Mourning Rose Manor: 2019 Review
Mourning Rose Manor, Simi Valley, CA
Once upon a time, I used to scare at Higgins Manor, and the resulting schedule meant that I couldn’t really get a chance to check out other home haunts, even though (as longtime readers will know by now, there are so many excellent residential haunted attractions that are every bit as high quality or even better than professional haunts. Back the, I kept a list of the more well known haunts that I might one day have a chance to check out. For the most part, since Higgins Manor has gone offline, I’ve been able to make it to a vast majority of the iconic home haunts on said list—well renown places like Rotten Apple 907, Boot Hill, Beware the Dark Realm, The Backwoods, Opechee Haunt, Perdition Home, and others.
One place I’ve not been able to visit over the past few years of expanding my haunting scope is Mourning Rose Manor, a well-reputed yard display out in Simi Valley—a place I pretty much never go to. Aside from being just really, really far from my home base in Orange County, Simi Valley is also home to basically zero of my friends, so I never really have a reason to stop by. But last Friday, on my way to several Santa Clarita Valley haunts as part of a five-haunt evening, I made it a point to stop by this long-running haunted yard display to check out Mourning Rose Manor: The Orphanage.
Mourning Rose Manor is one of the many home haunts noted on the SoCal Haunt List, and among them, I have to say that it’s one of the better ones. With a host of really creepy figures (I mean, c’mon, how eerie is the concept of a haunted orphanage), great theatrical lighting, and even a sinister soundtrack with a dark and twisted nursery rhyme, this Halloween set-up looks positively fantastic.
The mix of custom figures, grave stones, actual dolls, and little playthings makes for an eclectic variety of theming, but this mishmash comes together more cohesively than the individual components might suggest. A baby carriage here. A crib there. Some toys scattered about. It very much tells the story of an abandoned place for abandoned children…’s spirits. And if there’s one way to describe the vibe of Mourning Rose Manor, it’s chilling. In a good way. The entire presentation looks absolutely stellar!
Mourning Rose Manor is located at 5250 Aurelia St, Simi Valley, CA 93063. It’s operational each night from now through Halloween, starting at 6:30pm and lasting until 10:00pm or so. If you’re in the area, try pairing this with a trip to Fears Gate at the nearby Simi Town Center. Visiting on Halloween Night? The Bone Yard and Fox Hole Haunt are two other yard displays located between Mourning Rose Manor and Fears Gate.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
