Few mazes in Halloween Haunt history have been bounced around and changed as much as The Asylum.  During its first year at the Scary Farm in 2003, The Asylum made its debut in the area of Knott's Berry Farm known as Stagecoach Lawn, which was across from the Little Chapel By The Lake (R.I.P.).  The Asylum had the most detailed facade to that point at Haunt and blew everyone away.  It wasn't a maze.  It was the Mangler Asylum!  And it was breathtaking.

The roller coaster Silver Bullet came to Knott's and that entire section of the Berry Farm became one huge sea of concrete.  The Asylum was displaced and has ended up backstage in a huge white warehouse behind GhostRider.

That was the downfall for the aesthetics of The Asylum.  The talent of that maze has never been anything but tremendous.  About to celebrate its fifth season at Knott's Scary Farm, The Asylum remains one of the darkest and most foreboding mazes in Haunt history - it is a classic already that fans will remember and talk about for decades to come.  And that is mostly talent-driven.  Without talent, you can have a beautiful maze but the experience is moot.  Throw kick-ass talent into that beautiful maze, and you have a legacy such as The Asylum's.

We cannot avoid discussing the maze's new home and how it impacted The Asylum negatively.  As seen below (as the first and last image in our first round of pictures), The Asylum's new home is a massive white "box" of a building.  The once-impressive facade of the Mangler Asylum looked small, cheesy and completely weak when thrust up against the plain white metal siding of this backstage warehouse.  Facade, fantasy, suspension of disbelief and realty collided and The Asylum lost.  The visual of the black facade against this white warehouse was shocking, to say the least.  Never has a Haunt maze facade gone from being at one time, the most incredible ever at the Scary Farm to one of the worst ever in its lifetime.  Truthfully, there isn't much Knott's can do about this - although perhaps starting the maze outside of the building would at least set the facade away from the warehouse and at least leave the illusion of Mangler being real alive and well in the minds of Haunt visitors.  The maze could have then wound its way into the warehouse, where the bulk of it could have remained inside without losing the dark, beautiful effect of the facade.  That didn't happen - and The Asylum looks terrible against the warehouse.

Once inside, the positive thing is, that Knott's now has this maze in a controlled environment.  For the talent, that is good news as well - when it rains (and it does rain at Haunt - just ask anyone that's attended TPA Night recently), the lunatics are safe and dry.  No worries about the elements - although being inside also brings with it the possibility of the maze becoming stuffy and even hot when the weather is warm outside.

And then there is the issue of lighting.  The ceiling inside the warehouse was white - just like the outside.  That reflected the show lighting from the maze and for once, The Asylum wasn't very effective as a "dimly-lit" maze at all; in fact, anyone looking upward was instantly distracted by how bright it was inside that building.  The white ceiling was a terrible blow to the overall experience of The Asylum.  Luckily, that has been corrected now and guests this year at Haunt will find that the ceiling is now dark.  That should make a huge difference for what could very possibly be the final year of this incredible Scary Farm maze.

The soundtrack of The Asylum has always been very strong - and while certain elements have come and gone, it remains very eerie and very nicely-mixed.  Kudos to the Sound God(s).

The Asylum has spawned yet another group of ladies that will be remembered just like the Vampire Brides, the Blue-Haired Girls, the 13 Axe Brides and The Club Chupacabra Girls - the Nurses of Mangler.  Knott's has perhaps unwittingly created an on-going "tradition" of placing small groups of women within various Haunt mazes that kind of become the "sensual distraction" from the rest of the experience.  Knott's has absolutely used this over the years throughout the Scary Farm.  And it works.  The Nurses in The Asylum have been horrifying and hugely successful as a sub-group within the otherwise-gruesome maze.  Props to the ladies in white over the years!

There is little dispute that The Asylum is one of the greatest mazes to ever grace the Scary Farm.  Genius design, impeccable talent over the years and fantastic execution (with the exception of the big-ass white warehouse completely obliterating the gorgeous facade) have come together to create the perfect storm.  And that storm will forever be known as The Mangler Asylum.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For whatever reason, we obviously didn't get as many shots of The Asylum as we thought we had - if any readers wish to contribute their own images to this page, send them to Theme Park Adventure by clicking here.  Note that all images may not be used, nor does TPA compensate readers for the use of their images.

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