I went yesterday, and in a lot of ways it feels like Haunt is back. For the past several years, really since COVID, the event has felt sort of like "Haunt-lite", like it was hitting the main notes but missing something. Yesterday I felt like the event has largely hit its stride again.
First, Diablo is every bit as amazing as folks have been making it out to be. It's almost surreal that this exists at KD. It almost feels more like a walk-through dark ride than a haunted house, and it makes even the likes of Blood on the Bayou (which I've long considered to be KD's crowning achievement in house design) feel second-rate by comparison. The storytelling, the audio, the lighting, the animatronics... it's incredible. I almost want this thing to be open year-round, because it's a shame for it to be accessible few weekends in the fall every year. I genuinely think Diablo isn't just one of the best haunted houses the park has ever had but one of the best attractions the park has ever had, period.
The minor improvements in some of the other houses are effective, too. The lighting and audio in F.E.A.R. is more overwhelming and creates the sort of "sensory overload" feeling I've been craving from that maze for years. GrimmWoods, especially the first half, feels far more effective with localized audio (wolves howling specifically around the Little Red section, for example) and more sophisticated lighting. And if I'm not mistaken, Bayou and Trick or Treat had some updated audio and lighting too. Several of these houses may be getting long in the tooth, but at least the park is still putting effort into making them feel polished.
Same with the scare zones. Cleaver Brothers has several great new props, and I think it's so much better now that they don't have the vibe-killing show in the middle of the zone (Sink The Jerk, while laughably overpriced and drawing basically zero attention that I could see, is at least minimally invasive to the atmosphere). The maze-like new layout of Pumpkin Eater is a great way to make this zone feel even bigger, although I miss the atmospherics of the hanging jack-o-lanterns which are gone this year. Catacombs is massively improved with the elimination of the incongruous DJ set in the middle and a new soundtrack which cleverly mixes a subtle techno beat (hinting at the vampire night club theme) with eerie sounds of drips, creaks, and screams; the scale of the sets in this one is impressive. Site X is much stronger in its location on Flat Rock versus its isolated location in the tiny Jungle Market Eatery patio last year, and the addition of the huge shipping crates to section off the area and a new soundtrack also helps the vibes. Even Masquerade seemed to be getting a lot of scares around the Eiffel Tower, although I still think the Arbor tunnel is a far more effective location for a scare zone (and think it's a shame that it's not being used for one this year).
The actors seemed to be doing a great job this year too. All of the mazes and scare zones felt at least adequately staffed. Maybe owing to the reduced amount of guests entering the mazes thanks to the haunted attractions pass, I was seeing a lot more sophisticated scares than I feel like I usually do. My group got triple teamed at the end of F.E.A.R -- one actor did a fake-out inside the last room, allowing an actor hiding outside the exit to pounce, but that turned out to be a second fake-out so a third actor along the exit path could come in for the kill -- and it was awesome.
Something I haven't seen mentioned is that a lot of the costumes seemed new. I really love the new old-fashioned clown costumes in Cleaver Brothers -- it seems like a lot of thought was put into their cohesion and creating a distinctly creepy, vintage style. Site X's cast also seemed to have more demonic-looking mutations of animal skeletons, versus the more cartoonish puppets and makeup of the past.
Decor-wise, the park just generally seems better prepared for Halloween than in the past. International Street looks great this year, and the use of the old Necropolis/Uprising props is really effective for making this area feel like part of the event even if it's not a dedicated scare area. Music choice also seems to be improved - there's more variety from area to area, where a few years ago I had complained that it seemed like half the park was playing generic "action movie trailer music" or relying on a track of ghostly moans that they've employed time and time again over the years.
What really makes the event feel "fuller" though, I think, is the live entertainment. I've never cared much for live entertainment at Haunt, but I think it really does help round out the event. It felt like something was missing the past several years without many live shows. Even if you're not into the shows, there's something about the feeling of there being more that makes the event feel like the park has pulled out all the stops; otherwise, once you've done all the houses and the scare zones, that's really all there is to experience. Skeleton Crew drew a huge crowd even on a relatively uncrowded night, and Wake The Dead was a surprisingly good show by KD standards. It's easily the one of the best musical shows I've seen at KD -- good vocalists, good songs, good choreography, a great set, solid pacing -- and it takes would could be a very cringey "murder mystery" concept and rather deftly employs it as a fun gimmick to add intrigue to the show without feeling awkward or relying on too much cheesy dialogue. It pales in comparison to the best HOS shows at BGW, although I'd make the case that Wake The Dead actually handles its dialogue and pacing better than some BGW shows from recent years.
