Hauntington Beach Manor presents Midnight Shadows: 2022 Review
Westminster Mall, Westminster, CA
Hey, folks! Did you read our Prism Haunt update posted just earlier today? Well, it's the first part of a doubleheader that sees two excellent home haunts turned pro create a terrific twin bill that gives Orange County haunt fans something to be proud of and less distance to travel to visit a top-tier haunted attraction that's usually found in L.A. County of The Valley. The second part? Well, that's this update, and it features Hauntington Beach Manor, a haunt that made its pro debut at the Westminster Mall last year!
Hauntington Beach Manor is one of two haunted houses occupying the first floor of the old Sears building at the Westminster Mall. The entrance to Prism is on the right, and Hauntington Beach Manor is to the left in this photo.
This year, Hauntington Beach Manor returns to the scene of last year's screams--but not exactly. It's actually in a different part of the mall, in the abandoned Sears building facing the I-405 freeway, located around the corner from JC Penney and near a Halloween carnival and pumpkin patch that has been set up in the parking lot. This year also brings an entirely new production that is distinctly different than last year's Sanitarium, which is inline with HBM's practices dating back to its home haunt days. Creator Jay Horskey has always conjured up a new theme each year, similar to the folks at Rotten Apple 907, and this year isn't about to buck that trend!
The 2022 edition of Hauntington Beach Haunt is entitled Midnight Shadows and follows a fictitious ghost hunter collective called the Midnight Society as they investigate the old, run-down Little Hope Orphanage that met a grisly and incendiary end a century ago on Halloween night. That tragedy resulted in the death of a little girl named Lucy Gray, and legend has it that she still haunts the facility to this very day, controlling every aspect of the premises. Naturally, the supernatural investigators at the Midnight Society are here to confirm the signs of spectral activity and try to uncover more about the mystery behind the demise of the Little Hope Orphanage.
It’s time to check into the Little Hope Orphanage.
We are guided into the institution by a member of the Midnight Society, who explains the history of Little Hope as we enter the gates and proceed to the lobby. Upon coming in, we immediately find another Midnight Society member acting eccentrically and behaving as though she works at the orphanage. It isn't long before Lucy Gray makes her presence felt, rapping on the walls and initiating a disturbance.
This doesn't seem to phase the guide too much, who must be used to this activity already in this apparently highly haunted orphanage. As the group proceeds into the next room, she explains that Lucy loves playing tricks on the team and can control various objects. On cue, figures move and dolls talk and spin their heads, making it very clear that Lucy is very much present and not necessarily pleased with her new visitors.
Things are certainly unsettling around here.
The spirit's malevolence soon becomes clear, as we encounter a Midnight Society member who has Lucy's voice inside her head and cannot get her out. Like something out of Poltergeist, the lights start flashing on and off, and fixed objects begin to shift and clank, and soon there is fog and hissing and a cacophony of noises--all signs that Lucy finds us most unwelcome. The haunted environment quickly spirals out of control as Lucy's anger seems to possess the very orphanage itself. Our tour has now turned into an escape mission, and we must navigate our way out of the facilities with Lucy seemingly hot on our trail!
What ensues is a breathless journey through more and more twisted rooms with mutilated dolls and demonic babies and nefarious orphans and Midnight Society members who seem to have become possessed. The spaces grow more disturbing and fetid, as though the very orphanage itself is rotting in front of us at time-lapse speed. For a brief moment, it seems as though Lucy may be contained by the few remaining Midnight Society members who have not been twisted into her control, but she breaks out in a climactic moment that spectacularly mixes video and mechanical effects to produce a jaw-dropping, adrenaline-pumping moment unlike anything we've ever witnessed!
A group of ghost hunters has set up shop here, but they may have bitten off more than they can chew.
Somehow, we find our way to the sewers, where Lucy continues to taunt us even though we are no longer in the orphanage. Like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, we have to make our way through a legitimately damp and slimy passageway--though thankfully on our feet instead of crawling through. One final trap remains--a runoff dumping ground that takes the appearance of a foul swamp, brimming with hidden and hideous boggy creatures and no apparent means to leave. Somehow, we're able to find a hidden exit, and we find ourselves back outside the entry yard of the Little Hope Orphanage, alive and barely unscathed.
