All Hail Halloween

I have finally said my teary goodbyes to my favorite month of the year, October. The leaves turning orange (yes L.A. has leaves), the enchanting smell of pumpkin pie at Ralphs (no not the rotten fruit smell!), and getting the $H1T scared out of you! Let's take a look back at all the fun activities...

Knotts Scary Farm
In the annual tradition we went to Knotts Scary Farm. My favorite haunted maze this year was the Terror of London. The bloody midget that chases you at the end was a nice, yet terrifying, touch. The show was as stupid as it always is though they did make a crazy at Disney's World of Color which was hilarious. We also managed to scare a bunch of kids in line for the logride and survived the Xcelerator which launches you down the track getting up to 82 mph in 2.3 seconds. Overall, it continues to be a solid Halloween scare choice.

Pierce College's Halloween Harvest Festival
This is the place I told you about last year that I just happened to find. This year, believe or not, it was EVEN BETTER. Two of my girlfriends and a group of about five boys dared to venture into the festival. The boys thought it'd be hilarious to send the girls into the haunted corn maze first ensuring that they would get to watch us sprint screaming in different directions as ghostly creatures appeared in the night. A clever addition was an old shack in the middle of the maze that you HAD to walk through. An actor in a bloody scarecrow costume rocked in an old rocking chair staring at you as you enter. You are SO focused on him that the man in black that rushes at you from the side takes you completely by surprise. I bolted out of that death trap like a racehorse heading out of the starting gate.

I thought that this would be the scariest part of the night but that was clearly naive. We ventured next to the Haunted House. They told us they could only take groups of six so our group needed to split up. Of course, the boys opt to have the three girls go in alone although the operator assured us there were three more people inside that we would walk with. We enter a dark black box with a man dressed like Frankenstein. As the door begins to slide shut behind us we realize...it is just us. The gut-wrenching screaming ensued as we sprinted through the maze slamming into walls and each other and using spin-moves to jump past angry clowns and bloody zombies. It was like a fast-paced haunted version of Mario World only when you look at these ghosts - they keep moving. The maze ended with us in a sweaty heap outside the back door with a laughing clown staring at us from the entryway. I felt like I'd just survived a massive asthma attack. Only one maze to go...

The last maze was a new one this year that involved finding you way through a maze of chain link fence while zombies chased you. Not cool. The maze turned out to be pretty easy so I managed to escape without too much mental damage. This festival gets better and better every year.


Pumpkin Carving
Yes, we had a wine and drunken pumpkin carving night and, yes, I refrained from carving something inappropriate. I did want to be creative though so I went with a Pacman chasing the dots around the pumpkin. I later found out that my friend plagiarized me. Criminal.

My Pumpkin

The Copycat's Pumpkin

Hollywood Halloween at the Vanguard
Usually I avoid Hollywood like the plague when a major holiday is anywhere nearby. This year, Miike Snow was playing at the Vanguard so I was convinced to go. We planned ahead this year and made sure to be in line at the venue by 9:30pm already inebriated. Minus some bitchy girls in line who I had to man-handle it was an amazing night filled with great music, pink unicorns, and the cast of Rad Anthem complete with coke dangling from their nostrils. Someone also got the memo about how much I love ghetto street dogs because a lady with a cart was standing right outside waiting for me!


West Hollywood Carnival
It has been many years since I made it to the West Hollywood Carnival and it's a bleary memory at that. I felt it prudent that I go this year, it being on a Sunday and all. It was also my mission to photograph myself with as many other Lady Gagas as I could find. The carnival met every expectation that my faulty memory presented from a flawless reproduction of the Alice in Wonderland cast to Lady "CACA" covered in poo to Wolverine and Ariel and their MerWolf baby. Sadly, I was unable to find the beer gardens that I so vividly remember from last time...


And there you have it - the many festivities of All Hallows Eve. I hope you enjoy the ridiculous pictures.

Best Halloween Haunts

Being my favorite time of year, I decided I needed to check out ALL that L.A. has to offer for Halloween.

Knott's Scary Farm
http://www.ultimatehaunt.com/

In a nutshell, there are just too many people to get scared since you see the monster scaring someone ahead of you before they have the chance to scare you. Also, since there are "scare zones" you can prepare yourself for when someone might jump out at you.


You can't ride the rides because the lines are too long. The two redeeming factors is that they have a lot of ticket promotions so it is worth the money and the haunted log ride is amazing.

You can read my full review here.

L.A. Haunted Hayride
http://www.losangeleshauntedhayride.com/

This is the biggest crock I've ever been to. It's way out near Malibu Creek State Park in the middle of nowhere. It's $20 just for the hayride on weekdays and $25 on weekends. That doesn't include the ghost stories, food, or the carnival games.


You also have to buy tickets in order to get food - 3 tickets for a hotdog - good luck. The hayride itself is 15 minutes long and not scary AT ALL. I get scared really easily too. There is only one part of the ride that is scary and it lasts for about 15 seconds. Avoid this place like the plague.


Pierce College's Halloween Harvest Festival and Fright Fair
http://www.halloweenharvestfestival.com/
http://www.frightfair.com/

By day its a harvest festival complete with farm animals, hay rides, giant slides, pony rides and pumpkin patches. But at night it becomes Fright Fair. Fright Fair has three different attractions: The Adventure Corn Maze, Creatures of the Corn Haunted Trail and the Factory of Nightmares Haunted House. We came here by accident after our awful experience at the hayride and paid $25 to do all three attractions (already a better price than the hayride). They give you one ticket that then gets hole punched at the entrance of each attraction.


We started with the Creatures of the Corn Haunted Trail. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me. First, they send you in tiny groups so it was just me and my boyfriend walking through the corn in the pitch black. You can barely see in front of you. Then creatures attack you from all angles. Sometimes they would jump out in front of you or creep up behind you. Sometimes you would get attacked three times in a row only to be left alone in the corn for 3 minutes. Terrifying. It by itself was worth the $25 bucks.


After the Haunted Trail, we find out that the festival closes at 10pm. It's 9:45pm. WTF. I can't believe the ticket person didn't say anything! That was sort of a black mark towards the place but we raced to the Haunted House to get it in. The guy at the door was kind of distracted and forgot to hole punch our tickets when we entered (sweet we get to go through it again!). The Haunted House was also awesome although not as scary as the Trail because we were in a bigger group and there were only so many places that the monsters could jump out from. The Haunted House features a maze also and a creepy elevator ride. Let's just say, you never know when the floor is going to go out from underneath you...

The festival was completely shut down when we walked out of the Haunted House but we learned that we could come back any day to use the rest of our ticket. The Corn Maze takes 45 minutes on average to get through so we are definitely coming back!


Overall, the Harvest Festival is far and away the best. Knotts is fun, but way too crowded. And the Haunted Hayride should be avoided at all costs. But they all close at the end of this weekend so make sure and go!