Ferris Haunt: 2022 Review
Ferris Haunt, Garden Grove, CA
We’ve come upon the final home haunt (maze) update of the 2022 Halloween season. That marks 69 (…nice) haunted attractions (theme park haunts, independent haunts, haunted theater shows, home haunts, and haunted yard displays) visited this year. It’s actually less than the past two years, but it somehow felt like a more rigorous attrition. Maybe it was the odd nature of this year, when we visited more commercial haunted attractions than usual but also missed several classic home haunts that have become favorites over the years. Maybe it was the struggle to get our haunt schedule aligned and efficient. Or maybe it was just the consequences of getting older and busier. Regardless, as fun as Halloween season is, and as thrilling and fantastic as it is to see all the amazing haunted attractions out there, this was definitely a tiring marathon.
On the plus side, the 2022 Halloween season closed out with a truly captivating trip to a friend’s personal creation that was made possible thanks to an extra run after Halloween had actually passed!
This is Ferris Haunt, built on the Ferris residence driveway.
I've known for a few years that my haunter pal, Liam, had a home haunt, but I had unfortunately never been able to fit Ferris Haunt into my very busy end of October Halloween season schedule. Fortunately, Liam was kind enough to hold a haunter's night the Sunday after Halloween to allow anyone who missed his haunt during Halloween weekend to stop by and check it out.
It was a small haunt, but it packed a punch!
This year's production created a lovely little Old West town with a sinister background. It seems that one day, a fortune teller came to town and set up shop next to the saloon. The saloon owner wasn't too happy about that, making it clear that she wasn't welcome in the silver mining town. When that didn't work, he went and killed her and buried her in the local mine. Of course, as is the case with murder victims in old legends, the fortune teller wasn't too pleased with that, and she exacted her vengeance upon the saloon via supernatural means.
The actual haunted maze experience was an intimate but enthralling one, crafting a lovely, Old West cinematic storytelling endeavor filled with theatrical moments, synchronized effects, and a little mix of child labor (in that the scareactor manning the maze was Liam’s spirited and adorable son). Ferris Haunt took guests through the antagonist’s saloon, through an adjacent mineshaft area, and back to the fortune teller’s shop next door. While the layout wasn’t physically lengthy, the pacing of the maze actually provided a good runtime, pulsing guests through scenes to build tension and then offer escape.
The details and theming were creative and fun!
There were also projections and multimedia effects mixed in.
Ferris Haunt utilized a mixture of cool projections, live scareactor within the layout, and even some motion activated effects to bring its story to three dimensional life. As rendered, this haunt provided a charming and lightly scary haunted attraction that was perfect for kids just getting their feet wet in the world of haunts. I really appreciate the polish of the production quality, despite how intimate the haunt itself was. At times, I couldn’t help but notice similarities to another favorite home haunt with a father-son combination, The Pirates Cave. The mix of show moments, moving partitions, programmed effects, and even a little mine shaft definitely prompted immediate comparisons—but not in any plagiarizing sort of way. Instead, it was the creative, story-driven, spooky-but-not-too-intense feel of Ferris Haunt that proved to be absolutely delightful. It also didn’t hurt that I recognized at least one prop and effect from The Pirates Cave’s Curse of Calico Jack production last year.
Guests could also check out a little graveyard after exiting the haunted maze.
I can definitely see this growing and becoming something pretty spectacular down the road, as components are added on each season. There’s even a small graveyard walkthrough on the front yard after the actual maze ends, which could double as expansion area for future build-out’s. The Western facade is already a great start, and the Ferris family passion for Halloween is definitely on display. The energy and enthusiasm are palpable throughout the stellar work that’s been constructed, and I’ll definitely have to carve out time to visit Ferris Haunt pre-Halloween in the future. Great job, Liam!
Ferris Haunt is located at 5332 Christal Ave, Garden Grove, CA 92845 and ran only the last weekend of October, on Friday, Saturday, and Monday, October 28, 29, and 31, from 6:30 - 9:30, plus a haunter’s night on Sunday, November 6, from 6:00 - 8:00.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
