Santa Ana Haunt presents Shades of Hell - Goodbye: 2022 Review
Santa Ana Haunt, Santa Ana, CA
Two years ago, during a most unique pandemic year where almost all haunted attractions were home haunts featuring yard displays, my 90th and final haunt of 2020 was a brand new home haunt that was one of the few mazes (it was open air) of the season, and it happened to be the closest attraction to me that I had ever been to. It was a first-year creation, and though that haunted house was just a modest four rooms built out on a driveway, its unique take on the different manifestations of hell and impressive theming prompted me to make a note to come back the following year.
A season later, the aptly named Santa Ana Haunt (located in, of course, Santa Ana) had noticeably and aggressively expanded its footprint, wrapping around the entire property of creator Jesus “Chewie” Garcia’s father’s home. Now a more traditional and lengthy walkthrough, “Shades of Hell” expanded on the previous year’s ideas and concepts, bringing different scenes and crafting a more cinematographic experience with a carefully time soundtrack, expansion of more theatrical moments, and a greater variety of scare tactics, ranging from more overt, typical jump scares to more quiet and cerebral techniques.
It may look like a church from the outside, but the Santa Ana Haunt contains horrors within that are most certainly unholy!
Now in year three, the Santa Ana Haunt has returned with one more (and presumably final) rendition of its Shades of Hell series. Having taken most of the property, the footprint of this year’s haunt isn’t drastically enlarged like the transition from 2020 to last year, but the content of the maze has been reconfigured. So despite a similar outward appearance as last year—with a towering and foreboding church facade and spiffy Santa Ana Haunt sign—this year’s experience is definitely different and worth visiting, whether one is a newcomer to this haunt or has visited before!
Concepts of life and religion and spirituality are inverted inside the Santa Ana Haunt.
This year, guests once again enter through the church facade, but it has been shifted to be more centered in the driveway rather than at an angle, allowing for an extra and new room that features an immediate encounter with Satan—an unlikely occupant of a church. From there, guests move onto the next space, where a silent and sinister num holds a crucifix upside down. We’re in Shades of Hell, and clearly, the whole church facade was nothing but a deception. This realm is damned, and there is no holiness here.
This is a domain where souls are tortured for their sins.
That is confirmed in the ensuing room, where a poor soul is cut and tortured, dripping with blood, ravaged as though to pay penance for his sins. A cowled woman holds a sharp blade against his neck as he cries out for salvation and mercy, but none come. He is destined to experience a slashing end over and over again. The space gets intimate as guests turn into the side yard, as they must crawl through a caged area that seems to serve as a portal to another layer of the hell that exists here. The guests’ presence summons demonic fiends who ambush from the front and from above, momentarily entrapping the intruders. But then, in a moment of reprieve, guest are beckoned forward to witness the descrated remnants of a savagely departed, laying on a stone table, chained and left to rot.
And if guests aren’t careful, they may be trapped here too!
A turn around the corner leads to a marked change, as a clown crouches in a graffiti’d environment that is illuminated by a changing expanse of lights. Synchronized with an ominous, building, dramatic soundtrack, the lights move in unison to the sound, fading out and illuminating back up in a series of hues until the percussion crescendos, and the clown pounces. Out of all the areas in the maze, this best exemplifies Santa Ana Haunt’s advances in theatrical lighting and sound programming, which have created a layer of sophistication that has set this home haunt above the majority of its peers. Like a suspenseful movie, the immersive incorporation of these sensory effects create a stirring and emotional moment.
Perhaps the most impressive room of the entire maze is this space here.
Then it’s onto what appears to be a laboratory space, where a dark Renaissance mask-wearing figure appears to be doing experiments. But there are also insects littered all around—on the table, crawling across walls, and even in a container that the spirit holds up to guests. Is there about to be a 17th Door moment? Fortunately, no. Though there real insects used as a component of this scene, they are not placed or applied on any unwilling guests. Instead, they are part of a carefully crafted illusion designed to invoke the appearance of a plague surrounding the room.
Science, or monstrosity?
Fortunately, there’s an escape out to a garden area that transitions from the earlier high-octane pace to a more secluded and quiet moment. A further look reveals that this is a graveyard, and though there is a lone figure who appears to be praying, other, more sinister-looking shadows seem to creep out of unknown crevasses beyond. There is nowhere to go but forward, which takes guests into the final portion of the maze, a return of last year’s blackout finale.
Here, guests are left to contend with what might be the greatest hell of all—the potentially debilitating landscape of one’s mind, where the lack of any overt details and a requirement to use one’s other senses to find an escape can lead to the conjuring of horrors far worse than any tangible scares inside one’s head. Those who are fortunate enough to escape find themselves coming back out the other side yard of the property, returning to the front for a reprieve from this malevolent netherrealm.
Pray that you can escape the Santa Ana Haunt!
It’s always great to see new, excellent, high quality haunts burst onto the scene. But it’s even more fascinating to see how they grow and expand their story and their production in ensuing years, after high expectations have been set. Santa Ana Haunt has certainly met and exceeded those expectations with their increasingly sophisticated technological incorporation showcased at both Midsummer Scream this past July and this October run. The scenic treatment and visual experience is fantastic, and the forced reliance on sound and touch during other parts of the maze create a unique and creative aspect to the haunted house. In addition, the various actors provide a mix of theatrical acting moments and startle scares to provide a diversity in the frights, rather than rely on the same tactic over and over again.
All of this shows a great, upward trajectory for Chewie and his team, especially as evidenced by the incorporation of the Santa Ana Haunt design team into the Eulogy Collective, a collaboration that also includes The Grey Phantom’s Ernie Velez. It’s exciting to see talented young haunters team up and increase the scope and scale of their visions, and this season’s successful and astounding independent home haunts show that there is a healthy environment for high-quality, thoughtful, envelop-pushing pro haunters outside of the traditional theme park haunt big boys. In addition, it demonstrates that the boundary between amateur and professional haunter really isn’t that distinctive—kind of like the veil between this world and the next…
The founder of the Santa Ana Haunt, Jesus “Chewie” Garcia.
Santa Ana Haunt is located at 2309 W Cubbon St, Santa Ana, CA 92704 and continues its run next Friday through Monday, October 28 - 31, from 6:00 until 11:00pm on Friday/Saturday and until 10:00 on Thursday/Monday. They are asking for a donation of $5-$10 to enter (the high end of which includes front of line), which can be pre-purchased here. Please note that street parking can be a little difficult due to the large number of cars normally parked in the neighborhood, so visitors may need to park a block or more away.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
