Season's Screamings 2021: The Hall of Yuletide Spirits
Pasadena Convention Center, Pasadena, CA
Happy #ShriekyFriday, fiends! We’re back today with a supplement to yesterday’s Season’s Screamings recap—this one focused on all the spooks. That’s because today’s update is all about the Hall of Yuletide Spirits, Season’s Screaming’s holiday-themed version of the fan-favorite Hall of Shadows that has been a part of Midsummer Screams of years past.
The moody ambiance of the Hall of Yuletide Spirits fit the dark holiday theme very well.
After being absent at Awaken the Spirits this past August, the mini-haunts that have been associated with Midsummer Scream’s productions were back a few weeks ago. The Hall of Yuletide Spirits brought four compact haunted house attractions, one walk-through art experience of the spooky kind, an interactive installation, and a couple of haunted holiday displays. This might have been less than the usual Hall of Shadows offerings, but it was still great to have some form of haunted attraction back, and the Hall of Yuletide was still the highlight of the weekend.
The line-up of the inaugural Hall of Yuletide Spirits.
Various spirits roam the Hall.
CalHaunts presents A Christmas Scarol Entryway
Guests entering the Hall were treated to an eerie and ethereal entryway display once again produced by CalHauntS, the collection of talented SoCal home haunters whose membership includes some of our favorites, like Rotten Apple 907, The Farm Haunt, and more. CalHauntS has created the opening set for all of Midsummer Scream’s previous Hall of Shadows, and this Victorian winter nightmareland was another superb and almost literally chilling mood setter for the attractions beyond.
CalHauntS helped put together a Charles Dicken’s scene for the dead with their Hall of Yuletide Spirits entryway.
On one side, a series of storefronts straight out of a Dickens novel was set up, with various characters (supplied by the fantastic Force of Nature Productions folks) portraying haunted versions of those from A Christmas Carol. The actors were sometimes in front of and something in the set. At times, Ebenezer Scrooge could be seen furiously scribbling inside his shop. Jacob Marley was never too far off, though, rattling his chains in his eternal torment.
Across the way, a snow-covered graveyard added to the ghostly winter scene, with more tortured and sometimes menacing spirits occupying the mists of this domain of dead. Similarly bathed in spectral blue light, featuring a host of tombstones and even a familiar hearse in the back, this set-up evoked a creepy environment.
Literally, as this graveyard scene attests.
SpeedZone Krampus Golf Display
Just beyond the entryway and immediately to the right, SpeedZone had a simple but luminous photo op to help advertise its Krampus Golf event, the Christmas version of its popular Haunted Mini Golf overlay from a couple months prior. Fittingly, a Krampus of sorts was present next to a Christmas tree to provide a sense of holiday goriness.
SpeedZone was on hand to promote their holiday offerings.
Christmas and the Krampus—a natural fit in these parts.
Gruesome…
The Holiday Haunt with No Name… Yet
Directly across from the SpeedZone photo op was a lovely Christmas cemetery yard display from The Haunt with No Name… Yet. This anonymous home haunt has been nameless for years, and alas, that seems to have extended into the winter as well, but the creators did fashion a beautiful holiday graveyard, complete with glowing Christmas tree accents, beautifully lit tombstones, and even a mysterious crypt with both a perilous phantom inside and another dark creature outside and adjacent!
The Holiday Haunt with No Name… Yet was positively gorgeous!
Casa Calaveras presents Holiday Fiesta
Straight at the back of the Hall of Yuletide Spirits was the most colorful, heart-warming, and visually stunning attraction. The Holiday Fiesta, brought to guests by the folks behind Casa Calatrava, was a vivid and vibrant walk-through art experience that brought a Navidad touch to its Día de los Muertos aesthetic. Telling the love story of José and Gloria, whose affections transcend the mortal plane, this was an absolutely beautiful display of Mexican culture and art. The normal October set pieces were tastefully and charmingly accented with Christmas accompaniments, and the various scenes of holiday revelry reinforced the familial love and wonder of this most wonderful time of year.
Also stunningly beautiful was Casa Calaveras.
This was an incredibly photogenic and enchanting attraction, showcasing the love and reverence of Mexican ancestry, not the spookiness or macabre of traditional Western views on death, and it was a joy to go through!
José from the Holiday Fiesta has a present for his love, Gloria.
And I’m sure she’s happy to receive it!
Mr. He’s Y2022K Installation
Located right next to Casa Calaveras and another part of the Hall of Yuletide Spirits at Season's Screamings, Mr He brought a COVIDpropriate setup that also functioned as a way to let people literally vent out their 2021 stresses and negative energy. Guests checked into a medical facility and were invited to write their grievances or frustrations or negative events on a paper and leave them in 2021, depositing them into a “vent” to literally vent away their troubles.
Mr. He stands in front of a most interesting haunted art installation.
Hopefully, this year isn't 2020too--since that would be truly horrifying!
What better horror than that of the past two years’ pandemic?
Insane Haunt Productions presents The Cabin
One of four actual mini-haunts, Insane Haunt Productions was a Santa Clarita home haunt we visited a couple of years ago—the product of another teen haunter, Cameron, who has been very busy in the past couple of years that we’ve been unable to return due to scheduling conflicts. In 2020, Cameron did a Candy Shop gone wrong haunt, filling his family home with the sounds of sweet, sweet terror. This past year, Insane Haunt Productions opted for the terror of isolation with The Cabin, and they brought a wintry and retooled version of this haunt to Season’s Screamings!
Guests must escape a vicious killer inside The Cabin!
The simple but effective facade of The Cabin hid a series of scenes revolving around the home of a vicious serial killer, whose victims are scattered throughout his humble murder abode. Guests began with an immediate scene of bloody carnage in a Christmas-decorated living room before moving into the study, where another battered corpse lay. A quick jaunt into the woods outside led to the discovery of a third, charred victim, before one more encounter in a gory garage completed the scene.
