Scareventures presents Fright Nights at AleSmith Brewery: 2022 Review
AleSmith Brewing Company, San Diego, CA
Happy Halloween weekend, folks! The final days of haunt season are upon us until Halloween night on Monday, and we continue to pile on that spooky haunt coverage in case you still haven't picked out a scary destination to visit! Today, we take a break from the home haunts to return to the professional side of haunted attractions with a creator whose full work we've wanted to visit for years but have never been able to due to scheduling conflicts exacerbated by the required long drive.
Welcome to AleSmith! Come for the drinks!
It's rare that we're still reporting on commercial haunts at the end of October, since we will have typically honored our media night visits by the beginning to middle of this month and be focused on the residential haunts. But this has been an atypical year and a challenge to schedule, with many favorite home haunts not operating and a greater proliferation of exciting, creative, and interesting independent haunts coming into their own on the haunt scene. Among them, all of our favorite haunts this year--Hauntington Beach Manor's Midnight Shadows, Bones' Gulch, Murder House Production's Ghosted, Dark Harvest and Pirate Cave Productions' Shady Pines Asylum, The Haunted Rose's Beyond the Gates of Turnbull, and Prism's MiCRO Lab Madness, to name a few--have shared a common story-driven experience that incorporates excellent set and decor work, integration of complex lighting, sound, and theatrical effects, scareactor-driven immersive scenarios, and rich and lavishly enveloping environments. These attractions have moved beyond the traditional haunted house and blended the world of immersive and interactive theater into memorable and entertaining productions!
Well, we can add another to the list: Scareventure's Fright Nights event at AleSmith Brewing. This unique twist on the haunted house format utilizes the brewery's actual warehouse settings and incorporates added scenic work, sinister lighting, sharp and witty scareactors, and plenty of intense, surprise jump scares through a 20-25 minute tour that allows guests to discover the shocking and horrifying truth behind what makes AleSmith Brewing's Evil Dead Red Ale so successfully delicious. Hint: it's all-natural, very organic ingredients!
But stay for the frights!
The premise of this haunted house begins innocently enough as a brewery tour where guests can sample some of AleSmith's signature booze. In fact, for those opting to do so, the Fright Nights experience actually includes several instances of beer sampling from several of the host of colorful characters that guests meet as they navigate the lengthy maze. Making its way from the tasting room to the warehouse facilities, the atmosphere and mood grow more and more ominous as guests come closer and closer to discovering the secret Zien Family formula for their Evil Dead Red.
Eventually, that winding course makes its way to the Zien Family farm, where twisted creatures and unsavory folks elicit fearsome frights and scalding screams. Guests encounter old Ma and Pa Zien--the prior who draws the group into absurd games for her own, twisted amusement, and the latter who seems to only stair catatonically into an ancient television screen. In the adjacent room, a grotesque and gory dinner party makes for an uncomfortable bout of questioning from a mud-caked hillbilly--Ma's son. Guests brave dusty caverns and fluttery bats and hanging, web-wrapped corpses on their way to the barn, where another member of the family--Ma's daughter--engages in additional and often inappropriate banter before sending the tour into the grisly confines of the barn itself. After what seems like an unending series of twisted paths, guests finally escape--but not before one last encounter with a chainsaw-welding fiend looking for one more chance to spill blood for the special family brews!
The people who work the back of the Zien Family brewery are certainly unique.
Many are very hands-on with their brewing preparations.
If this was simply a haunted maze with its share of jump scares and elaborate theming, Fright Nights would be a joy in and of itself. But what really sets this haunted attraction apart are the interactive and unique experiences that each group partakes in with the cast. No two trips are alike, for though there is a basic script that the actors use to move the story along, the talent has free reign to improvise and incorporate group details like names, outfits, and anecdotes as hilariously entertaining callbacks and intimate exchanges.
This creates a unique bond, making each experience feel tailor-made for the group. And in a certain sense, it does! The interactions also do a great job of letting guests' guards down, allowing the subsequent jump scares to be even more effective. And even if a group might be composed of seasoned haunters or haunt enthusiasts, the theatrical storytelling aspect of this experience makes for a delightful and very enjoyable tour!
Other characters are not so savory.
Ma and Pa Zien don’t seem to be the most welcoming to people sneaking around their farm to learn their Evil Dead Red Ale secrets.
To that end, the characters of Fright Nights provide the fantastic heart and soul of the event. The Bartender weathers a mischievous tone that belies more sinister ulterior motives. He hands guests off to innocent, simple-minded Gerald, who seems to be a sweet and childlike soul. His plaintive, somewhat Forrest Gump-like disposition juxtapose amusingly against the slider scares and startle tactics that come guests' way as they proceed through the brewery facilities. The Brewmaster carries a warlock personality, carrying a twisted smile that guards the secret of his potent potables. Ma Zien, with her pig nose and exasperated countenance, is a twisted version of American Gothic come to life. Her children vacillate from uncomfortable to rowdy to salacious, and they're very much humorously compelling.
And Ma’s daughter will shank a snitch.
There are also other spooks who can do the job too.
Although immersive theater has been more and more in vogue over recent years, Scareventures has been building interactive storytelling into its productions for quite some time. This explains why Fright Nights feels so organic in how it carries its experiential narration. This show is not to the cinematic, stunt-filled, elaborate synchronization as, say, Delusion, but it very much carries a similar spirit of incorporating the guests into the progression events, rather than just have guests witness them. Incurring a certain level of guest participation ensures that even if people aren't scared when they go through a haunted house, they can at least stay captivated and enthralled.
Making beer involves mashing barley—and maybe some body parts too.
This blending of haunt and theater may very well be the future of independent haunt-making, as innovative and clever haunters keep pushing the boundaries on how to engross guests into their tales of terror. And if so, Scareventures is certainly one of the forefront leaders of that movement. Our only regret is that it took us so long to finally witness their work firsthand. But better late than never, and our end-of-season trip through Fright Nights certainly proves that adage true. Kudos to Scareventures and Fright Nights for a crafty and inventive way of bringing interactive horror to their paying audience!
It’s a tough business that isn’t cut out for everyone, but someone’s gotta brew it!
Fright Nights at AleSmith Brewing is located at 9990 AleSmith Ct, San Diego, CA 92126 and runs two more evenings, tonight and tomorrow night from 7:00 to 11:00. The event will not operate on Halloween night. It was also open the past two Fridays and Saturdays. Prices are just $25 per person for guests under 21 or those opting not to drink and $35 per person for those who plan to imbibe. This price point is an absolute steal for the quality and length of experience offered!
During the daytime today and tomorrow, AleSmith will also be offering a family-friendly trick-or-treat trail through the Fright Nights course from 2:00 to 6:00. This no-scare event only occurs on this final weekend of operation.
The AleSmith brewery space is a great spot to relax and unwind after the terrifying experience and enjoy a beer!
Our first time ever experiencing a full Scareventures attraction--not just one of their Midsummer Scream mini-haunts--exceeded our wildest imaginations, and we'll certainly need to pay regular visits in future seasons. Guests who survive their ordeal can also relax with an assortment of excellent craft beers at the AleSmith Brewery itself, which makes for a fantastic way to decompress after an evening of terror!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
