Despite being a pretty big Halloween fan living in Southern California for the past two and a half decades, I had never visited the popular Los Angeles Haunted Hayride (which launched in 2009)… until last night, that is.
I’m an annual attendee of other Halloween-season haunted events like Knott’s Scary Farm and Halloween Horror Nights, and I’ve been to smaller haunts around the L.A. area, so Los Angeles Haunted Hayride has always sounded right up my alley, but for whatever reason I had never made the time to attend. But yesterday evening I finally headed over to Griffith Park to experience all the scares the event has to offer.
From the moment I walked through the entrance, I was impressed by Haunted Hayride’s decor, which this year is themed to the fictional small town of Midnight Falls, complete with a General Store where guests can pick up all manner of Halloween-related goods and spooky apparel. There’s a photo op tied in to sponsor Huluween, but otherwise everything is designed to fit into the Town Square of this bewitching little burg. There’s a variety of food stands with names like Midnight Falls Railroad BBQ and a stage set up for performances by some very interesting acts to entertain attendees between haunts.
When it’s time to move on to the main event, guests will enter through a Huluween waystation decorated with posters for Hulu’s original Halloween programming like Hellraiser, Grimcutty, and Huluween Dragstravaganza. Then the entrance to the Haunted Hayride itself is made to look like an eerie abandoned gas station.
Once guests have boarded and the ride takes off from the loading area, the Haunted Hayride is a roughly ten-minute experience that goes around some of Griffith Park’s appropriately wooded areas. There are well-executed setpieces themed to different Halloween-type genres like demons and aliens, and live actors who will jump out and scare riders, not to mention approach the tractor, sometimes banging on the vehicle’s chassis, though they never breach the perimeter in which the guests are seated. But my favorite part of this entertaining ride-through attraction was definitely the several different kinds of mechanical effects used to bring specters, goblins, and ghouls to life around the track.
Next to the Haunted Hayride is another area decorated with a very cool tower of jack o’lanterns (perfect for photos) and another sponsored Huluween experience, this one a video opportunity housed within a tiny shack. There’s also a ghostly merry-go-round populated by creepy skeleton horses, though sadly it’s not actually rideable.
The three other attractions at L.A. Haunted Hayride are all impressive walk-through mazes entitled Midnight Mortuary, Slaughterhouse, and Trick or Treat. Anyone who’s visited the other Halloween haunt events I listed above will be familiar with this type of experience, but one thing the Haunted Hayride has over the local Southern California theme parks is the advantage of space. Each of the three mazes here has a layout that spreads out into a larger, less cramped footprint than your average walk-through attraction, and that means they can incorporate more outdoor areas like cemeteries and backyards, weaving in and out between nicely detailed interiors and exteriors. Naturally, there are creatures of all shapes and sizes ready to jump out at you around just about every corner, but Haunted Hayride has also incorporated mechanical effects similar to those you’d see on the Hayride itself into the mazes, which is an added bonus and brings more variety to the proceedings. Overall I’d say the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride is a worthy addition to other Southern California Halloween events, and starting at $29.99 it can also be more affordable (though numerous upcharges will definitely increase the total, especially for larger parties). So if you’re in the area and you’re looking to fill your October with more frightening fun, you’ll probably want to consider adding Haunted Hayride to your annual haunt list.
Los Angeles Haunted Hayride is open nightly from now through Halloween. For additional information and to purchase advance tickets, be sure to visit the event’s official website.