This one was not lucky.
The Cabin’s compact and efficient layout allowed the scareactor to hit each room with jump scares, following guests like a stalking murderer. It was great to see the advancements in sophistication, with HHN-style triggers combined with detailed static scenes and moody lighting to paint a scene of terror. This was a terrifically done mini-haunt, and we’re going to have to start heading to Santa Clarita a second weekend or on the last weekend of October to catch IHP’s full size endeavors again!
The Dreich Society presents Holiday Fear
Next door to the Cabin was a haunt that we visited for the first time in full last haunt season. We’ve long known of The Dreich Society for its elaborate Midsummer Scream movie-themed mini-haunts that served as precursors to their fall full attraction, and it was fun to finally visit their October production last year.
The Dreich Society once again brought a great looking facade to a Midsummer Scream event!
For Season’s Screamings, The Dreich Society once again stuck with the cinematic inspiration, this time tossing their hat and clearly showing their loyalties in the “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” debate by providing a holiday haunt featuring a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Corporation offices. Although the scenes weren’t quite as elaborate as The Cabin, Holiday Fear still provided its fair share of pop-out scares and increasingly icy environments with equally increasingly punny pronouncements as each new scareactor struck. The fog-filled filled finale also made for a more disorienting setting, amplifying the likelihood of scares!
A Nakatomi Christmas party… what could go wrong?
Reichland Asylum presents A Very Matthias Christmas
From Dreich to Reich, the third mini-haunt in the Hall of Yuletide Spirits featured a haunt that we visisted again last October, hoping to finally experience its full maze walkthrough, only to encounter opening night unforeseen difficulties that rendered the maze into a yard display. Alas, we went yet again without an full Reichland experience, though we did meet the inmates of Reichland Asylum outside, and they were as entertaining as ever.
Matthias demonstrates his cutting pose in front of Reichland Asylum.
For Christmas, Reichland Asylum brought a merry Matthias to the facilities. Reichland’s most famous patient and usurper of power was his disturbingly charming self, greeting guests as they entered and warning them not to be bad. Once inside, guests were treated to a quick preshow that revealed an apparent war declared on Santa Claus, with Team Matthias clearly set out to give the jolly old fat man his just desserts (and not just milk and cookies).
The patients have taken over, and their revelry is unstable!
Guests ducked into a holding cell and then out past a deliberately stalling encounter with a patient that set up a drop portrait scare, before finding Santa himself in the final room, tied up and gagged and absolutely terrified, claiming to just be a mall Santa, not the real Santa Claus. Beg as he might, he could never get any mercy, though from time to time (if the actor was on break), Santa was able to escape his captivity and evade Matthias’ revenge—at least momentarily.
Poor Santa, not fit to challenge Matthias as the most popular gent around this institution!
The best part of Reichland Asylum is the fun, unhinged revelry its scareactors bring to their roles. Their energy, twisted humor, and sardonic quips provided a very entertaining and improvisational experience that felt personalized and intimate, and the fun that the scareactors had was evident and infectious. We loved A Very Matthias Christmas and hope to finally meet him in his complete home base this upcoming haunt season!
Fear Farm presents Gingerbread House of Horrors
Last but certain not least was Fear Farm—not the one in Arizona but the one in Phelan, just on the other side of the San Gabriel Mountains and somewhat adjacent to the Hesperia and Apple Valley area. Originally a home haunt, Fear Farm has grown to be a commercial enterprise with multiple attractions. The past couple of years, they’ve made a bigger push to establish themselves as a more well known brand amongst the crowded Southern California haunt market, and attractions like their Gingerbread House of Horrors can only help!
There was no telling what fearsome creature lurked inside the Gingerbread House of Horrors!
With arguably the most impressive facade of the Hall of Yuletide Spirits—a tall gingerbread house with snowy roofs and string lights and a pair of accompanying Home Depot 12 foot tall skeletons, Fear Farm’s mini-haunt certain caught people’s attention. The haunt itself was a somewhat compact journey into the home of the Gingerbread Man, passing through a dark living room lit only by a Christmas tree and a strobe-filled corridor—both complete with their own monstrous fiends. But rather be comic relief (ala Shrek) or a nice baked good, the Gingerbread Man of this maze was a towering, fearsom creature intent on being a baker of his own. His featured creation: turning human guests each into a “cooky” of their own by shoving them into a giant oven, where the charred corpses of past baking attempts were still smoldering and glowing with heat.
Into the oven people go, demonstrating the new “arm to table” gourmet system.
Though the subject matter of the Gingerbread House of Horrors was morbid and gruesome, the tone of the maze was not. Similar to Reichland Asylum, Fear Farm’s scareactors carried their sarcastic and dark humor through their maze, mixing jump scares and creep scares with twisted jokes. The cast of the maze could also be seen running around Season’s Screamings from time to time, causing all manner of disturbances—but in all the most entertaining ways. Perhaps next season will finally be when we can make it up to the Apple Valley area to check out their haunted attractions!
The Hall of Yuletide Spirits was a welcome return back in the direction of normal, as the ability to have haunts again played a huge part in the fun and enjoyment of Season’s Screamings. Although things have since taken a turn back toward more cautious COVID settings due to the widespread infectiousness of the Omicron variant, we’re hoping that this latest surge will be the last major one (and the reduced severity of this surge is already offering a more promising outlook), so that come Midsummer Scream next August, we’ll have a full slate of wonderful haunts like these to enjoy.
Kudos to each and every haunter who participated in the Hall of Yuletide Spirits. Everyone’s work was delightful and frightful, and we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to experience this!
Hope everyone had a haunty holidays!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
