Dangling Carrot Creative – Grisly Garden

The lights flash a blinding cascade of colors. My eyes try to adjust, but the figure at the end of the hall remains fuzzy; out of focus. As the lights change, the polka dotted walls appear to transform: blues becoming purple, yellows turning green. I look again, but the figure it gone. There’s no one there. Until he is. And there’s a snarl to my left. I scream aloud—unsure where the man with the painted face came from in a hallway with no doors. But I keep walking towards the figure at the end, hoping he will soon be in focus. Grisly Garden is Dangling Carrot’s Inaugural Haunt in Santa Clarita CA.

Grisly Garden is a first-year professional haunt by Dangling Carrot Creative, a film industry firm with over 30 years of experience in printing, fabrication, 3D sculpting, and prop creation. Thus, while Grisly Garden may be a Freshman foray into the haunted house world, the end result feels more at home on the Varsity team. The entirety of this haunt was built from the ground up–plus they received all permits for fire code and the building in 4 weeks. This is all more impressive knowing that this isn’t a quick haunt; it runs fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on walkthrough speed. It’s a linear experience, with plenty of incredible effects, expertly designed scares, and gorgeous set pieces. As Grisly Garden was designed to raise money for film-industry professionals affected by the on-going actor’s strike, this may be the only year it runs—but we hope it returns in future years because it’s something special.

The narrative follows that Alice and her gardener father live on the grounds of an old hunting club in the bayous of Louisiana. Their cabin on the edge of the property–and one day while pulling carrots in the garden, Alice finds a massive, deformed carrot. She pulls it, and finds a portal down, down, down–into a wonderland where everything is upside down and rabbits experiment on humans. While the experience is surreal, with mind-bending, trippy, and surreal landscapes, producing landscapes, actors, and mannequins that all heavily feature white rabbit masks. Joining the white rabbits are various haunted house classics: clowns, hillbillies, little girls in pajamas, and Audrey 2 inspired killer plants. In the final moments, the experience ends up being a dream, and back in the cabin in the Louisiana bayou, we learn that Alice’s dad was the true villain as we are chased out via chainsaw.

Each room features impressive soundtracks custom made by a film sound crew. Not a single track was pulled from stock. This creates moments that have sound design that elevates the rooms and scenes, feeling cohesive and powerful, rather than just creepy. It’s an impressive detail many might miss, but show the passion of this team and their commitment to not cutting any corners on this project.

The actors inside range from in-your-face jump scares to more menacing and foreboding. Not all creatures are meant to scare, but rather create a sense of unease or dread. And these creatures are some of the best because you can see more about the characters they’ve created. As an immersive fan, I always wish there was more backstory, more lore to these characters, because I find myself wondering who the rabbit masked doctor is who cuts a Cheshire-smile into his lips—or who the young girl in the bloodied night gown holding the doll is—or why there’s a massive snake about to eat a scared child—why a musical monkey has come to life and scared me in more than one room? In isolation, these scenes are so cool; but I’d love to see more behind it all.

Normally, I’d say the actors are the heart and soul of every haunted house. And while they are talented and strong here (as I said above), the heart of this experience is the unique approach Dangling Carrot took when creating Grisly Garden. There are definitely some tried and true Halloween scenes here (a surgical suite for cadavers dressed like rabbits, a forest with hanging dolls, black walled corridors, and an old cabin. But for every room you’ve seen an iteration of in a previous haunted house, Grisly Garden has created something truly unique, surprising, and awe-inspiring. These include a room that gives the optical illusion that it is stretching continuously longer; another room that is tipped onto its side with actors who act on the walls (okay, we have seen the Tumbler room at The 17^th Door first), a cabin lit on fire with damn-near realistic fire, and rooms that change completely with the shifting of a light. It’s clear Dangling Carrot are purveyors of movie magic—and it translates to Grisly Garden quite well.

The most impressive aspect of Grisly Garden is seeing the engineering, care, and craft behind some of the work. After posting a story of the Audrey 2 plant, we learned that this was handcrafted by George Chavez, who constructed, painted and formed this entire puppet from cardboard and clays. The stories on his Instagram are absolutely impressive and just show how much people like Chavez love and are passionate about the creatures they create.

Dangling Carrot’s Grisly Garden is an impressive first-year haunt with enough technical know-how to be on the Universal Halloween Horror Nights level. With surreal and gorgeous sets, strong actors, and practical effects that would delight any 80’s horror movie fan, this haunt quickly became a fan-favorite among our haunt community. While we hope the actor’s strike ends with favorable terms, it would be great to see the team at Dangling Carrot take time from their lucrative film contacts and create another haunted house for all of us next year. I’d love to see what they could do with more planning and a narrative through-line that they were passionate about. This could easily be one of the best haunted houses in Southern California with a few years of experience.

For more information about Dangling Carrot, check out their Facebook, Instagram and website. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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