For the second year in a row, I kicked off the spooky season by taking my teen daughter and a friend to experience Fright Fest at Six Flags Great America. Unlike last year, when we weren’t able to get to every haunted house in one evening, we explored all five on our recent outing with plenty of time to spare for several rides (for them) and a visit to the Oktoberfest area (for me). It was one of our best-ever visits to the park, for a number of reasons.
Perhaps because we made the trek early in the season (the last Sunday of September), there wasn’t a huge crush of thrill seekers clogging the lines for the mazes, leaving us with no more than a 15-minute wait at any of them.
Before the haunts opened at 6:30pm, we hit Hometown Square for the latest iteration of The Uprising, during which all the ghouls and goons parade around in trolleys (pictured above) before scattering throughout the park as darkness descends.
There’s also a big musical production number capping off the parade. This year, new demon on the block Rakshasa (named for the park’s big new coaster, Wrath of Rakshasa) challenges Nox, Great America’s perennial underworld overlord, for dominion over Hell. I won’t tell you how things turn out for Rakshasa, but Nox has plenty of evil tricks up his sleeve plus enough devilish swagger to get you rooting for the forces of darkness.
After enjoying the well-choreographed dance-fighting melee, we made a beeline for The Conjuring-themed haunted house making its debut this year. Here’s how it rated against the four returning haunts.
The Conjuring Universe
Patterned after the long-running horror film franchise, this new haunt, which replaced the Stranger Things maze, delivers creepy highlights from the case files of paranormal researchers the Warrens, including the demonic doll Annabelle and the farmhouse where it all began with a nerve-shattering exorcism.
The girls and I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The sets were amazing and, in addition to some fun jump scares, a couple of encounters with highly committed performers raised goosebumps and elicited shrieks.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
This was the haunt we missed last year due to time constraints, and it was worth the wait. The chainsaws are real (without the chains) and we were suitably terrorized throughout the maze, after which we encountered another gang of chainsaw-wielding maniacs on the way through Yukon Territory. The revving sound, the smell of gas and the menacing psychos wielding the saws combined to fuel a waking nightmare, in a good way.
SAW: Legacy of Terror
As with The Conjuring haunt, the recreation of infamous sets from this horror film series was impressive and packed with gore. There were some decent jump scares and my daughter, who has seen all of the SAW films, greeted each creepy character as if it was a long-lost friend.
Big Top Terror: Forgotten Carnival 3D
Our favorite haunt of Fright Fest 2024 fizzled this year. It felt like it was under-staffed and there just weren’t any scares to be had. Your mileage may vary, as a lot of the experience depends on what time you go through and where you are situated in the group, but this was our one disappointment.
The Estate at Wretched Meadows
Conversely, my least-favorite haunt of 2024 turned out to be my favorite this year. The actors were really determined to freak us out, including the demonic woman who stood just outside the entrance for a time staring malevolently and dripping copious amounts of blood from her mouth. We encountered her during the walk-through as well, which occasioned one of my biggest shrieks of the night.
Oktoberfest
While the girls used the rest of the evening to do some thrill riding, I trekked back across the park to the Oktoberfest activation tucked away on the Yukon BBQ Pit patio. Because it closes an hour before the park does, I had to hustle, but I got there in time to enjoy some good German beer and live music from a 90s alt-rock cover band from the Northwest suburbs, SK8ER BOYZ, that was performing an all-request set for revelers gathered around the standing tables and relaxing in a scattering of Adirondack chairs.
The food was a real highlight there, especially the sausage on a stick with spicy mustard dip. And the prices were incredibly reasonable compared to some of the park’s other meal options. This island of Bavarian revelry creates a bit of cognitive dissonance among the sea of horrors swirling all around it, but this Oktoberfest is a treat.
The season’s oddest “innovation” is a “No boo necklace.” For $18.99, scaredy cats can don the light-up necklace “to let our monsters know not to scare you!” We saw an adult man wearing one as he entered The Conjuring haunt, which would seem to set up an impossible scenario for the performers, as the guy went in with a group of folks who presumably did want to be scared enough to pay for the add-on Haunted Attractions Pass required to access the mazes.
My daughter’s friend did a much better job of getting into the spirit of the event than that lame dude. She figured out that if she presented herself as skittish and full of dread as we walked around the park, the roaming ghouls would single her out for extra scares. It worked.
On the other hand, my daughter was annoyed that Nox, who strolls around Fright Fest with an entourage befitting a headlining demon, refused to take a picture with her yet again this year, even though he was posing with other guests. I guess she’ll just have to go back next year and try to sweet-talk Nox into giving a ghoul a break.
Fright Fest runs weekends and select weeknights through November 2 at Six Flags Great America.
Photo by Frank Sennett
