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With the popularity of all
things pirates these days, it's no wonder that Knott's Halloween
Haunt features a swashbuckling terror trip called Red Beard's
Revenge. This maze, which is located just at the entrance
of The Gauntlet, has been with Knott's for a few seasons now -
and has remained a guest favorite, while receiving both hot and
cold reviews from Scary Farm fans. |
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Red Beard's Revenge had a
really rocky start - and that has been the stigma that it's
existed under for the past couple of years.
The look of the maze
has always been very nice; great props, scary hallways and
walkways and terrific hiding spots for salty ol' pirates.
In the case of Red Beard's, the make-or-break aspect has always
been its talent. Opening year, the talent fell flat, for
the most part. It was a huge disappointment both to Haunt
fans and even worse - to those crew members that busted their
asses each night only to be brought down by a majority of
monsters that felt they were automatically going to be the best
simply because the word-of-mouth build-up to its debut was so
strong. |
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Ever since its rough-at-best
opening, Red Beard's Revenge has been on the mend. It
has improved as a Haunt experience since then - but the
damage has been done. There aren't too many fans that we
come into contact with that go on and on about how they cannot
wait for Red Beard's again; and we do not see people really
rushing to queue up for this maze when the Scary Farm opens.
It was an unfortunate mis-calculation - or whatever you want to
call it - by the mazes initial crew that has doomed Red Beard's
to in our opinion, always being a second-rate Haunt maze.
We go through it each year with a, "Let's see how they do
this year" approach. And right or wrong, fair or
unfair - that is how we feel about it. Obviously, we
cannot be alone in this frame of thought regarding Red Beard's. |
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Are we fans of the whole
pirate theme? Yeah, to a point, we are. Is it
wearing thin on us? Yeah. After being bombarded by
the Disney marketing machine behind its Pirates of the
Caribbean franchise and everyone else and their mother doing
pirate-themed shows and events, the whole theme has become a bit
stale for us.
That said, we feel that Red
Beard's revenge has another decent year in it for 2007's run of
the 35th Annual Halloween Haunt. After that - it's going
to be really worn-out. Hopefully, the team will
really rise to the occasion and make Red Beard's stand out in
what hopefully will be its strongest run so far in 2007.
We're certainly hoping that's what happens. |
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There's nothing wrong with the
look and the sound of Red Beard's. As far as Haunt mazes
go, it's pretty elaborate. It just goes to show that first
year impressions are almost everything when it comes to
the long-term success of a Haunt venue. It rings true;
take a look at CarnEvil. The first years, this scare zone
was at best, pathetic when it came to talent. Most people
didn't even know it was a listed scare zone. Now,
the talent is really becoming more polished and more prevalent
in the Haunt hierarchy. CarnEvil, once laughable and at
best, frustrating to all - now has become (and will continue to
become) - a force to be reckoned with.
Red Beard's may not have the
time that CarnEvil does to pull itself from infamy all the way -
but each year that the Haunt gods give this maze a chance, it is
up to the talent to kick as much ass as humanly possible to
really live up to expectations - and beyond. |
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All in all, Red Beard's
Revenge isn't at the top of our Haunt experience list - but it's
not at the bottom, either. It's a yo-ho pirate experience
that is just kind of ho-hum most of the time. Now,
that's not to say that there aren't monsters that bust their
butts non-stop and are very impressive. The problem
with these pirates and this maze are the ghosts of the past
coming back to haunt them each year - and in this case, dead men
do tell tales.
Everyone just needs to work
extra hard in Red Beard's to silence those voices from the past. |
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