The period of creepy décor, cooler nights and a bit of costumed partying is here. The 2020 Halloween season was frightening for a real reason that arrived in the way of a pandemic. This year, however, everything is slightly different due to vaccinations. As of October 12, 2021, there have been 4,557,285 coronavirus cases and up to 69,756 COVID-19 deaths in California.
There has also been much talk about flattening the curve, but it has not happened so far. Nevertheless, the pandemic trends in a positive path. Event promoters around the world have revived a few of the best-known seasonal gatherings. According to your level of comfort in the coronavirus pandemic period, there is a lot to see and do in California, including the following.
Creepy Fun At Amusement Parks
Many people are not prepared for the sort of scary stuff that comes when in big crowds. Nevertheless, it has not kept amusement parks in Los Angeles from not using scare zones and mazes at their locations. Some of those amusement parks are Universal Studios parks, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Six Flags theme parks. The outdoor parts of Knott’s Scary Farm, Six Flags Fright Fest, and Halloween Horror Nights might be minimally risky things for you to experience. US indoor mazes are often about tight areas with strangers who scream; some are not willing to go through those areas but others are.
More than in the past, we welcome ghouls with masks outdoors and expect patrons to wear facial coverings more carefully. Enforcement, particularly outdoors, is not consistent with the earlier happenings at almost every theme park. As Disneyland says on its site, there is a possibility of getting exposed to coronavirus in public places with the presence of people.
Family-Friendly Haunts
The fall season pumpkin makes everyone feel tingly and warm. It is especially the case with illuminated gourds that are carved with comical, creepy and happy faces that always amuse the audience. Pasadena’s Descanso Gardens hosts Carved, an event with hundreds of illuminated pumpkin figures along a mile-long walk in its Camellia Forest. The park also has a hay maze, sinister sculptures and a house of pumpkins for you to explore.
Nights of the Jack also has splendid pumpkin figures, a spectacular show of lights, and monster-themed photograph opportunities. You might consider how the event maintains the freshness of the oranges, but most of those are plastic fruits. Nevertheless, it should not detract from the attractive visual experience that is Nights of the Jack, particularly as a walkthrough. The 2020 edition of Nights of the Jack was a drive-through event due to coronavirus.
The 2021 edition of Hauntoween also moves from automobiles to foot. The immersive and family-friendly event has a 150,000 square feet space with fiendish stuff, like pumpkin carving, Halloween tunnels, trick or treat and so forth.
The annual event Haunted Little Tokyo returns with a cool option for children. A scavenger hunt, pumpkin patch, block party and costume contests are among the festivities on show at the event.
Eerie Experiences
Delusion from Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, with Reaper’s Remorse as this year’s theme, looks to destroy others in the field of immersive theatrical events. Delusion creator Jon Braver comes back with a hands-on event in the eerie Phillips Mansion. At the event, guests can wander in a world with many narrative threads and experience many other things, including an odd scavenger hunt.
Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater Group’s Urban Death Tour of Terror is among the go-to immersive event trends. With different themes and themed vignettes, the space offers an adults-only walkthrough as well as a set of shocking and dramatic plots and twisted scenes.
Haunted Hayride returns to Griffith Park in Los Angeles with its conventional hayride too. In 2020, it took place in the form of a drive-in/drive-through event. It features clowns, big jack o’lantern figures, and other ghouls to offer a creepy experience. The event location also has a mortuary, a trick or treating opportunity, and a café.
If you consider red noses, big feet and white faces scary as hell, then make time for The Clown Academy. Happening at a clown school, the maze blends scholastic scares, games and nostalgia for a creepy and fun carnival.
The place in South Pasadena where John Carpenter filmed his Halloween movie is a well-known drive-by location. Nevertheless, because of SugarMynt Gallery nearby, the Pasadena location is worth a visit to experience all sorts of horror. There are trick or treat and Halloween movie-themed events in October here, alongside screenings of many Mike Meyers films and Haddonfield walking trips.
More Outdoor Events For This Year’s Halloween
Outdoor movie screenings offer the safest ways of celebrating the spooky period. Cinespia in Los Angeles celebrates the Halloween season properly. The October 2021 schedule of Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery will screen Blade, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Labyrinth. If you are into films, be sure to go through LA Weekly’s feature about the past of Cinespia.
At the same time, Street Food Cinema will screen The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Craft, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice at different locations. Some of those locations are Verdugo Park, the Autry Museum, LA State Historic Park and Poinsettia Park.
