The LA Haunted Hayride returns to Griffith Park in Los Angeles and, well… The event that at one time enjoyed a new lease on life thanks to designer Jon Cooke’s inventive world-building and design treads water this year offering mass-market scares that simply don’t measure up to the legacy that has been constructed. That’s not to say it’s a total wash. There are ways to really enjoy this event. But something is very amiss.

With that ringing endorsement, tickets are available at Los Angeles Haunted Hayride.

PARKING

This year the parking situation has been vastly improved. Guests are still expected to find a spot in one of the many lots nestled in the expansive park, but improved signage, trained staff, and even free shuttles make the parking less of a headache.

Welcome to Midnight Falls

The first thing to note is that admission into the LA Haunted Hayride grounds is, essentially, free. No admission ticket is required to walk through the pumpkin arches, to shop at the gift shop, to enjoy the food trucks, to enjoy the brilliant show presented by Monte Revolta, or absorb the ambiance and characters of Midnight Falls. Guests can enter the grounds for free and enjoy the atmosphere and entertainment. It’s the mazes, the hayride, the merch, and the food that cost money.

However, this year Midnight falls even felt a bit anemic. There were fewer townsfolk working the eager crowds. Whatever the cause, be it budget cutbacks or a reluctance of the post-covid workforce to get back out there, the lower population was noticeable when we visited.

Mazes

The backbone of any haunt event, haunted walkthroughs or, mazes are the anchor stores to a haunt’s mall. While Trick Or Trat and Midnight Mortuary have returned, we have lost the Dead End Diner which has been replaced by SlaughterHouse.

Midnight Mortuary: Evil Earth

Midnight Mortuary: Evil Ground HIGHLIGHTS - LA Haunted Hayride 2022

We approach a two-story facade aglow with red and purple lights. This is apparently the town’s dead end, as it were. Now updated with the sub-name EVIL EARTH, we notice little that would justify the modification. The maze is still the creepy journey into necro-nightmares, joined with goat-headed creepers, but there is nothing noticeably new. Still enjoyable, but nothing that earns a new name.

Slaughterhouse

Slaughterhouse HIGHLIGHTS - LA Haunted Hayride 2022

The repurposed Dead End Diner finds new life as  Slaughterhouse. Sporting a new character in the first scene we find Herschel. He’s a clown who loves to serve… meat. Human meat. From his diner, we wander to the familiar kitchen and out to the back where the capture and butchering take place. As was the case with our overall visit, the maze was lacking the needed amount of talent to really make it work. To be fair, the ones that were there were working double time and killing it.

Trick Or Treat

Trick or treat HIGHLIGHTS - LA Haunted Hayride 2022

Trick Or Treat returns to the LA Haunted Hayride and it is a shell of what it was. The original iteration involved visits various doorsteps that invited guests to ring doorbells to discover deadly surprises. This go around, we have the expansive walkthrough, even the various houses. Yet we are never really sure which doors we can visit, much less which ones might have a trick up its sleeve. This offering has evolved more into a straightforward walkthrough and, while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, the scares have also departed.

To be totally fair, the actors that inhabited this maze tore it up. They pounced on unsuspecting guests with bloodthirsty aplomb that made my Halloween heart smile. Still this is used to be more.

Haunted Hayride

Now to the namesake of the event, the LA Haunted Hayride. This assessment comes with a caveat because you have to enjoy the hayride format in order to appreciate it.  Large groups of 40-50 people are invited to climb aboard a hay-laden trailer hauled be a tractor to be scared en masse as they are pulled through a series of spooky scenes. Along the way, we encounter a haunt stew of scenarios from classic Halloween vignettes to aliens to cannibals to werewolves. Actors taunt the passengers of the slow-moving trailer and dates grab onto one another feigning true fear. In short, it’s a reason to snuggle up and get spooky.

This year we found the same issues that plagued the mazes had found their way to the hayride. A lack of actors along the route made for a less-than-entertaining experience. Scenes that required multiple actors last year, got by with two or three.  The night we visited, certain mechanical effects did not trigger. Again, in defense of the actors, most of them gave everything they had to offer a fright.

To be totally fair, LA Haunted Hayride lost its amazing spot at the location of the old LA zoo. This nestled the festivities into a hillside nook far away from the outside world. The issues of 2021 return with the event back at the flat location in Griffith Park near the 5 freeway. While this is probably something that simply must be endured, little seems to have been done to address the multiple difficulties that marred 2021. One positive, again, were the improvements in parking, signage, and the guest experience leading to the event grounds.

There is no joy in saying that a haunt isn’t great. There were obviously countless hours of effort, and an army of makeup artists, lighting designers, actors, and performers who all attempted to deliver a fun night out for haunt fans. To the earnest efforts of all involved, we are grateful and we appreciated every moment. It’s just that this year, at the time we were there, LA Haunted Hayride missed the mark.