Twisted Minds presents Gremlins Fan Tribute: 2019 Review

Los Angeles, CA

It’s the first #ShriekySunday of 2020, folks, and today, we’re going to look at… a Christmas haunt! Yes, this past holiday season actually had a pleasant influx of spooky offerings, from a winter time Reign of Terror to a Christmas iteration of Zombie Joe’s Dark Dark Ride Ride to several home haunts producing some holiday haunts. Today, we’re going to look at one of them: a Gremlins Fan Tribute haunted house from Twisted Minds Themed Entertainment Design.

We covered Twisted minds twice earlier this season, back when they were called Twisted Minds Productions. Their Midsummer Scream preview and full October productions of Salem showed off an impressive commitment to theatrical performances and storytelling, especially from a non-professional troupe composed of high school students. Since then, Twisted Minds has rebranded themselves to reflect a more expanded focus on general immersive experiences that are not necessarily limited to haunts. For now, though, they’re still churning up some fun spooky experiences, and last month, for three evenings, they unveiled an ode to one of the classic movies that happens to take place during Christmas time.

Some sights from the Chinatown antique shop from the beginning of the movie.

Gremlins is an IP that Twisted Minds creator, Zion Fenwick, has wanted to do for a long time. That explains how Twisted Minds was able to assemble a completely different haunt from their fall production in just a couple of short months—the plans for this Gremlins haunt have been in place for quite some time! As a home haunt, a full length excursion through every major beat of the movie is not entirely realistic, but as it turned out, the Twisted Minds Gremlins Fan Tribute haunted house provided a fantastic, well-executed best hits of this beloved Stephen Spielberg-produced classic.

Guests arriving at the cozy residence at the south edge of Los Angeles’ Highland Park community encounter a modest facade for the Chinatown antique store where Billy Peltzer’s dad, Randall, is looking for a Christmas present for his son. Inside, guests find a few relics and antiques, including a first look at Gizmo, the mogwai hiding inside a little chest. The shop serves as a queue before the actual experience begins.

The short layout of the entire maze means entries need to be time to allow for the previous group to reach the last scene of the maze before the next group can enter. Once inside, guests are greeted with a colorful Christmas scene… one that suddenly turns into horror when the first jump scare occurs. It seems the mogwai has been exposed to water and fed after midnight pretty quickly, and what follows is their swath of bloody carnage!

The iconic kitchen scene where the gremlins try attack Billy’s monster comes next, and it is recreated with gory detail, right down to the remnants of a gremlin stick in a food processor and blood splattered throughout the room. A gremlin pops out of a window with a startle scare, while Billy’s panicked mom appears behind curtain wielding a rolling pin for another.

Things get messy pretty quickly in the Gremlins Fan Tribute haunted house!

Turning the corner, guests encounter a less than savory Santa Claus bearing suspiciously Krampus-like appearances, but there isn’t much time to dwell on that, as a saunter back indoors brings more close encounters with those feisty and murderous gremlins! Hope finally arrives when guests find that sunlight has a most unsightly and melting effect on the creatures, as Stripe is turned into go under a beam of daylight. Billy appears to usher guests to safety in the last scene, where a heartwarming holiday message caps off the experience, putting a coda to the story. But wait—there’s one last frightening (and wet, if guests are standing in the wrong spot) surprise—a cliffhanger pop-out scare from above that pulls a slight bit of creative liberty in hinting that perhaps the Gremlins aren’t quite all gone after all?

A wild Gremlin appeared! It used Startle! It’s super effective!

Not knowing exactly what to expect for a Christmas haunt that seemed like it may not have had a lot of time to put together after Halloween, I had no idea what exactly to expect, other than that there would probably be an emphasis on recreating iconic scenes and a reliance on more theatrical and performance aspects, as Twisted Minds has been known to take on.

The resulting experience exceeded expectations as a compact but very well executed haunted maze that hit upon some iconic points of the movie. The construction of the maze on the driveway of a home situated on hilly terrain was also impressive, as the lack of an actual level surface created some complications that had to be worked around with the haunt build. The synchronization between lighting, audio effects, and soundtrack showed a lot of technical savvy, and the actors were great in their roles as well. In contrast to Salem: Escape the Coven, which had more opportunities for improvisation, Gremlins had more dialogue synching and Halloween Horror Nights-style. But that versatility across different haunts shows a diversity in the talents of Zion and his team. In addition, the use of animatronics added an element to the Twisted Minds repertoire that I had not seen before, and they did help enhance the story and maze! At the end of it all, I came out with a smile on my face after being able to experience this passionate labor of love, and so did many other guests!

This twitching animatronic was impressively crafted!

Twisted Minds’ Gremins Fan Tribute haunted house was located on 417 Terrill Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90042 and was open Friday through Sunday, December 20-22. The dates were an exclusive engagement, but there is a chance that Zion might bring the experience to Midsummer Scream this next summer, if things work out. This home haunt provided another showcase of Zion’s creativity, inventiveness, and storytelling passion, and it’s a testament to why Twisted Minds is one of the fast-rising entities in the haunt community. So thank you, Zion, and the cast and crew, for offering a bit of a sinister surprise for haunt fans feeling any post-Halloween hangovers. Gremlins was a fitting and fantastic fan tribute!