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…