Knott’s Scary Farm is a Southern California institution. It’s the longest-running Halloween Haunt in the area, and it continues on select nights from September 18th to November 1st, 2025. The normally happy-go-lucky theme park is transformed into an utter nightmare starting at 7:00 PM every night that it’s open. There are more than 1000 sinister creatures lurking in the fog of the park. Besides scare zones and rides, there are 10 terrifying haunted mazes in the park, including two new mazes with The Zoo and Mary – The Haunting of Worth Home. The other eight mazes are returning from previous years, and also the last year for Mesmer and The Grimoire.

So is the event worth your time in a crowded Halloween landscape including Halloween Horror Nights, Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, LA Haunted Hayride, and Six Flags Fright Fest? There are fundamental differences in the design, layout, and scares at Knott’s Scary Farm when you compare it to an event at Horror Nights or other places. Scary Farm focuses more on the set design and layout of a maze rather than the actual scares. There are less scare actors per house than at other places, but there are more opportunities to get immersed in the actual maze and its story. So, that’s the tradeoff you get going to the event.

Let’s rank the mazes of Knott’s Scary Farm and see if it’s worth visiting.

10. The Grimoire – Leaving In 2025

The Grimoire is running its last event this year at Knott’s Scary Farm, and I can’t say that I’m very sad to see it go. For the past two years, I’ve been going to the event, and The Grimoire features plenty of allusions and nods to other things in movies and TV, like Stranger Things and Evil Dead. The story immerses you into the world of an ancient relic whose dark stories exist purely to turn your greatest nightmare into a reality.

That sounds really nice, but the overall story of the maze is a hodgepodge of ideas, and it swamps the whole thing. There are monsters, WW1 trenches, campgrounds, 1950s alternate timelines, and more, but this one isn’t cohesive, and I can see why they’re finally retiring it.

9. Origins: The Curse Of Calico

The Calico Ghost Town area of Knott’s is one of the major selling points of the entire park. It transforms to a REAL ghost town during Scary Farm with scare actors, and more fog than you’ve ever seen before in your life. The maze Origins: The Curse of Calico tells the story of a witch, Sarah Marshall that put a curse on the town. When the Green Witch rises up and transforms the townsfolk into creatures that have an eternal quench for the living, it gets real.

This house suffers from a lack of actual scare actors at certain points, especially the ending section where there’s supposed to be a Sarah Marshall/Green Witch scare actor above your head. If she’s there, this maze is pretty damn good, if she’s not, it’s meh. The set design and look of the maze is cool, especially after walking through the ghost town before, but this doesn’t do a whole lot to separate itself from other mazes at the event.

8. Mary – The Haunting Of Worth Home – NEW MAZE

Mary – The Haunting Of Worth Home is one of the new mazes for the 2025 year and it retells the story of Bloody Mary affecting a suburban home. The set design here is fantastic but the layout of the maze leads to some major slowdowns for people walking through. I went through this one twice, and both times had major traffic jams in the middle of it due to the layout. The various Mary characters are mostly on video screens throughout which was disappointing to see. There are a couple of actual Mary scare actors, but not nearly enough throughout.

It does feature a great animatronic Mary at the very end that’s cool to see and a scare that hits you just as you’re leaving the maze. For a new maze, and with the overall quality of all the mazes this year, this one is definitely fun, but not top tier.

7. Room 13

Room 13 brings roaring 20s vibes with a bit of a water problem for a high-rise apartment building. This has been a favorite in the past and it keeps up the greatness for the 2025 season. This one immerses you more than most at the event and some of the scenes here are fantastic. The highlight is when they take you onto the scaffolding of the building and you’re “up high”. There’s some visual tricks on display.

This house also has more scare actors than the average at Scary Farm and they’re pretty varied between flappers, gangsters, residents, and those that have been turned into horrible monsters. Combined with the theme and time period, this ends up as a fantastic house.

6. The Zoo – NEW MAZE

The Zoo is the other new maze for 2025 and it features a terrifying laboratory of animal/human experiments with creatures roaming an abandoned zoo for you to find. This one has a great story with the animals turning the tables of humans that have come to stop them. There’s a lot of gore and different types of people/animals being experimented on, so it’s not for the faint of heart.

