Elm Street Productions presents The Pickerton Legend: 2022 Review
The Pickerton Legend, Hawthorne, CA
It's the latter half of October, which means we are into home haunt season! This past weekend marked our first home haunt of the season (though we've already visited numerous former home haunts gone pro) and our first haunt in the South Bay area ever. Our evening began with a visit to the Pickerton Legend, created by Elm Street Productions, aka the creative mind of one Jason Sanders.
The Pickerton Castle has some fantastic “stone”-work for a home haunt or any haunt!
The Pickerton Legend is a second year home haunt with a unique feature--it has not one but two mazes to explore!
The Pickerton Castle is a medieval-themed haunted maze that transports guests back to 1672, to the reign of the bloodthirsty and brutal King Samual Pickerton. This sinister dictator had a habit of rounding up local villagers (with the help of his trusty and loyal knight, Sir Sanders) to come to the castle for an audience with the king. But rather than interact with his subjects out of a spirit of generosity and nobility, King Pickerton actually used these visits to entrap and torture his subjects, keeping them screaming in his dungeons forever with no hope of ever escaping, until they finally died and were impaled on pikes outside the castle for everyone else to witness.
Guests exiting the Pickerton Castle move through a portal to return to the present day, where they encounter the House of Lost Souls. This is the abode of the infamous (and fictional) Hawthorne Hunter, one Clarence Pickerton, who was blamed for the grisly torture murders of at least 78 victims over the course of three decades. A mild, unassuming man who volunteered with local groups like the Boy Scouts and the Boys and Girls Club, Clarence secretly butchered dozens of local residents and buried them in the corn field behind his house, within the walls and floorboards of his residence, and even in a nearby swamp close to his property. In the present day, Clarence has supposedly been arrested for his heinous crimes, but somehow, evil and peril still persist on his property! After all, it's no coincidence he shares the same last name as the malevolent king of Pickerton Castle!
Clarence Pickerton seems to have the same bloodlust as his long-ago relative.
Oh noes! Giant spider attack!!
The Pickerton Castle is located in the front yard of the Sanders property, while the House of Lost Souls occupies the backyard. While neither maze is sprawling, each offers a substantial maze experience, lasting a few minutes each. The theming and various scenes at the Pickerton Legend are solid for a home haunt. No one will confuse this work for Knott's or Universal, but there are a lot of custom creations that Jason has spent all year working on, as well as care put into the lighting and soundscape throughout the maze.
Sanders' creative handiwork is on display throughout the home haunt with a skull arch infinity hallway, a torture drawer of mutilated body parts, a legitimate mini corn maze with a mix of triggered animatronic and live scareactor startles, and even a segment where the walls seem to shift and change the maze layout! And if the facade and part of the layout of the House of Lost Souls might seem familiar, it's because it actually came from another home haunter Jason--Jason Shields, mastermind of Club Fear, which concluded its Santa Clarita run last year before the Shields family moved down to San Diego.
Does the facade of the Hawthorne Hunter’s murder house look familiar?
The cast of the Pickerton Legend is primarily composed of school-aged children, many of them who take part in local community and school theater programs. But they're largely engaged and in character to support their story--be it the rookie detective out front of the Hawthorne Hunter's house or various monsters and creatures within the mazes. Consequently, though, and despite the gory nature of the two mazes' backstories, there aren't any particularly intense scares or too man graphically violent scenes in either maze. There are a couple of adult scareactors as well, including a Jason Vorhees who was guest-appearing in the corn maze portion when I visited on Sunday. (Clearly, the Jason pattern runs strong here.)
The local performing arts connection is a good positive one too, because the Pickerton Legend is using its three-weekend run to support three different local theater groups through the donations that it fundraises from visitors. We've written countless times before about how much we appreciate when haunts and charities come together, working to support great local causes. We're glad to see that the Pickerton Legend continues this generosity that many of our favorite home haunts display.
Local students make up a majority of the Pickerton Legend scareactor cast.
Overall, the Pickerton Legend is a fun maze that's great for kids who are starting to gravitate away from the sanitized and family friendly Halloween events and looking to start engaging scarier haunts. It's a stepping stone level haunted attraction that focuses on the fun of the scare rather than its fervor. This is the type of neighborhood haunt that kids will likely remember in the future after they're grown and look back at fondly as a cherished Halloween tradition--at least we hope it will be! And if Elm Street Productions returns the Pickerton Legend next year, we'd love to see additional growth and theming supporting details of the story--be it showing even more victims trapped inside the construction of the House of Lost Souls or additions to the already-impressive castle facade that showcase Samual Pickerton's barbaric and bloody habits.
The towering Home Depot Inferno Pumpkin Skeleton fits perfectly in the corn maze.
Regardless, it's exceedingly impressive that Jason Sanders has been able to not only construct two separate haunted houses on his property but also get them open for a whopping three weeks of operation to cap off the spooky season! The level of detail is already very noteworthy for a home haunt in only its second season (although Sanders has enjoyed celebrating putting up Halloween displays since he was an eight year old helping his friend decorate a Halloween garage maze). In any case, bravo to Elm Street Productions for a charmingly enjoyable home haunt. We wish them a successful October run!
Sir Jason Sanders stands in front of his Pickerton creation.
The Pickerton Legend is located at 4583 W 141st St, Hawthorne, CA 90250 and is open two more weekends, this Friday, October 21 through Sunday, October 23 and Thursday, October 27 through Monday, October 31, from 6:30pm to 9:00pm. Admission is free, but there is a suggested donation of $10.00 that goes toward local theater and arts programs. This past weekend's funds went to Haven Academy of Arts in El Segundo. Next weekend benefits the Mira Costa High School Drama Program. Halloween weekend supports the Kentwood Players of the Westchester Playhouse. Parking is a little tight in the neighborhood; in fact, 141st Street parking is only on the westbound side of the street. Please be courteous to the neighbors when visiting! We definitely want Elm Street Productions to provide Halloween treats for years to come!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
