Twisted Minds Productions presents Salem: Escape the Coven: 2019 Review
Twisted Minds Productions, San Gabriel, CA
So over the past couple of years, we’ve covered the creations of a group of “New Blood” Haunters—a young generation of home haunt creatives who have made a splash in the haunt community through their unique and expert level takes on a variety of different types of haunted attractions. There’s Opechee Haunt, the original “kid haunt” masterminded by Sam Kelman, which has dabbled in a variety of different haunted attractions over the years. There’s Murder House Productions, where Aurora Persichetti and Kyle Warner create Halloween Horror Nights level theming and atmosphere, plus more impactful scares, and amazing, cinematic level storytelling. And there’s also Rosehill Haunt, Ben Conway’s charming haunted yard display in Studio City has he has been working on since age seven, and to which he has added on, piece by piece, each year.
But there’s one haunt in this grouping that we haven’t really covered properly, aside from their mini-haunts at Midsummer Scream: Twisted Minds Productions. The partnership of Zion Fenwick and David Coleman, Twisted Minds Productions emphasizes less on the ultra-immersive theming of the contemporary “Haunt 2.0” style attractions and focuses more on the psychological and emotional experience and the convincing commitment of the actors to create an often jarringly immersive experience.
Welcome to just a regular, innocent, non-witchy domicile!
This year, they present Salem: Escape the Coven, a new and original haunted maze that branches off their sneak peak offered during Midsummer Scream. The story is relatively simple: after killing their school teacher (at Midsummer Scream), the witches burned down the town and have fled into the wilderness into hiding. You, the guest, have been dispatched to find them. But since this is 1600s Salem, there are no lights. Instead, you only have a candle to guide you.
Wait, SHE’S A WIIIITCH!!
What ensues is much an exercise in circulation confusion as it is psychological manipulation. Moving from the burnt out husk of a chapel into a brief courtyard and then into an interior space, guests are given the choice to enter one of two doors. Choose wisely—or not. Because they both lead to a legitimate labyrinth, where the witches lurk within, and they are not happy to see uninvited guests.
Guests navigate a series of fogged out, dim spaces with minimal lighting, relying on solely the candle for guidance. They might run into a dead end, or they might run into a witch (don’t use the candle to BURN HER; it’s not a real candle, folks). But the experience is jarring and unnerving, in large part thanks to the incredible performances of the actresses who remain wholly committed to their roles, always moving, glaring holes into guests, behaving in absolutely unhinged ways that just don’t feel right.
Eventually, escape presents itself, but not before guests must duck through another gauntlet, only encounter a couple more final climactic moments featuring a strange, glowing eyed creature, and a demonic, monstrous being grasping out to prevent a final escape.
We finally escape! Or were we allowed to escape?
Salem: Escape the Coven is a disorienting and powerful experience that provides a bold contrast to the style of the other “New Blood” haunters. Simplifying the maze palate focuses energy and emotional highs on select moments, keeping one’s senses on edge during the entire trek through the maze. The use of dead ends and moving doors calls to mind the now-defunct but always-beloved Mable’s 6 Feet Under—an intentional move, Zion mentioned.
The all-female cast also injects deep and vivid performances into their roles. The witches provide sharp startles and soul-piercing scowls, shrieking, threatening, then switching to disturbed and unstable or docile and dulcet. They never relent, and their gestures are as creepy as they are scary. There’s a discomfort that comes with their ability to seemingly appear out of nowhere, cementing their perceived powers.
Creepy crawly is out to get you.
The result is a haunt that feels visceral. It is truly haunting, and the stark set and contrasts the heavy emotional weight of the maze. One is never really comfortable, whether it be from the unexpected actual maze layout to the compact corridor guest much crawl or hunch through. And at the end of the day, a maze can have the best theming in the world, but it won’t really be memorable as a haunted house attraction unless it has quality scareactors who actually make the walk-through scary. To this end, Twisted Minds Production’s Salen: Escape the Coven succeeds wildly.
Twisted Minds Productions is located at 8708 Wendon St, San Gabriel, CA 91775 and runs this weekend but not Halloween night. The location is somewhat remote off the main street, near the end of a cul-de-sac that doesn’t appear to get much traffic. But capacity is low—only groups of one or two are allowed in, and only two groups can ever navigate the maze at any one time. Bring patience if there are already people in line.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