If there was one negative, it was a big one, and that's the digital haunted attraction pass. What a pain in the ass. Just buying the damn thing in the app takes no fewer than 12 clicks/taps (I counted). Then redeeming it is unbelievably complicated and unintuitive; I shouldn't need to have two fellow enthusiasts proactively send me the redemption link to preempt my eventual struggle to find it. And not only does using it inexplicably require you to fish your phone out and select your maze to generate a new pass every time (WTF), but that functionality doesn't even happen in the app but on a janky ass separate webpage that was constantly refreshing and having trouble loading. Not to mention that drains your battery. It also (unsuprisingly) gums up the entrance to the mazes as people struggle to figure the system out, and at CornStalkers where the pass was scanned just before entering the maze, it caused the line to move at a glacial pace.
In one particularly baffling episode at CornStalkers, the usher scanned my friend's QR code but then asked our group to wait a minute so the group before us could enter separately. He then asked to scan that same friend's QR code again just a minute later, but the webpage wouldn't generate it again because it was already scanned and said he had to wait 15 minutes to generate a new one. Amazingly, the usher refused to let my friend enter because of that; he kept insisting we were "one code short" and seemed unwilling to understand that he'd already scanned one. After unsuccessfully trying to explain to the usher that that made no sense, I ended up just letting my friend use my pass and I sat out CornStalkers. I think this was the only time I've ever gotten into an argument with an employee at a theme park (or possibly anywhere). I love Kings Dominion and I (ironically enough) once worked that exact same position as a CornStalkers usher many moons ago -- and even for me that experience left a poor taste in my mouth. I can't imagine how many other people, without nearly as much affection for the park that I have, are left with a negative impression of KD thanks to similar inconveniences stemming from this stupid system.
I honestly don't really mind paying a small upcharge for the mazes. It's still significantly cheaper than HOS even with the upcharge, and Diablo alone is well worth the $10 for the pass. It doesn't hurt that the upcharge seems to really cut the lines down too, so even the basic haunted attractions pass is effectively an express pass. But Six Flags desperately needs to go back to the drawing board on how they implement it, and eliminate whatever bullshit technology integration KPI they were probably trying to hit with this idea, and come up with something dramatically simpler. I thought last year's wristband system was smooth enough.
All in all, the event is running great, the vibes are back, Diablo is amazing, the rest of the attractions are solid, and the digital haunted attractions pass blows.
First, Diablo is every bit as amazing as folks have been making it out to be. It's almost surreal that this exists at KD. It almost feels more like a walk-through dark ride than a haunted house, and it makes even the likes of Blood on the Bayou (which I've long considered to be KD's crowning achievement in house design) feel second-rate by comparison. The storytelling, the audio, the lighting, the animatronics... it's incredible. I almost want this thing to be open year-round, because it's a shame for it to be accessible few weekends in the fall every year. I genuinely think Diablo isn't just one of the best haunted houses the park has ever had but one of the best attractions the park has ever had, period.
The minor improvements in some of the other houses are effective, too. The lighting and audio in F.E.A.R. is more overwhelming and creates the sort of "sensory overload" feeling I've been craving from that maze for years. GrimmWoods, especially the first half, feels far more effective with localized audio (wolves howling specifically around the Little Red section, for example) and more sophisticated lighting. And if I'm not mistaken, Bayou and Trick or Treat had some updated audio and lighting too. Several of these houses may be getting long in the tooth, but at least the park is still putting effort into making them feel polished.
Same with the scare zones. Cleaver Brothers has several great new props, and I think it's so much better now that they don't have the vibe-killing show in the middle of the zone (Sink The Jerk, while laughably overpriced and drawing basically zero attention that I could see, is at least minimally invasive to the atmosphere). The maze-like new layout of Pumpkin Eater is a great way to make this zone feel even bigger, although I miss the atmospherics of the hanging jack-o-lanterns which are gone this year. Catacombs is massively improved with the elimination of the incongruous DJ set in the middle and a new soundtrack which cleverly mixes a subtle techno beat (hinting at the vampire night club theme) with eerie sounds of drips, creaks, and screams; the scale of the sets in this one is impressive. Site X is much stronger in its location on Flat Rock versus its isolated location in the tiny Jungle Market Eatery patio last year, and the addition of the huge shipping crates to section off the area and a new soundtrack also helps the vibes. Even Masquerade seemed to be getting a lot of scares around the Eiffel Tower, although I still think the Arbor tunnel is a far more effective location for a scare zone (and think it's a shame that it's not being used for one this year).
