Club Fear - Twisted Manor: 2019 Review
Club Fear, Santa Clarita, CA
We’re taking advantage of a few extra days between the weekend and Halloween this year to promote a few more home haunts we’ve been visiting. And though our coverage will run up to and actually past Halloween this year, resulting in content that we’ll have to post after the season is over, we’re going to try to include as many as we can before Halloween, in hopes of shining a little bit of promotion on these very deserving haunts!
This morning’s stop takes us back to that ominous house at the end of the street that we visited last year. The one that your grandma warned you not to go to. The one that has mysterious and terrifying screams emanating from it in the autumn nights. This is Club Fear, a Santa Clarita Valley home haunt that, among SCV spooky houses, is almost downright veteran, clocking in at a healthy fourth year for 2019.
A cemetery on the front yard to the left is back once again.
Last year, Club Fear’s Nightmares featured a twisting, compact garage haunt that included a diverse but generally clown-centric maze that had plenty of nooks and crannies and spot-on scareactors timing jump scares perfectly with guests. This year, creator Jason Shields hones in backstory of the haunt’s main villain, the killeR clown, Rellik, and dives into Club Fear’s mythology to produce a sort of prequel to the whole story, enriching the narrative of the maze.
This is one of the coolest maze moments I’ve ever seen.
Club Fear: Twisted Manor takes place before Rellik has risen to the height of his terrorizing powers. Guests who enter find themselves allowed in by the disembodied voice of some servant who allows them access via a back door. Immediately guests find portraits lining the walls of Rellik from youth through adulthood—an almost innocent sequence of memories belying the clown’s murderous and monstrous truth self. It doesn’t take look for Rellik to realize that there are guests / intruders in the manor. His booming voice taunts the guests, chiding them for thinking he wouldn’t know their presence. And then the clowns strike.
Popping out from unseen compartments, they spring upon guests as they proceed down a hall. Cutting a corner around a U-turn, guests suddenly find themselves at a dead end. A clown appears at the end of the passage, and suddenly, the doorway he stands behind beings to move toward the guests, shrinking the space smaller and smaller and smaller! This amazing and innovative effect pushes the victims backwards, where a hidden compartment has been opened, allowing guests to continue on their journey.
Those clowns… they’re out to getcha!
There’s no time to let one’s guard down, though, because threats still abound. An unseen hand claws through the wallpaper itself, while more clowns lie in wait. Their springpoints are clever concealed so that it’s almost impossible to see them coming. But in the dark, claustrophobic, ambush they do… and often!
The scenery turns a little toxic as guests duck under a skull archway, into a dungeon area. And still, Rellik’s minions continue to stalk and pursue. The backstretch takes guests through a laser vortex tunnel with another lurking clown, before a final escape deposits guests back onto the driveway. They’re safe, right? No! One last startle scare from either or both of a pair of clowns outside—including Rellik himself—give guests a final jolt of adrenaline to send them out on a high note!
Much like last year, Club Fear - Twisted Manor does an excellent job of fitting a lot of content into such a compact carport space. The 3-car garage fits the scene nicely and makes the maze feel longer than it actually is, and the dramatic theatrical lighting and cleverly synched audio soundtrack and voiceovers add to an intimidating and unnerving ambiance. The focus on the story reflects nicely in the theming, mostly via the portraits and audio. Combine that with some fantastic monster talent who can access scares through multiple windows and different sides of the maze, and the result is another terrific offering that reinforces Club Fear’s position as a must-visit every year, especially as part of a Santa Clarita home haunt tour.
You gotta have a laser vortex tunnel! It’s all the rage these days!
Club Fear is located at 23501 Clearidge Dr., Santa Clarita, CA 91354 and runs one more evening, Halloween Night, from 7:00-10:00pm. Admission is free, but a $5 donation can get a front of the line pass. In addition, popcorn is also sold at a little concessions stands on the curb. This haunt is only open the weekend before Halloween and Halloween night itself, so plan accordingly if you can’t make it on October 31st but want to make a point to stop by next season. If the crowds and the popularity are any indication, Club Fear is well on its way to becoming an SCV haunt staple!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
