Straite to Hale Productions presents Demon Creek: 2022 Review
Straite to Hale Productions, Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Just like we did last year, we’re interupting a series of Christmas new updates about holiday events at local theme parks and attractions to play some more catch-up on the end of our Halloween season coverage, and today’s post features the same home haunt we highlighted in last year’s interlude that occurred at about the same time of the month!
Located out in Rancho Cucamonga, Straite to Hale Productions has quickly burst to prominence onto the haunt scene the past few years, providing one of the best residential spooks in Southern California. Headed up by Mark Straite and Ron Hale, two passionate and creative haunters whose professional credits include the most recent iterations of Winchester Mystery House’s Halloween overlays, Straite to Hale has proven to be very adept at crafting interesting and fun immersive and themed experiences.
Welcome to Demon Creek, where nothing is sacred.
This year, with a full workload helping Winchester Mystery House’s first completely new Halloween event since the pandemic, it wasn’t even initially clear if Mark and Ron would bring back their home haunt again. Or at least one could not fault them if they had chosen to take the season off. But tired as they must have been from the rigors of designing, setting up, programming, and supervising a professional haunt at one of the most famous and iconic tourist attractions in the state, Straite to Hale nevertheless moved forward with their community-oriented plans for the second half of October!
For this October, Straite to Hale once again transported guests to the Western town of Casket Creek. But a darker and more sinister edge had taken hold, including the revision of the name of this year’s haunt to Demon Creek, which had simply been a nickname in the haunt storyline bestowed upon the town by local citizens after supernatural forces took hold of it (in its mythology).
Straite to Hale’s 2022 home haunt is a more polished and immersive iteration of last year’s haunt, and 2021 was already a pretty amazing production!
Guests arriving at Jasper Street saw a familiar sight if they had visited the previous year, but just a little bit different. Still present as richly detailed facades stretching across the front yard of the property were recognizable town establishments like the saloon and hotel and undertaker’s office. But they were laid out in a different order than in 2021—no doubt a byproduct of the unearthly forces of the witch that the townspeople had tried to burn a couple seasons period. In addition, a new, prominent church facade had arisen, serving as the entrance to this year’s haunt and bookending the Old West frontage. The addition made this little nook of Rancho Cucamonga a little more dusty and rustic!
Last season’s less cohesive areas have been reworked, giving the maze a unique feel even for returning guests.
The story of Demon Creek this year remained generally the same. The town has been cursed by the witch, and guests who braved going through encountered a variety of menacing characters who didn’t exactly exude warm hospitality. The church entrance brought guest through the interior of the house of worship, much like what Straite to Hale’s Midsummer Scream Hall of Shadows attraction presented this past summer. Inside, an ominous setting featured hooded figures sitting in prayer, with a podium and candles up in front. As guest came through, one of the figures suddenly sprang to life with a startle scare. This cruel-looking nun never uttered a word, but her piercing glare was enough to get the heart pumping.
Escaping outside, guests wound around a brief cemetery area, reworked from last year to be more immersive. As guests strolled through, they could spot a crypt with a floating phantasm inside. To the left, a crying, animatronic girl begged for help. This was one of several animatronic scares throughout the maze and by the far the lightest, as the frights would build in intensity as the maze progressed.
The maze features a nice variety of scares, both from live actor and triggered effects and in the types of scares themselves.
There was no time to stop and help, though, because it was clear that the environment was amiss here at Demon Creek. A turn into sinister forest area came next, with eerie, green lighting and fog permeating the dense shadows. A corridor toward the end turned right into towering raven creature, popping out to scare guests who didn’t notice him somewhat camouflaged against the jute netting and foliage.
Then it was onto the town proper, now apparently burning with glowing embers and smoke. A townsperson hollered out omens of doom from one corner, while supernatural forces seemed to manifest in static objects as well. Tipping boxes and barrels increased the danger, while additional motion-triggered scares leapt out—sometimes over guests’ heads! At other moments, lurking fiends from around a corner or behind a drop portrait struck with no warning.
Would you like to be her playmate forever?
As guests began to make their way through the Demon Creek establishments, the dread and perils only seemed to worsen. A hideous, rat-like beast popped out from a bureau. Swinging body bags provided obscured hiding spots for other scareactors. A girl emerged, beckoning to play with her dolls. A bungee scareactor provided a strobe-filled, sudden startle scare that was probably the best of the entire maze, catching guests off guard as they struggled to find their direction through the fog.
By the time guests made their way to the saloon, they were looking for a means to escape. The bartender, a surly and antagonistic lady, made sure to shoo guests out the exit, demanding to know why they were here and rambling that they should lead. This scareactor was a riot, because she would also interact with passers-by on the sidewalk who she could spot through the exitway. Her lines and energy capped off an eventful and thrilling experience that also retained a high degree of enjoyment.
The bartender was one of the raucous highlights of the maze, providing entertaining banter every time through!
Straite to Hale’s production value, immersive sets, and energetic talent provided yet another fantastic home haunt of which fans should take notice if they haven’t already. The beauty of this haunt is that though it does feature some hard jump scares, it’s still relatively family friendly—once the scare factor is incorporated. The props and theming are a little grisly but never too gory, and the scareactors themselves are predominantly school-aged students who recognize that this attraction is a gem for the community and not trying to be a relentless scare fest like Halloween Horror Nights. There’s a level of role playing and acting from some of the scareactors that is almost a little slapstick in its rendition of horror—and in a good way, keeping the entertainment value high even for guests who were more difficult to scare.
Ultimately, Demon Creek was one of the home haunt highlights of the season. The increasing sophistication of the sets, the appealing haunted Western theme, and the back-and-forth mix of live and animatronic scares gave it a level of quality that can rival some professional haunts. But the spirit of providing a wonderful Halloween experience back to the neighborhood was still present. This haunt was exceptionally busy last year when I visited on Halloween night, but even this season, on the Sunday before Halloween, there was a pretty good showing of guest waiting patiently in line on the sidewalk. We can’t wait to see how Mark and Ron continue to evolve their fantastic “side hustle” haunted attraction in the years to come!
Straite to Hale Productions is located at 6477 Jasper St, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91701 and was open as a walk-through maze Fridays through Sundays, October 21 - 23 and 28 - 30, plus Halloween night, from 6:30 - 10:00pm. It is definitely one of the top home haunts to visits, and the fact that Mark and Ron have enough energy to put up a sophisticated residential haunted house after their professional Winchester Mystery House work is pretty amazing! Plus, with Samhain’s Lot and Hellsir’s haunted yard displays nearby, it’s worth driving out to for a nice home haunt grouping!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