The haunted maze takes guests through a variety of rooms.
It's rare these days that we end a maze with a mixture of giddiness, excitement, and awe that reduces us to children clambering in amazement, but that was the reaction coming out of Midnight Shadows. The thoroughly cinematic experience, mixing trigger effects, video integration, programmed lighting and sound, synchronized fog effects, creative design scares, and a plethora of fervent, intense scareactors produced a truly spectacular and unbelievable haunted house jaunt. We were practically flabberghasted at the lengths of immersion that Hauntington Beach Manor achieved with this year's production, which blended innovative immersive theater with a traditional haunted maze to manifest a genuinely incredible bout of storytelling. Having a guide pace us through helped keep the choreographed scares and show moments well-placed and organic. At the same time, when the situation appeared to break down, and we were left to flee for our salvation, the tempo of the maze didn't suffer either, and the special effects matched quickened gait.
We were also highly impressed with the commitment of the maze talent, who convincingly played their part as possessed or mentally tortured victims of Lucy Gray's evil. There was one fiend in a bathroom area who appeared viscerally out of his mind, then bounded forward in an animalistic trot with disturbing speed. In another room, a collection of corpses was brought back to life, jerking forth with discomfiting gesticulations. The psychopathic orphans play-torturing their toys also ramped up the creepiness. And there were also all the perfectly-timed jump scares from doorways and hidden openings.
There are all sorts of twisted fiends in here.
From a pure intensity level, Hauntington Beach Manor's Midnight Society maze may very well be the scariest haunt of the season. At the very least, it is easily one of the most vivid and astonishing ones. The richness in decor and theming is exceptional, and though HBM still retains a traditional, unpolished home haunt aesthetic, the level of detail is so comprehensive that it still feels professional and stands up to the best of today's more technologically-laden, "Haunt 2.0" (as we've nicknamed it, alluding to the cleaner look of Web 2.0 design) designs.
Do not play with the orphans.
Suffice to say that Hauntington Beach Manor is a can't-miss for this Halloween season. The caliber of work they've done is magnificent, and the even more impressive part is that the creators will continue to add to and tweak and enhance the experience throughout the month to improve the execution and immersion of the storytelling. This is also traditional--back as a home haunt, Hauntington Beach Manor would add and adjust each weekend to enrich what was already a pretty complete maze (by most haunts' standards). It’s hard for us to pick criticisms from what we saw though. Maybe the guided nature of the maze could prove to be difficult to maintain during busier nights, when waits may grow lengthy. The very end of the maze was also surprisingly not climactic given the thrills that had preceded it. But it makes a lot of storyline sense, and there’s a different type of fear manipulation involved, so it’s still pretty deviously daunting.
In addition, as they have done in past years, Hauntington Beach Manor is also supporting great local causes with profits from their operations. This year, the charities are WAGS Pet Adoption in Westminster and Patriots and Paws. We've often talked about how the haunt community is often intertwined with community service, and this is just another sterling example of that. So we highly encourage people to pay a visit to the Westminster Mall this October and support Hauntington Beach Manor, as well as its neighbor haunt, Prism!
Guests must try to escape the wrath of Lucy Gray, and they may have to make a damp getaway!
Hauntington Beach Manor is located at 2110 Westminster Mall, Westminster, CA 92683 and runs select evenings the rest of this month, through Halloween night. Guests should purchase tickets in advance online. Tickets for Hauntington Beach Manor range from $22 to $30 per person depending on the night, or combo tickets to both HBM and Prism run $40 to $56 per person depending on the night. Front-of-line Fastpass upgrades are also available for an extra $5 per attraction. The entrance to Hauntington Beach Manor is the main department store storefront, clearly visible from the parking lot. There is also a waiver that guests will need to print out and sign before entering the maze, but this is more of a standard assumption of risk release and not indicative of any extreme haunt activity where guests may be touched or shocked or come in contact with insects or animals.
Architect. Photographer. Disney nerd. Haunt enthusiast. Travel bugged. Concert fiend. Asian.
