Six Flags Magic Mountain raises the bar with two new Fright Fest mazes

For the better part of the past decade, Fright Fest at Six Flags Magic Mountain has run a distant third in Southern California behind the twin terrors of Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Halloween Haunt.

Up until 2007, Fright Fest was “free” with park admission and you got what you paid for: Unimpressive paint-and-plywood mazes with generic spooky themes and disinterested monsters in rubber masks.

Back in 2011, Magic Mountain quietly launched a multi-year, multimillion-dollar investment in Fright Fest in hopes of catching up with Universal Studios Hollywood and Knott’s Berry Farm, which offer arguably the best one-two punch of haunted theme park events in the country if not the world.

Magic Mountain’s Fright Fest fix began with the introduction of the massive Aftermath outdoor maze and a complete renovation of Willoughby’s Haunted Mansion, both of which significantly raised the bar for quality at the annual Halloween event.

This year brings two new mazes that promise to live up to the higher standards: Red’s Revenge and Vault 666.

Like Aftermath and Willoughby’s, the two new mazes will be housed in permanent locations that don’t require the attractions to be disassembled at the end of the Halloween season. Third-party companies that specialize in haunted attractions have been hired to add theatrical sets, thematic props and video, lighting and special effects to both of the new mazes.

Spoiler alert: What follows are detailed previews of Red’s Revenge and Vault 666. Consider yourself warned.

Located behind the Full Throttle sports bar, Red’s Revenge turns the classic fairy tale on its head with a risen-from-the-dead Little Red Riding Hood hunting the Big Bad Wolf and anybody else who wanders into the forest (that would be you and me).

Designed by Denver-based Little Spider Creations, the Red’s Revenge maze features a number of realistic three-dimensional sets with detailed props, animatronics and effects.

Red’s Revenge begins with identical twin entrances that allow the park to continuously pulse in crowds of 20 or so visitors without causing a conga line of traffic inside the maze. A video pre-show sets the back story for the maze.

Summoned by a vengeful Red, creatures of the night inhabiting a haunted forest feast on villagers fleeing their demolished hamlet. At one point, an 8-foot-tall animatronic spider emerges from behind a cluster of trees.

Inside Red’s cottage in the woods, flames flicker in a fireplace amid signs of a brutal slaughter. A surprise awaits visitors under grandma’s bed.

A basement cellar turns into an underground cavern with detailed rockwork that leads to the maze’s finale: Red’s throne room where the fairy-tale heroine exacts her ultimate revenge.

But don’t let up your guard just yet. There’s a final scare, a final-final scare and a final-final-final scare still to come.

Located behind Full Throttle Plaza, Vault 666 takes visitors inside an abandoned secret government research facility that once conducted genetic experiments crossing humans with animals.

Visitors start in a pre-show room with a short video that provides the maze’s back story amid oozing barrels and buzzing alarms.

An early scene inside a storage warehouse filled with crates and boxes marked “Corrosive” and “Fragile” literally comes to life when items on the shelves start rattling and rumbling -- all triggered at random intervals by monsters hiding in secret compartments.

Stepping inside a power-control room, the lights dim as a man is electrocuted by a loose wire amid arcing electrical sound and lighting effects.

Inside a chain-link cage, a 10-foot-tall rear projection video screen teeming with zombie silhouettes tilts precariously toward visitors as they try to escape the temporary prison.

Throughout the immersive Vault 666, visitors are splashed with blood from a crimson pool, blasted with steam from a busted pipe and startled by oil barrels rattling noisily to life. Each room is wisely separated by heavy-duty meat locker dividers, which provide cover for maze monsters to reset for the next scare.

There’s still plenty of room for improvement at Fright Fest and Magic Mountain still has plenty of ground to make up to catch Knott’s and Universal, which have continued to improve over the past few years.

Fright Fest needs to continue mining public domain fairy tales, urban legends and conspiracy theories for compelling stories to compete with the slate of marquee horror names at Universal Studios. Introducing a main character that recurs throughout the maze and not just at the conclusion will go a long way to improving the storytelling.

Magic Mountain also needs to keep adding to the number of Fright Fest monsters with prosthetic makeup to keep up with the thousand-strong horde working at Knott’s Haunt. Those “scareactors” should be employed in repeatable scripted scenes inside each maze.

While it remains to be seen if the new Willoughby’s Garden of Darkness maze lives up to the Fright Fest’s higher standards, Magic Mountain still has plenty of work to do with the holdover Toyz of Terror and Chupacabra mazes that remain continuing reminders of the bad old days.

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