The one wrinkle with The Zoo is that after 11PM they turn off the lights inside the maze and you can go through in the dark. I didn’t get the chance to do it in the dark and the line jumped up from around a 30-45 minute wait to 90 minutes after 11PM. So you might want to get this one out of the way early if you don’t care about going through in the dark. Either way, this is a welcome addition to Knott’s Scary Farm.

5. The Chilling Chambers

The Chilling Chambers is a holdover from the 50th Anniversary year of Scary Farm and I’m thankful that its back for another year. This one is a massive celebration of all things Scary Farm and even has some updates for a new year. It goes through the history of the event, but there is one change that I don’t like very much. They changed the Caretaker icon to a generic “Crimson Lord”. It kind of ruins the whole fun of the maze because the Caretaker was supposed to be the person behind all things Scary Farm.

Outside of that, there’s a lot to like in this greatest hits of Scary Farm’s history. The ending is still just as breathtaking as it was the first time going through with headstones of all the various Scary Farm mazes of the past.

4. Mesmer – Leaving In 2025

Mesmer made its debut in 2021 and is now leaving to the fog after this year. It’s a shame because this is a great maze. The theming is on point, especially sitting in the boardwalk/carnival area of the park. The hypnotist Mesmer and his sinister sideshow prey on your hidden fears with the power of suggestion. It takes you through various fears, carnival sideshows, and even into the recesses of your own mind, colliding with the power of Mesmer’s hypnotics.

The creature effects here are some of the best in the park and while it might not have as many scare actors, the ambiance and theming is among the best in the Halloween Haunt sector. Mr. Zoetrope, pictured above is a beastly animatronic that will make your jaw drop. I’ll definitely miss Mesmer when it leaves.

3. Widows

Widows was brand-new last year and continues some excellence about a nursing home that has been taken over by spiders and their queen. If you’ve ever gone to visit your grandparents, this one hits home. The spiders have taken over the staff and the residents equally. As you go through, more and more spiders show up until you’ve hit the Spider Queen and her lair. The puppet/human combination here is absolutely awesome to see.

If you don’t like spiders, this is already a terrifying house, but there’s a lot to like here including the theming and creature work. There are a lot of scare actors throughout that are ready to jump out and scare you too.

2. Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman

This is a LIVING fairy tale/nightmare. Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman takes you through a colonial town that’s under siege by THE monster of all monsters, The Boogeyman. If you have sleep paralysis or night terrors, this maze gets kind of real. The actors here were on their best work while I went through with nannies yelling at you to head back to bed and Boogeyman attacking from the darkness.

This is also one of the longest mazes in the event with so many great, rich details for its sets. The walls move, animatronics move branches and long, frightening fingers. This is an exceptional time at a Halloween event.

1. Cinema Slasher

Cinema Slasher is my favorite maze at ANY event this year. It takes you into three different slasher movies that are heavily inspired by Halloween, Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And when I say takes you into the movies, you physically go through a movie screen into the various fake movies. Adding onto that with a section with the best new horror icon, Stabby the Popcorn (seriously Knotts, get a photo op with this character, I would pay for it), you go through the movies with all the sights and smells.

It finishes up with the best creature of the entire event, a living, angry roll of film and other theater items. The Midnight Theater is one of the best mazes that Knotts or anyone else has ever put on.

The Verdict On Knott’s Scary Farm

I got to the park right at 7:00PM for the opening scaremony and got all 10 of the mazes done and had food by 10:00PM. I then went through most of the mazes a second time for good measure. The only maze that had even a slightly unreasonable wait time was The Zoo after 11PM. Outside of that, Knott’s was a breeze to get through. Compared to the likes of Horror Nights (especially this year with over 90+ minute waits for THREE houses) this event has more scare actors around the park, the park is themed better, and there are more mazes to go through. That’s all on top of the rides that are open and shows. If you’re looking for value for your money, Knott’s Scary Farm is the best Halloween event to go to this season.

You can buy tickets online for Knott’s Scary Farm here.

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