As a haunt fan, and reviewer, I love my job, make no mistake. But sometimes, it takes more than the average scares, make-up, and sets to stand out. A maze or haunted house can have the most elaborate sets in the industry but if the scares fail, there is no point. The make up can be perfection, but if the actors aren’t into it, we, as guests have nothing to be afraid of. What it takes is a passion for the scare. If the haunt has this then it is infectious. Dead Time Dreams of San Jose, California has this contagious love for the the art of the scare.
Tacked on to an average-looking pumpkin patch operation on the corner of Tully Rd. and Capital Expressway Dead Time Dreams is a gem of a haunt. You may not think so by driving around the brightly lit pumpkin display, but getting around the back side of the property things turn dark fast. A wildly colored marquee sporting a sinister clown face beckons the brave. Under the large, white tent we visit the box office, and a psychotic midway with carnival games and a movie theater playing horror clips.
The real draw is, of course, the two mazes. Grim Fairy Tales and Fear O Phobia await guests. Both are filled to the brim with terrifying monsters and winding passageways that are worth every single penny.
Midway of Terror
No longer do you stand waiting in line, now you have a whole Midway of Terror to entertain you even before entering the two attractions. This year, the experience will be a whole detailed pre-show that gets the mood or was it blood flowing, even before you go facing the dark passageways of horrors. See the Freaks and Creatures that have never been seen before, special nightly shows that are different happenings each night, The Midway of Terror is a dark and intense experience which is better than most haunted attractions you will have ever experienced before!
Grimm Fairy Tales
History cannot be denied… Grimm Fairy Tales are not meant for children. These tales will steal into your soul and most folks have real nightmares. Fairy tales of the past were often full of macabre and gruesome twists and endings and they all found their way into Dead Time Dreams. Most visitors are clearly unable to cope and that explains some of the gruesome accidents here. Experience a world where you are in the center of the action, wander through a maze of tales that will leave you dazed, confused, and hopefully still alive!
Grimm Fairy Tales is a playful haunted attraction that features nastier versions of all the normal characters we are familiar with. We meet up with the likes of Humpty Dumpty, or what is left of him, Rumplestilskin, and Little Red Riding Hood among others. This maze features some inventive, serpentine passageways that easily displace the guest mentally. Impassioned, the actors don’t just pop out and scream. No, these are fully realized characters that engage, taunt, and frighten. The inventive scares caught us off guard more than a few times, startling this reviewer more times than I can remember in any haunt this year.
The sets in this maze are also pretty amazing, but seriously, the actors sell it.
Fear O Phobia
Fear-O-Phobia… Face your true Phobias. Here the deepest fears are all waiting for you. Where imagination becomes reality. This facility has brought them all together in this research institution. Unfortunately these experiments have broken free now and are clawing through the facility attacking anything thing they find. It’s become a death race for any unfortunate enough to enter the feeding grounds. Will you stay sane or will you even come out all in one piece? If your companions fall….don’t look back….you can’t save them….just keeping going or you be their next victim!
Fear O Phobia is the journey into an asylum that has been unhinged. Rusted and dilapidated we enter the facility and are immediately admitted. While not as ingenious as Grimm Fairy Tales, Fear O Phobia is aggressively scary. The scares here are not the playful and taunt type that populate the make believe world next door. This frightful maze has lunatics on the loose who either A) want to admit you into the asylum, B) want to kill you. Pretty much only two choices.
The maze sort of goes off the rails in the second half in a walk through a yard of coffins, then through a strange Jack in the Box room, but it works. It’s all surreal and scary and fun.
In short, I really could not recommend Dead Time Dreams enough. The actors tear this place apart with an infectious need to engage and have fun by scaring the living -ish out of you. While the mazes are well made, the sets are sometimes even more than satisfactory, it is the actors that sell this haunt. They know exactly how to get at you and they are waiting, just around the corner, in the dark, whispering your name.
If you are looking for an inexpensive haunt to go enjoy for a few hours, get over to Dead Time Dreams. You will not be disappointed.
