The Dreich Society presents Fear Fest Grindhouse: 2021 Review
The Dreich Society, Ontario, CA
We have a #FlashbackFrightday today with another look at a home haunt that we visited late this past Halloween season. Today’s destination is a haunt that we’ve known about for many years, owing to their Midsummer Scream Hall of Shadows appearances, but we’ve never been able to visit the full production because it’s always run over Halloween weekend only, and we’ve never been in the area.
We’re talking about The Dreich Society, an Ontario-based home haunt that we first saw three years ago when they put on a Satanic ritual-themed mini haunt at Midsummer Scream but really caught our eye a year later with their impressive theater facade at the Hall of Shadows boasting Fear Fest ‘89, a triple feature with classic 1980s horror IP’s presented through the idea of a cinema spree. That was a teaser of their full maze later that fall, and last year, they continued the Fear Fest theme with Fear Fest 1941, taking guests back five decades earlier with a maze themed to movies of the World War II era. Not even catastrophic wind damage occurring the week before they were scheduled to open could derail their sequel maze. This year, fittingly enough, capped the finale of the Fear Fest trilogy, and the theme of Fear Fest Grindhouse paid homage to the low-budget, exploitation slashers that were popular especially in the 1970s.
Featured attractions at this year’s Fear Fest presentation from The Dreich Society—the last in their home haunt trio!
For years, I've wanted to visit The Dreich Society for more than just their Midsummer Scream mini haunts. But their operation only on Halloween weekend has meant that I've never been able to make it. This changed this past Halloween when I ended up in the Inland Empire on Halloween night and was finally able to check out their final installment of their Fear Fest home haunt trilogy!
This year's version brought guests through four imaginary dark indie style movies that embraced the absurd side of horror. With creative and fantastic titles like The Phantom of the Ice Rink, The Feaster Bunny, The Meathouse of Dr. Moreau, and Dino Warriors of the Year 3000, this macabre movie marathon was campy in its frights. Although grindhouse films are traditionally known for their graphic, explicitly violent content, The Dreich Society and creator Sean Burke chose to focus on the over-the-top, absurd nature of horror that is prominent in many grindhouse movies. This allowed an experience that started off simply as odd but descended into deeper depths of bizarre and brazen scares as the maze went on.
Guests arriving at the Ontario (California, not Canada) residence were invited to wait in line and view throwback cinema announcements and movie trailers as they waited. A projector cast clips onto the garage door, and similar to queueing to see a new release, guests waited until it was their turn to move up the side yard to the actual entrance of the maze, located in the back yard.
The Feaster Bunny is here to devour souls.
The maze itself began innocently enough with a stop at what appeared to be the backroom of an obscure video store that seemed to specialize in off-the-cuff, low budget productions. Corny movie posters and video equipment from decades back created a relic in time, before guests continue through a long, ominous corridor to their first scene, the Phantom of the Ice Rink. As an opening scene, this was a moment of absurdist bravado, as a charismatic Phantom—half mask and all—pronounced the doom of the incoming guests, all while set against a jarringly contrasting disco-ball-illuminated skating rink bathed in cool blues.
Then it was onto the Feaster Bunny, a clever pun for a carnivorous sewer-dwelling rabbit that might very well be the modern day incarnation of the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. Popping out from the depths of its unseen hideout, this horrific hare seemed like it had seen better days.
Then it was onto The Meathouse of Dr. Moreau, a play on the famous island, presumably. A hideous hound and a macabre processing compound hinted at body processing atrocities. Here, guests could find Sean in the maze himself, popping out with a jump scare and distracting guests from a quirky Simpsons Easter egg reference against the wall.
OMG WATCH OUT FOR DINOS!!
Finally, it was time for the finale and by far my favorite part of the maze. Dino Warriors of the Year 3000 took guests to a futuristic wasteland where man was on the run against prehistoric reptiles that ha re-emerged in the future, slaughtering mankind. This was the most energetic part of the maze, with military personnel yelling for evacuations and chaos erupting as the dinos attacked! The highlight of the scene and the entire maze was a ferocious raptor blowing a shrill whistle while a soldier bellowed, "WATCH OUT! THEY WHISTLE JUST BEFORE THEY ATTACK!!" I just about died with laughter, which is probably the dinosaurs’ strategy, come to think about it.
Fear Fest Grindhouse was not as photogenic or richly themed as some of the other home haunts I’d seen this season, but its absurdist and original themes were wildly enjoyable. It was great to see Sean’s vivid and sometimes ridiculous imagination play out in a setting that mixed in with horror. The Dreich Society’s embrace of the fun side of haunting made for an entertaining haunt, and I'm glad I finally got to make it to the full show!
The apocalyptic world of dinosaur-ruled dystopia was by far the highlight of Fear Fest Grindhouse.
The Deich Society is located at 1130 E Highland Ct, Ontario, CA 91764 and ran Saturday, October 30 through Sunday, October 31st, from 6:30 - 10:30. This haunt traditionally only operates the weekend of Halloween but is in close proximity to other San Bernardino area home haunts, like Straite to Hale, Greenewitch Cemetery, Hellsir, and Samhain’s Lot. They’ve already announced next year’s theme: “Nightmare,” a brand new sensory overload. What does this promise? We’ll have to come back in 2022 to find out!
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
