The roar of a chainsaw is heard over the cornstalks. The glow of light emanating from within the cabin may offer some safety. Dare I risk it? I step through the threshold, and the stench is overpowering. Two corpses hang from the ceiling, their arms bound, hoods over their head, blood stains across their clothes. A third victim is hung on the back wall, their innards carved out—for food? Or for fun? I need to escape, but before I can move, I hear the chainsaw again—and then I see it. A beast of a man barrels through the door, raising his weapon into the air, as man and machine scream in delight. Dark Harvest Haunt is a corn maze in Chino, CA.

What started as a collaboration between Perdition Home and The Fleshyard, has solidified into something new now known as Dark Harvest Haunt. Returning to Chino’s Frosty’s Forest Christmas Trees and Pumpkin Patch, Dark Harvest Haunt takes full advantage of the corn field to create their maze. This experience is a twenty minute, blood-pumping journey through open air corn mazes with momentary pauses to step into various vignettes that occur within small enclosures hidden within the corn. These scenes range from a camping trip gone wrong to a fun house of clowns to killer pumpkins. All are gorgeous, and the corn maze only serves to accentuate the scares within.

While there are actors hidden among the corn or moving along your trail, the outside portions mainly serve as a pause, a comma, a period, separating the scares. These moments of respite serve to lull you into a false peace before the true terror comes. There’s just something about being in the corn that is tranquil and beautiful—until you see the glow of the mouth of a clown waiting just beyond the next set of stalks.

It’s in these small themed sets that the haunt really shines. There are seven of these, each with their own theme. While some may be familiar to those who came last year, there are plenty of new ones to marvel at. A favorite of ours was the massive pumpkin mouth that lured people into a cult of pumpkin wearing fanatics, all ready to worship their god. We were forced to bow to this God and pledge our servitude before we were able to pass to the next section. Each one is perfectly detailed, with plenty to see.

While there is little to no narrative thread to connect all of the sets together, the disparate themes serve enough to propel guests through, wondering what is coming next. As long as they continue to update old facades and add new ones to replace the stale, this event will be a fan-favorite. However, it would be nice to see a narrative through-line used to make all of these feel a bit cohesive.

Audiences are well-spaced out, to ensure that you feel alone, walking among the hulking corn stalks. This allows plenty of room for actors to focus on you, making sure that you are the only one in each set. This also solves the problem of conga lines and seeing scares before they happen.

Beyond Dark Harvest Haunt, Frosty’s Forest offers more than CA’s best corn maze—it also has a kid-friendly storybook walk through maze, filled with scenes from A Nightmare Before Christmas, Ghostbusters, and Disney movies. There’s also a third corn maze, themed for Ghostbusters this year (Alice’s Cheshire cat was last year), that doesn’t have actors, but allows guests to get lost under the stars and stalks. There’s also plenty of carnival games, a petting zoo, a corn-filled sandbox, and plenty of food.

Dark Harvest Haunt is in its sophomore year and has only improved its stay at Frosty’s Forest. It took the best parts of their freshman endeavor and expanded them, created a gorgeously frightening experience that meshes seven distinct themes together well. It offers momentary respite in the air, before throwing guests back into the terror. This combination of ons and offs, highs and lows, fear and calm works perfectly to create a dread that permeates the cornfield.

Pair this experience with Fear in 3D which is a five-minute drive away to make it a great night of haunting in Chino– read our review of Fear in 3D here.

For more information about Dark Harvest, check out their website, Facebook, and Instagram. To find other events similar to this one, check out our Event Catalog.

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Dark Harvest Haunt is a corn maze in Chino, CA. Dark Harvest Haunt has multiple structures hidden within the corn stalks. Dark Harvest Haunt is a Haunted House put on by Perdition Home and The Fleshyard.

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Dark Harvest is a corn maze in Chino, CA. Dark Harvest has multiple structures hidden within the corn stalks. Dark Harvest is a Haunted House put on by Perdition Home and The Fleshyard