Knott’s Scary Farm took the title of Best Halloween Haunt event last year from Halloween Horror Nights. The Buena Park-based theme park is looking to hold that title for 2026 with two new haunted mazes that solidify a ten-maze lineup. We said goodbye to The Grimoire and Mesmer last year, which made way for Inked and Unearthed. So while they might not have any IP-based mazes like other parks do, Knott’s Scary Farm has plenty of gimmicks, terrors, and frights for those people out there who love Halloween. We’re saying goodbye to Origins: The Curse of Calico and The Chilling Chambers after this season, so this’ll be the last ride for those two marquee mazes.
To be completely transparent for this review, I went to the park with a normal general admission ticket, I did not have any sort of express pass. Knott’s Scary Farm is open from 7:00PM to 1:00AM on Thursdays and Sundays and from 7:00PM to 2:00AM on Fridays and Saturdays through October 31st.
So without further ado, let’s rank the haunted mazes of Knott’s Scary Farm 2026.
10. Origins: The Curse Of Calico – Leaving In 2026
Origins: The Curse of Calico is leaving Scary Farm after this season and it looks like that might be for the best. The maze takes up residence in the Ghost Town section of the park and features the story of why the town is known as a ghost town. Sarah Marshall puts a curse on the town after being hanged for witchcraft. She rises up and turns the townspeople into monsters that are in search of human flesh.
This maze is a bit improved from past years, with more scare actors and better placement of those scare actors, but in a year with an excellent lineup of mazes, it doesn’t hold up as well. The main set piece is the witch flying over guests’ heads near the end of the maze. There are still too many video screens instead of scare actors in this one for my liking, though. So check out Origins: The Curse of Calico for the last time this season.
9. The Chilling Chambers – Leaving In 2026
In year’s past, especially its first year, The Chilling Chambers was among the best of the event. With the 50th anniversary sheen coming off and some changes that make it feel less special (where is Seymour?), this one is running on empty in 2026. This was my third year doing the maze, and as someone who’s only been going to Scary Farm since 2022, this maze doesn’t really hold all that much nostalgia for me. That means that its gotta capture my attention in some other way, and this feels just like a hodgepodge at this point. The historical aspects and seeing all the tombstones for older mazes is still cool, but you can tell that guests aren’t treating this one with the reverence that it once had based on wait times.
8. Mary – The Haunting Of Worth Home
With a lot of the mazes at Knott’s Scary Farm, there are plenty of different ideas and concepts that you don’t see at most other Halloween events. This one retells the story of Bloody Mary affecting a suburban home. The set design here is fantastic, but the layout of the maze leads to some major slowdowns for people walking through. The various Mary characters are mostly on video screens throughout, which was disappointing to see. There are a couple of actual Mary scare actors, but not nearly enough throughout.
With the rest of the mazes being so varied and different, this one does feel like it could be at any park out there, instead of feeling like a Knott’s Scary Farm exclusive. This one is still a lot of fun, though, but not top-tier.
7. Room 13
Room 13 brings guests back to the roaring 20s but with some Prohibition-era violence from tainted alcohol. This has always been one of my favorites at the event and it just shows the level of quality of the mazes this year that it gets this spot. This one immerses you more than most at the event and some of the scenes here are fantastic. The highlight is when they take you onto the scaffolding of the building and you’re “up high”. There’s some visual tricks on display.
This house also has more scare actors than the average at Scary Farm and they’re pretty varied between flappers, gangsters, residents, and those that have been turned into horrible monsters. Combined with the theme and time period, this ends up as a fantastic house.
6. Widows
Widows enters its third year and continues the excellence of previous years about a nursing home that has been taken over by spiders and their queen. If you’ve ever gone to visit your grandparents, this one hits home. The spiders have taken over the staff and the residents equally. As you go through, more and more spiders show up until you’ve hit the Spider Queen and her lair. The puppet/human combination here is absolutely awesome to see.
If you’re an arachnophobic person, this maze hits super hard. The only thing that drops it below other mazes is the fact that there weren’t many changes from previous years.
5. Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman
Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman is a living fairy tale/nightmare. This maze takes you through a colonial town that is under siege from the Boogeyman. There are plenty of scare actors on top of their game with this maze and multiple redirect scares. This is also one of the longest mazes in the event, with twists and turns and setting changes. If you love the stylings of Grimm’s fairy tales, this is right up your alley.
For something based on what might be the most recognizable monster in human history, this is a great time at Knott’s Scary Farm.
4. Inked – NEW MAZE
If you love classic animation, then Inked is for you. This maze follows Mortimer Morbid, a washed-up 1930s cartoonist and former head of Morbid Studios, discovers that when blood becomes ink, imagination becomes reality. Determined to create one final Halloween special, he brings his infamous cartoon characters to life—only to unleash a legion of murderous toons hellbent on pulling viewers into their twisted world. As you go through, guests are brought right into the cartoons that Mortimer made. This has some really interesting effects like when you walk through a canvas and descend into hell.
While there might not be too many great scares here, the ambiance and story of the maze do the heavy lifting. It was like a 5/10 on scares but a 9/10 on everything else.
3. Cinema Slasher
Cinema Slasher has been at the top in previous years, which tells you how great some of the improvements and new mazes are this year. This one has some small updates that make for a great time. Cinema Slasher takes guests through the plots and movie screens of slasher movies. Stabby the Popcorn makes another appearance at this house, and please god, Knotts, Stabby needs to be a yearly icon for the event. I will take an entire Stabby maze in a future year. I love them.
This still has some of the best scares, best effects, and best ambiance of any haunted house ever.
2. Unearthed – NEW MAZE
Unearthed takes over the spot that The Grimoire held and it is a massive improvement. This is like going through a darker Indiana Jones adventure but with more death and scares.
Embark on a perilous journey through the heart of an excavation site as you and your search-and-rescue team arrive at a ravaged base days after receiving a distress signal. Beware, for the discovery of the ancient tablets has awakened a malevolent force from a forgotten age—an ancient evil has been unearthed.
This one has it all: massive set pieces, tons of scare actors, a story that makes sense, and then some. The only real critique I have is that the queue for this gets quite long and the sound effects of monsters play far too frequently. Some were going off at an interval of like 8-9 seconds. It makes for a miserable time waiting and then on top of it, they have voiceovers of the videos that are playing, so it’s kind of a sonic overload.
However, this maze experience is top tier and among the best of the 2026 Halloween season.
1. The Zoo
The Zoo was brand new last year and while it had some highlights, especially with the theme, it felt like it was missing something. Well, this year, whatever improvements and changes that Knotts’ team made worked because this was easily the most terrifying and awesome maze of the event. The story is about animals turning the tables on humans with loads of gore and experiments.
The scare actors in this maze were on another level, legitimately scaring the crap out of me multiple times around corners, in the darkest rooms of Scary Farm, and just all-around doing a great job. This one is worth whatever wait it might have.
Overall Thoughts On Knott’s Scary Farm
Knott’s Scary Farm’s production value and maze design are really second to none when it comes to SoCal Halloween. When you combine that with the fact that the event is actually doable with just a general admission pass, it makes for the best event of the season. You can go, do four mazes in the same time it takes to do one at other events. The roller coasters and other rides at the park drawing people away from the mazes also eases some of the wait times. Overall, if you’re looking for a single Halloween event to do in Southern California, you NEED to make it Knott’s Scary Farm.
You can grab tickets for Knott’s Scary Farm right here.
For more on Horror, make sure to check out Fright-A-Thon.
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