This year marks the 30th anniversary of Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California! While other haunts in SoCal might be celebrating their 50th, celebrating 30 years of frights at the thrill capital of the world, isn’t to be taken lightly. We’ve been attending Fright Fest for the better part of 10 years and even over that time, the event has changed by leaps and bounds.

Southern California has so much competition when it comes to theme park Halloween event’s that comparisons to other events are inevitable. And unfortunately, Fright Fest has always seemed to live in the shadow of other popular events. But over time, Fright Fest has carved out it’s own pocket in the vast array of Halloween offerings. Truly crafting it’s own unique tone and style. We can’t talk about Fright Fest without mentioning Scott Ramp and the Scream Team. The makeup effects are second to none and truly give Fright Fest it’s own personal style that we’ve come to know and love. From Nightmares, City Under Seige, The Devil’s Triangle, The Dead Zone, CarnivHELL, and Terrortory Twisted; the makeup is tailored to fit each scare zone while maintaining that style that we only associate with Fright Fest.

Speaking of the scare zones, we frequent this event because of the amazing talent that’s been cultivated here! The talent is given so much freedom to expand upon initial character concepts that take on a life of their own, outside the bounds of Fright Fest at times. We cannot speak more highly of the talent that works Fright Fest because it’s really them who help create the amazing interactions and experiences guests come to expect from the event. Whether that’s talking to Lorraine-Lurane about her latest business ventures, being stalked by Innocence on Exile Hill, getting harassed by the grotesque creatures of the Devil’s Triangle, or partying with the crazed clowns of City Under Seige. Each zone creates it’s own unique atmosphere that perfectly compliments the others while all maintaining the special interactions that we love.

Out of any event, we feel like Fright Fest takes the most risks when it comes to their haunted houses. Admittedly, not all of these gambles pay off. But what we can say is that the creative team behind Fright Fest cares and listens to constructive criticisms made by their fans. Even at Midsummer Scream, making it a point to tell fans in attendance that they heard what they were saying and made adjustments based on that feedback. I honestly don’t know a single other event that has come forward like this to address its fans with such respect.

While I do think Fright Fest has some room for growth in terms of its execution, each year we see something new that we like and adjustments that make the overall experience that much better. For example, in the past we’ve talked about how scare actors would just yell in our ears inside the haunted houses as a scare tactic. We’ve been very vocal about our dislike for this and this year, we didn’t have a single instance of this happening in ANY of the haunted houses. If anything, we saw much more nuance in the varied scare tactics across the park, which we applaud. This is the type of direction that I think can help Fright Fest in their continued efforts to create unique, scary, and fun experiences for those visiting the park for Fright Fest. Additionally, I think this direction served them well this year specifically because they’ve added two massive intellectual properties to their lineup of haunted houses with Sax X and The Conjuring. Both of these experiences really utilized a variety of scare tactics that made them some of the better houses at this years event.

While the 30th anniversary missed the opportunity for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, it’s clear to us that it’s the strongest Fright Fest has ever been. Learning from what they created for Scream Break and building upon it, helped this years Fright Fest significantly. Couple that with the continued support of it’s incredibly creative and talented cast of monsters, Fright Fest has so much to be proud of this year. And we are happy as fans to have seen the evolution of the event over the past 10 years. If anything, it makes us so excited for the future of the event.

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