The actors seemed to be doing a great job this year too. All of the mazes and scare zones felt at least adequately staffed. Maybe owing to the reduced amount of guests entering the mazes thanks to the haunted attractions pass, I was seeing a lot more sophisticated scares than I feel like I usually do. My group got triple teamed at the end of F.E.A.R -- one actor did a fake-out inside the last room, allowing an actor hiding outside the exit to pounce, but that turned out to be a second fake-out so a third actor along the exit path could come in for the kill -- and it was awesome.
Something I haven't seen mentioned is that a lot of the costumes seemed new. I really love the new old-fashioned clown costumes in Cleaver Brothers -- it seems like a lot of thought was put into their cohesion and creating a distinctly creepy, vintage style. Site X's cast also seemed to have more demonic-looking mutations of animal skeletons, versus the more cartoonish puppets and makeup of the past.
Decor-wise, the park just generally seems better prepared for Halloween than in the past. International Street looks great this year, and the use of the old Necropolis/Uprising props is really effective for making this area feel like part of the event even if it's not a dedicated scare area. Music choice also seems to be improved - there's more variety from area to area, where a few years ago I had complained that it seemed like half the park was playing generic "action movie trailer music" or relying on a track of ghostly moans that they've employed time and time again over the years.
What really makes the event feel "fuller" though, I think, is the live entertainment. I've never cared much for live entertainment at Haunt, but I think it really does help round out the event. It felt like something was missing the past several years without many live shows. Even if you're not into the shows, there's something about the feeling of there being more that makes the event feel like the park has pulled out all the stops; otherwise, once you've done all the houses and the scare zones, that's really all there is to experience. Skeleton Crew drew a huge crowd even on a relatively uncrowded night, and Wake The Dead was a surprisingly good show by KD standards. It's easily the one of the best musical shows I've seen at KD -- good vocalists, good songs, good choreography, a great set, solid pacing -- and it takes would could be a very cringey "murder mystery" concept and rather deftly employs it as a fun gimmick to add intrigue to the show without feeling awkward or relying on too much cheesy dialogue. It pales in comparison to the best HOS shows at BGW, although I'd make the case that Wake The Dead actually handles its dialogue and pacing better than some BGW shows from recent years.
If there was one negative, it was a big one, and that's the digital haunted attraction pass. What a pain in the ass. Just buying the damn thing in the app takes no fewer than 12 clicks/taps (I counted). Then redeeming it is unbelievably complicated and unintuitive; I shouldn't need to have two fellow enthusiasts proactively send me the redemption link to preempt my eventual struggle to find it. And not only does using it inexplicably require you to fish your phone out and select your maze to generate a new pass every time (WTF), but that functionality doesn't even happen in the app but on a janky ass separate webpage that was constantly refreshing and having trouble loading. Not to mention that drains your battery. It also (unsuprisingly) gums up the entrance to the mazes as people struggle to figure the system out, and at CornStalkers where the pass was scanned just before entering the maze, it caused the line to move at a glacial pace.
In one particularly baffling episode at CornStalkers, the usher scanned my friend's QR code but then asked our group to wait a minute so the group before us could enter separately. He then asked to scan that same friend's QR code again just a minute later, but the webpage wouldn't generate it again because it was already scanned and said he had to wait 15 minutes to generate a new one. Amazingly, the usher refused to let my friend enter because of that; he kept insisting we were "one code short" and seemed unwilling to understand that he'd already scanned one. After unsuccessfully trying to explain to the usher that that made no sense, I ended up just letting my friend use my pass and I sat out CornStalkers. I think this was the only time I've ever gotten into an argument with an employee at a theme park (or possibly anywhere). I love Kings Dominion and I (ironically enough) once worked that exact same position as a CornStalkers usher many moons ago -- and even for me that experience left a poor taste in my mouth. I can't imagine how many other people, without nearly as much affection for the park that I have, are left with a negative impression of KD thanks to similar inconveniences stemming from this stupid system.
I honestly don't really mind paying a small upcharge for the mazes. It's still significantly cheaper than HOS even with the upcharge, and Diablo alone is well worth the $10 for the pass. It doesn't hurt that the upcharge seems to really cut the lines down too, so even the basic haunted attractions pass is effectively an express pass. But Six Flags desperately needs to go back to the drawing board on how they implement it, and eliminate whatever bullshit technology integration KPI they were probably trying to hit with this idea, and come up with something dramatically simpler. I thought last year's wristband system was smooth enough.
All in all, the event is running great, the vibes are back, Diablo is amazing, the rest of the attractions are solid, and the digital haunted attractions pass blows.
Last edited:
