Burbank Area Yard Haunts 2020: Rotting Hill Cemetery and More
North Hollywood & Burbank, CA
Our Burbank home haunt escapades continue today with five more locations to check out. As we mentioned last night, Burbank is a huge hotbed of home haunts, and there are seemingly countless wonderful residential displays throughout the city and its neighboring communities—many unlisted! It’s an absolute joy to find these differently creative productions, and in a year where so much has been put on hold, seeing so many yard haunts brings a bit of normalcy to an otherwise chaotic 2020!
If you missed the first of our Burbank series, click here. If you already saw it, then read on for the next grouping!
Rotting Hill Cemetery
Our first stop is what I believe is a first year haunt (at the very least, this year is the first year I’ve heard of it or seen it on any social media), and what a dramatic and spectacular entrance onto the haunt stage it is! Rotting Hill Cemetery is an exquisitely produced, raucously entertaining yard display with sporadic show elements that bring dark humor and corny jokes to this otherwise quiet part of Burbank!
Rotting Hill Cemetery is mysterious, magnificent, and a bit macabre!
A collision of the Haunted Mansion and the bird banter during the opening song of the Enchanted Tiki Room, this yard display and semi-haunted show is fantastical and magical and features three snarky and wise-cracking spirits who interact with each other from time to time, in between the regular atmospheric loops.
There's Marie, a member of royalty who had her throat slit (with kid-friendly green blood oozing out); a skeleton trying to escape its coffin, ala the Haunted Mansion, and Miriam, a murderous bride who is constantly looking for a new beau. The skeleton acts as a de facto emcee for the proceedings, while Marie and Miriam enjoy snipped at each other as dearly departed ladies are apt to do. The skeleton also stands in with comic relief, delivering groan-worthy puns that would be at home on the Jungle Cruise (“I’d leave right now,” remarks Miriam after one early zinger, clearly warning that the jokes don’t get any better).
Marie, a member of royal and rival to ghost Miriam, oozes neon green blood from her slit neck during the show scenes.
Beyond that, the craftsmanship of the gravestones, the figures, the lighting, special effects, and soundscale are Disney caliber. Punny names adorn the gravestones. A humorous skeleton display anchors the corner. Statues of weeping angels and other figures bring a haunting beauty to the environment. The cemetery sign lights up with an "R" relaxing the "N" of the normal cemetery name ala the old Twilight Zone Tower of Terror sign. The whole presentation is a charming, family friendly, magical manifestion of Halloween magic. There are laughs galore from the small audience gathered when I was there.
Rotting Hill Cemetery has all the trappings of becoming a new, family-friendly classic in the vein of Boney Island or Ghost Train. It brilliantly captures that perfect balance of innocently ominous, scenically eerie, and supernaturally silly that represents the best of the Halloween spirit—the same tone and atmosphere that the aforementioned legendary haunts also manifested. What an amazing showing Rotting Hill Cemetery has made on the haunted community stage!
The gravestones and statues in are intricately detailed—truly “VanOaks Level” caliber!
Rotting Hill Cemetery is located at 4848 Sancola Ave, North Hollywood, CA 91601 and runs nightly through Sunday, November 8th (so you have an extra week to check this out!) from 6:30 - 10:00pm each evening. I didn’t have much trouble with street parking when I visited, though if this place gets more publicity, that could potentially change!
Halfway down the same block as Rotting Hill Cemetery, I saw this other graveyard display with some cute elements to it. A series of tombstones lines the front of the house, with a pumpkin patch set up in front of a screen to the right. A hippogriff rests with the gourds in front of a projection screen that shows a series of dancing skeletons moving to unheard evening melodies.
The house itself has a few modest strings of lights running up the posts at the front entrance, but it also utilizes projections in the form of a full moon cast on the second floor walls, with changing silhouette scenes. There’s also an ever-evolving stained glass window cast out of the living room window that shifts around. Though these projections are commercially available, and I’ve seen some of them at many other haunts, they’re still integrated together in a fun manner.
There was another yard display down the street from Rotting Hill that I felt compelled to share.
This house is literally less than a couple minutes’ walk down the street from Rotting Hill Cemetery, so I’d say it’s worth a quick stop to see for anyone visiting the prior attraction. Better yet, check this out real fast, and then stroll over to Rotting Hill for the main event!
It’s cute and mixes a collage of themes.
Check out Rotting Hill’s not-quite-so-showy cemetery neighbor at 4812 Sancola Ave, North Hollywood, CA 91601. I assume it runs nightly through Halloween from 7:00 - 10:00pm or so.
Clowns on Clark Avenue
This haunt is one of a couple that I saw last year in the neighborhood around Rotten Apple 907, but never got around to posting about. I passed by both of them too late this year to see what they were like, but this and the final yard haunt of this post both did appear to have decorations set up, so I’m reasonably confident that they’re back for 2020.
Clark Avenue near Rotten Apple 907 has several noteworthy display. Here’s one with a lot of creepy clowns!
This yard display on Clark Avenue has totally gone to the clowns. Although its props and figures mostly appear to be store-bought, there are a LOT of them, and they form one horrifying carnival scene! Two clowns tear at a terrified young girl on one side. A ferris wheel of miniature clowns is located across. Another evil jester holds a terrifying dwarf clown within a cage. Next to a tree, a couple of clowns sit on a teeter totter. There’s even an ominous figure on the roof.
All of this is lit in anxious yellows and reds, with a tinge of green to bring in a bit of a creep factor. Some grave stones and a few creepy dolls complete the yard display outfit, making this house a fantastic Halloween scene and definite attraction to avoid for anyone with coulrophobia!
I absolutely love this animatronic. The expression on the girls face is pretty priceless.
This Clark Avenue clown display is located at 3420 W Clark Ave, Burbank, CA 91505 and appears to run nightly from around 7:00 - 10:00pm. It’s well worth checking out if you’re also visiting Rotten Apple!
Disney’s Clark Avenue Adventure
Just one block down on Clark Avenue from the previous house is a display that is pretty darn extravagant but not on any list that I’m aware of! This cemetery display is clearly motivated by a variety of things Disney, as evidenced by Jack Skellington and the Evil Queen gazing out the living room window, Oogie Boogie peeping out the kitchen, Zero floating about on the porch, a man-eating-wreath above the house entryway, and several tombstones containing quippy inscriptions in the vein of the Haunted Mansion. Plus, guests in cars can set their radio station to 99.1FM for a Disney-centric accompanying soundtrack!
This Clark Avenue home also relatively close to Rotten Apple 907 is full of great details.
It’s not all about Mickey Mouse IP’s, though. The graveyard display also features an eclectic collection of inflatable ghost houses, and there are some haunted flamingos to one side (Jim’s favorite). A stack of jack-o-lanterns frames the entranceway to the house. A towering scarecrow looms near the sidewalk on the right side, and an assortment of skeletons are scattered across the yard and in front of the home, with some even trying to get onto the roof (and two successfully doing so). Various sight gags about, from the skeleton missing its skull—which happens to be in a planter pot—to the skeleton hanging off the gutters and seemingly spying into a window.
The lighting also makes for plenty of photogenic frames, bathing the house in a mix of Halloween orange and eerie greens. With so much detail, it’s kind of surprising to me that there hasn’t been more online attention, but this speaks to how commonplace fantastic set-up’s like this are in Burbank. No one really bats an eye!
The front yard cemetery is richly adorned and beautifully lit, and the whole vista screams, “This Is Halloween!!”
If you want to check out this place in person, head to 3600 W Clark Ave, Burbank, CA 91505. It was close to 11:00pm last Saturday when I stopped by, and the lights were still on and going strong, so strategically, this could be a house one can afford to visit a bit later in the evening.
Funhouse on Ontario
Finally, we come upon yet another carnival of clowns that’s also near Rotten Apple 907. This one is on the adjacent street, Ontario Street, at the opposite end of the block. But similar to 3420 W. Clark Ave, it also heavily features a variety of creepy clowns ready to play… with your life!
The Funhouse is located very close to Rotten Apple 907.
The Funhouse, as its signage title it, features a party of clowns and a different assortment of still-creepy animatronics and figures. The most prominent is a towering, lanky jester gripping a child by the legs and holding her upside down. I’ve seen this figure used in many home haunts, but it’s an excellent choice because of its dramatic pose. Additional clowns spin around a little suspended merry-go-round swing, while others teeter totter nearby.
There’s a nice pop-up tent that brings some circle vibes on the right side of the lawn, with more clowns looming about. They’re by the front door, at the sidewalk, and near the living room window too! Lit primarily by strings of hanging banquet lights, this haunt feels like an evening soiree. The only catch is all the guests may possibly want to devour your soul.
The display is well lit and vibrantly staged.
The Funhouse is located at 715 N Ontario St, Burbank, CA 91505. I didn’t get a chance to speak with the owner or find out more information about it, but I do remember it running before 7:00pm, and I assume it shuts off sometime shortly after 10:00pm. But as with the previous two haunts, if you’re around the neighborhood for Rotten Apple 907, check out this one too!
The photos above were from last year. On Halloween night of this year, I stopped by while the display was still running to check it out. To my surprise, I found that the owners had expanded to include more clowns (a drop scare animatronic on the alleyway beside the house was fantastic) and enhanced lighting. The display also attracted quite a crowd too, eager to take in this fever nightmare.
This brings an end to round 2 for Burbank area haunts, with one more round to go before we head off to a different part of Southern California. You’ve got one more weekend to check out any of these locations that might interest you, and if you do head out, please remember to keep healthy, practice social distance, and wear a mask (properly, covering mouth and nose)! Safe spoops are the best spoops!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
