For some time now, Knott’s Scary Farm has existed as something of a rite of passage for local youths. Exit the park with all of your bodily functions under control and you have taken a small but significant step toward adulthood. You see, Scary Farm forgoes the innocent “How will I ever be able to memorize the times table” anxieties of pre-adolescence in favor of a more mature “Sweet Lord, I am actually going to be murdered right now” kind of terror as, over the course of the evening, you are jumped toward, yelled at and blindsided by all manner of convincingly costumed park employees. It has been known to reduce many a pre-teen (or at least many of the bespectacled milquetoasts we palled around with in middle school) to quivering puddles of Mommy-wanting goo. Of course, this impression is based on a single ill-advised eighth grade visit. We’ve yet to work up the courage to return. But for the daredevils out there—the people with steady heart rates, strong constitutions and the ability to quickly and consistently distinguish fantasy from reality before the tears start—it should be a hell of a night out.
Oct. 28-Nov. 1, 7 p.m., 2008
