Author - Jerry Paxton

The fog is a flavor. Every haunt aficionado knows this. You taste it on the back of your tongue as you navigate the season’s offerings, a unique blend of glycerin, park humidity, and anticipation. I’ve already tasted the slick, cinematic fog of Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights this year, with its blockbuster production values and intellectual property-driven thrills. But tonight, I’m back for the main course. I’m home. This is the 52nd year of Knott’s Scary Farm, and its fog is different. It’s thicker, grittier, and tastes of history. It’s the original, and as I step through the gates, I’m here to find out if the granddaddy of all theme park haunts still has its bite.

The lifeblood of any returning veteran’s visit is the new slate of nightmares, and for 2025, Knott’s has delivered two potent and wildly different injections of fear. First up was Mary – The Haunting of Worth Home, a maze that feels like a direct and confident answer to the classic haunted house trope. This isn’t a licensed property; it’s a full-throated embrace of original storytelling, weaving the urban legend of Bloody Mary into a modern tale of a group home for troubled teens. The result is a masterclass in atmospheric dread. The set design is impeccable, feeling like a fully realized, lived-in house that slowly unravels into a supernatural nightmare. You move from bedrooms to a backyard and into a monstrous greenhouse, with mirrors serving as a constant, unnerving motif. The narrative is strong and cohesive from start to finish. My only real critique is an operational one; the maze’s complex, winding layout created significant bottlenecks, a familiar frustration for haunt veterans who know that pacing is just as important as the scare itself. Despite the traffic jams, Mary is a triumph of classic, macabre horror.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is The Zoo, a brutal and glorious descent into creature-feature chaos. From the mind of Daniel Miller, a designer known for his mastery of gore, this is a pure monster maze. The premise is simple and effective: an abandoned zoo turned grotesque laboratory for animal-human hybrid experiments has gone predictably wrong. The experience is a relentless assault of visceral body horror. You traverse distinct zones, an aviary, an aquarium, each populated with blood-soaked, beautifully crafted practical creature effects. This is where Knott’s flexes its creative muscles, delivering the kind of original, stomach-churning horror that many other parks shy away from. The maze’s brilliant gimmick is its “blackout” mode after 11:00 p.m., where the lights are extinguished, transforming a terrifying maze into a truly disorienting ordeal. It’s a bold move that rewards repeat visits and caters directly to the hardcore crowd. During the blackout, guests are handed small, weak flashlights to help navigate their way through the maze’s twisted halls. I was skeptical at first, but the blackout period adds a metric ton of extra tension and fear to the experience – it’s a MUST DO!

While the new additions are the main draw, the strength of the returning lineup cannot be overstated. The sophomore mazes from 2024, Widows and Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman, have settled in beautifully. Widows, with its skin-crawling concept of a spider-infested convalescent home, remains a standout for its sheer originality and creepy execution. Eight Fingers Nine is even better, a living Grimm’s fairytale that feels poetic and nightmarish in equal measure, stalking you with a monster born from folklore. It’s this kind of high-concept, original storytelling that sets Knott’s apart. Fan-favorite Cinema Slasher is back, a loving and bloody tribute to 80s slasher films that is pure, unadulterated fun. It’s also the final year for The Grimoire and Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind, and it’s a particular shame to see Mesmer go. Its journey into psychological horror and a sinister carnival sideshow has always been a highlight, a perfect fit for the Boardwalk area it inhabits.

But the mazes are only half the story. The true magic of Scary Farm, the element that still elevates it above its competition, is the atmosphere. It’s the five sprawling, open-air scare zones where the nightmares have no walls. Nothing in the industry compares to the raw, primal fear of Ghost Town Streets. The fog is so thick you can barely see your own feet, and out of the mist lunge the iconic sliders and grotesque half-animal, half-human creatures. It’s chaotic, unpredictable, and utterly terrifying. This is the heart and soul of the event. You can contrast that intensity with the lively, thematic energy of the Gore-ing ’20s, where ghostly flappers and mobsters create a menacingly fun street party, complete with a live band. This variety in tone is crucial, allowing for moments of respite between the high-intensity scares. Even the entertainment, like the long-running stunt show The Hanging, feels uniquely Knott’s, an outrageous, often controversial parody of the year’s pop culture that no other park would dare to stage. This year’s Hanging is no different and make sure you get into the queue line early as they get loooong!

After more than five decades, Knott’s Scary Farm isn’t just an event; it’s an institution. Where Universal’s Horror Nights often feels like walking through a series of incredibly well-produced movie trailers, Scary Farm feels like stepping into a cohesive, breathing world of horror. It relies on its own deep lore and the creativity of its designers rather than the crutch of big-name franchises. With almost 1,000 monsters roaming the grounds, the park feels alive with menace in a way that its competitors simply can’t match. The 2025 season is a powerful statement. It proves that while others may have bigger budgets and more recognizable names, no one understands the soul of Halloween quite like Knott’s. The fog here is still the most potent in the business, and for any true aficionado of the art of the scare, it’s a taste you’ll want to savor.