamp of their Halloween event! In the meantime, Castle Dark runs at least one more weekend, and hopefully through the last weekend of October as well. Admission is the aforementioned $20 ($19.99 to be exact). Note that there is also a fee for parking on site—$10 per vehicle. The entrance to the parking lot is off of Diana Ave (the frontage road paralleling the 91 freeway), right at the big Castle Park freeway sign.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
