Spirits of the Season : These Amusement Park Shows May Lure the Crowds With High-Tech Treats, but They Rely Heavily on a Bag of Tricks: The Element of Surprise and Corniness

When I was a kid, haunted houses were more or less the domain of the Jaycees or the PTA. Some otherwise unused building would be filled with mannequin limbs, Karo syrup and, if the organizers were particularly ambitious, a Tesla coil. Teen-age guys in bad Dracula makeup would zealously “frighten” young female patrons without ever being forced to consider the concept of sexual harassment.

But, likewise, when I was a kid, Pong was the only video game on the market. And just as Pong begat Mortal Kombat and other more extravagantly grisly video games, so has the haunted house become ever more high-tech: Laser shows, special effects, state-of-the-art gruesome makeup and a panoply of vividly graphic advances have been visited upon the traditional spook house.

Two verities remain steadfastly in place, however: One, nothing gets folks screaming louder than a well-placed ghoul with a shaker can lunging at them from the dark; and, two, regarding matters macabre, cheesiness has its charms.

With those truths in mind, I spent a weekend trying to get the bejabbers scared out of me at the local amusement parks. Knott’s Berry Farm--rather, Knott’s Scary Farm, where the Halloween Haunt is in its 23rd year as an essential stop for those of intestinal fortitude--and Six Flags Magic Mountain have designed elaborate fright shows that have run through much of October. (Disneyland and Universal CityWalk have organized programs that begin this weekend and were therefore unavailable for preview.)

Of the two, Knott’s Scary Farm brings out a specifically teen-age crowd. The Saturday evening I attended was crammed with visitors--as packed per square inch as I’ve ever seen an amusement park. Six Flags has arranged for a broader range in thrill seekers.

Knott’s Scary Farm doesn’t open until 7 p.m. (the regular park closes at 6 p.m. to allow for its spooky make-over to occur), and in this incarnation, the park is rated PG-13, which means it’s not particularly advisable to bring the kids who’d otherwise romp in Camp Snoopy. (To give you an idea, one open-area show, “The Hanging,” began with a Hugh Grant joke, continued with a Michael Jackson joke and followed that up with a joke about Pocahontas’ “hooters.” The jokes soon incorporated Kato Kaelin and Marcia Clark. At that point, I wasn’t so hot to see a hanging after all.)

With such success comes the inevitable problem of actually appeasing the audiences who have turned out--lines for attractions wound ‘round and ‘round and ‘round the park. (Park officials won’t say how many people have to show up for a sellout, but Friday and Saturday are already sold out.) Some lines, in fact, such as one for the program “Knott’s Gory Tales” starring the Cryptkeeper, went on forever-- beyond a sign that said those who lined up behind it couldn’t be guaranteed seating.

These are the sort of lines you’d expect for a really great roller coaster, not a middling horror house. “Nightmares” harked back to the spook houses of old, except that audiences were hurtled through the attraction at such a breakneck pace, they were scarcely given time to register the scares that were planted within the attraction’s walls.

A special rip-off is the “Slasher in the Dark” exhibit, which is--no kidding--nothing more than the Domain of the Dinosaurs ride with all the lights turned off. The Cavern of Carnage--a retooled Calico Mine Ride--is better, if only because there’s something to see. In all, there are three rides, seven “mazes” and seven shows with a Halloween theme.

The real draw for Knott’s Scary Farm would seem to be the ambience itself--it’s pretty cool to wander through such dimly lit areas, to emerge through clouds of machine-made fog (the Ghost Town section, though not including any attractions per se, featured the most appealing atmospherics thanks to the wandering ghouls), to roam among shadowy figures, unable to tell the patrons from the sinisterly clad employees, who are happy to try to shock you into a coronary.

By comparison, Six Flags Magic Mountain would seem to have less firepower, but in this case, less is more. The sights begin early with a gigantic spider climbing the Colossus roller coaster--and that’s just as you’re parking the car.

Six Flags has fountains running with pinkish blood and so many bodies hanging from trees and scattered across the landscape that it looks like Col. Kurtz’s compound in “Apocalypse Now.”

The park has features for every age incorporated into its regular operating hours. So, Tweety’s Twick or Tweet allows very young children to search for small-fry favors, while the more sadistically minded explore Willoughby Mansion, where you wander through lovingly detailed and excruciatingly grisly set pieces at your leisure. Such favorite pastimes as cannibalism, vomiting, squeezing blood from victims with a wine press and tormenting souls writhing in body bags are depicted in hilariously appalling scenes, offering more thrills than Knott’s “Nightmares.”

There is a smattering of paranormal and abnormal shows as well--a chain-saw juggler, an illusionist whose guillotine blades above and below the subject’s head aren’t quite precisely timed, a mentalist who reads the minds of underenthused subjects and an adolescently gory pastiche involving road-kill recipes--but its most ambitious production is “Creepy Hollow.” The story line isn’t much--a pizza delivery kid must escape the Empress of Evil and some assorted minions--but it’s packed with eye-popping acrobatic choreography, laser lights and in-line skating, and besides, its plot is vaguely more coherent than “Starlight Express.”

But as usual at Six Flags, the best scares are on the roller coasters.

* Six Flags Magic Mountain Fright Fest continues Friday-Tuesday from 10 a.m.-10 p.m. at the park off the Magic Mountain exit from Interstate 5 in Valencia. (805) 255-4849 ; Knott’s Scary Farm Halloween Haunt continues Friday-Tuesday from 7 p.m.-2 a.m. (Friday and Saturday are sold out) at Knott’s Berry Farm, 8039 Beach Blvd., Buena Park. (714) 220-5200. Tickets available through Ticketmaster.