The biggest haunt Temecula has ever seen opens today in the shadowing hills of the Temecula Valley Wine Country at Galway Downs. Temecula Terror is an indie-style haunt that invites thrill-seekers to visit the Inland Empire’s first-ever sinister Halloween harvest carnival, and last night I was fortunate enough to be invited out to experience it firsthand ahead of its official opening.
The first year haunt is a collaborative production of the Bloodshed Brothers and Clever Coven. It features three mazes, food vendors, a VIP Lounge, the Monster Roulette ride, local vendors, and live entertainment. The fun starts as soon as you arrive at the event, as guests must travel through a long tunnel to enter the event, which features strobing green lights, fog, and perhaps a monster or two.
I loved the entry experience because it’s like you’re traveling through a portal, leaving the ordinary world and entering the world of Temecula Terror. Once on the other side, you emerge with the entire experience laid out before you. The layout of the haunt is great in that it contains all of the mazes on one side of the event and the food, shopping, and entertainment experiences on the other.
More than just a collection of “haunted houses,” Temecula Terror looks to create the small-town feel of the Temecula of old, but in a spooky alternate reality. To enter the maze area, you enter through a giant devil head; much like the entrances you would have seen at the carnivals of old. Once on the other side, you’ll find the events three mazes, 301 Hyde Street, The Crypt, and Butterfield Asylum.
It’s here where Temecula Terror first show’s us its large-scale haunt spirit. When the mazes open for the night, the entrance to the maze area doubles as a platform for the town’s mayor, Mayor Butterfield, to welcome guests for the evening. An experience that, if you’ve ever attended The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, will feel familiar. The devilish mayor shares tales of the evil in the town, detailing the horrors that await in the Butterfield Asylum and heeding a warning to avoid the home of Otis Hatcher at 301 Hyde Street.
After he welcomes guests to the town, the monsters that occupy the town descend upon the crowd from behind and proceed to their respective mazes. An added element that adds to the excitement and feels very similar to the rope drop in Ghost Town at Knott’s Scary Farm.
After the monsters descend, you can make your way into the small town that houses the three mazes as well as the event bars. Once inside, you’ll first see Butterfield Asylum and its towering entrance, but then your eyes will quickly be drawn to the Halloween lights and decor that adorn 301 Hyde Street before discovering the massive gargoyle that sits atop the entrance of The Crypt.
Butterfield Asylum is a maze named after the real-life Butterfield Stage Route that runs through Temecula. The maze brings to life an imagined dark side of Temecula history with frights from the “outcasts” of society who have endured hard labor from sun-up to sun-down. This maze offers typical asylum fare full of hospital beds and patients in various states of sanity and dismemberment. Here the talent interacts with you in desperation and is not as much scary as it is disturbing. The set pieces are solid for an indie haunt, especially in the nursery and some of the patient rooms.
The Crypt is just that, a maze that takes you into the depths of forgotten catacombs where you’ll come face to face with the afterlife and maybe a spider or two. This maze has a unique feature in that each group that is pulsed into the maze is given a lantern to light their way. While the maze isn’t so dark you can’t see without it, it does make the experience a bit more immersive. Filled with traditional catacomb fare of skeletons, vines, tomblike structures, and the like, the real highlight of this maze is the spider room. This set is well done, and the eight-legged fiends that fill the room are sure to send those with arachniphobia running.
Saving the best for last, 301 Hyde Street is the gem of Temecula Terror. Home to fictional notorious social pariah Otis Hatcher, 301 Hyde Street invites haunt lovers to knock on the “haunted house” door this Halloween season for an up-close and personal encounter with Otis himself.
While the horror and scares in this maze top the other two mazes, the real charm of 301 Hyde Street is its wall-to-wall Halloween nostalgia. As you make your way through Hatcher’s home, you’ll enter a room filled with vintage blow molds, a hallway filled with floating jack-o-lantern treat pales, and a room filled floor to ceiling with the animated witches, ghosts, and monsters that were hugely popular in the 80s and 90s.
The maze is a Halloween lover’s dream, and I was in such awe of the sets, and the years of Halloween history that filled them I went through the maze twice to see all of the stuff it housed. Best of all, it doesn’t feel gimmicky or out of place. Because the maze’s facade is so decorated for Halloween, it really feels like you’ve just entered the home of someone obsessed with Halloween and then stumble upon the horrors they hide in the back of their house that aren’t related to Halloween.
Beyond the mazes, Temecula Terror also includes:
- VIP Lounge: Exclusive to VIP ticket holders, the VIP Lounge offers a chance to step away and watch over the terror while sipping on spooky cocktails served only at the VIP bar.
- Food Vendors: Dine on tasty bites from local food vendors offering a mixed variety of sweet and savory treats! Temecula local, the Trendy Chef, will put a spooky spin on America’s favorite fried snack, French fries.
- Ride: Take a spin on the Monster Roulette ride and risk being separated from your group as a monster just might hop into a seat last minute to take this daring ride with you.
- Bars / Beverages: Sip and indulge on Creepy Cocktails in the VIP lounge like the Jack O’ Lantern, a pumpkin-flavored whiskey drink, or the spell-bindingly good Witches Brew – a concoction of apples, red wine, oranges and cinnamon sticks. There are multiple general admission bars serving well drinks and sips.
- Shopping: Temecula Terror vendor sideshow highlights local spooky small businesses and companies for haunt fans of all ages to explore and meet artisans, makers, and curators.
My wife and I tried the Witches Brew, and I’ll tell you, one drink, and you’ll think fall exploded in your mouth, and to clarify, yes, that’s a good thing.
Overall, I thought Temecula Terror was a solid first-year haunt. While the talent and some of the set pieces feel like those of a home haunt or indie production, it borrows some of the best elements and has the spirit of larger haunts like Universal, Knott’s, and Dark Harbor.
I also think this would be a solid starter haunt for families, especially with the broader atmosphere of the event being more family-friendly. That’s not to say Temecula Terror lacks scares, I just think for the price point and the style of mazes, this would be a great one to bring haunt noobs to for a night of fun that everyone can enjoy.
And speaking of family-friendly, Temecula Terror will also include Family Fright Nights every Friday and Saturday and on Halloween night from 5 pm – 7 pm. During these early hours, families can enjoy a picture-worthy pumpkin patch, carnival games, a ride, local food vendors, and more. But from 7 pm – 11 pm, the scares are in full force.
Temecula Terror will take place for 19 select nights in October. Tickets start at $20 for adults (12 years old and above) and are on sale now at www.temeculaterror.com. Children’s tickets for Family Fright Nights start at $10. Adults ticket-holders who attend Family Fright hours will be invited to come back at no additional charge using their wristband that comes with purchase to enjoy the scarier elements of the haunt after 7 pm.
Temecula Terror at Galway Downs is located at 38801 Los Corralitos Rd in Temecula, CA.
