I step through the threshold of the small movie theater and hear the soft melody of Phantom of the Opera playing. To my right, the iconic white half mask of the Phantom lies on a table. To my left, giant stone arches invite me down a long dark hallway. As I walk, a precariously hung chandelier dangles from above, threatening to fall onto me. Crash. It’s not the chandelier, but something to my left. I look and see the phantom, unmasked, standing before me. He raises his hands in horror and I run past him into the next room: a small crypt entombing a skeleton with a stake through his heart. Just then, I hear the creak of a coffin opening behind me as Dracula awakens for the night. I have entered The Dreich Society’s Fear Fest 1941.

The Dreich Society’s Fear Fest 1941 walk-through home haunt invites audiences to step into short vignettes that recreate classic horror films. Previously, they have recreated the year 1989 with movies like Friday the 13^th Part 2, The Shining, Alien, and Poltergeist, but this year, they are expanding this style to include the 1941 Universal classic movie monsters. Audiences should expect to traverse everything from the Wolfman to the Mummy to Dracula to Frankenstein and beyond. This short eight-minute experience provides strong acting, great attention to detail and some really fun Easter eggs for any horror film buff to find throughout the maze.

To address Covid-restrictions this year, The Dreich Society has implemented a reservation system. Guests go through in small household groups and all actors wore masks. Only one group traversed the maze at a time ensuring the safety of the actors and participants.

Each group enters Fear Fest 1941 through the movie theater façade and navigates home haunt-esque tight corridors with five individual scenes connected by large hallways. In each of these you will engage with the monsters: sometimes experiencing a jump-scare, sometimes conversing with them, and sometimes watching a small scene unfold. Since only one group enters the maze at a time, there is no feeling of being rushed or pushed forward; this allows for an actual appreciation of set design and décor and some great interactivity and engagement from the actors inside. For example, we had a wonderful conversation with Frankenstein’s monster until he considered us “friend”.

The Dreich Society’s Fear Fest 1941 has put a lot of care passion and love into these haunts based on these films; you can tell they are big fans of film. Each of these rooms contains numerous Easter eggs ranging from The Simpson’s Tree House of Horrors’ Super Fun Happy Slide to Dr. Frankenstein’s lab which has numerous vials referencing everything from Inception to Bioshock to Repo the Genetic Opera. One of our favorites was the mummy’s tomb in which the walls were covered in Hieroglyphics inspired by the Disneyland Indiana Jones queue. For avid movie fans, they might recognize symbols from The Fifth Element, Star Gate, and Army of Darkness. These are a blast for eagle-eyed fans to find and discuss among your group afterwards.

The Dreich Society’s Fear Fest 1941 is a home haunt for movie fans by movie fans. Each year they take some of their favorite films and recreate them in an homage that feels like a love letter to the films they are reproducing. We highly recommend this haunt to anyone who is a fan of these films and want to step through the screen, experiencing them in real life. Through their strong attention to detail and their ability to hide Easter eggs throughout their maze, The Dreich Society is definitely a company to watch as they continue over the next few years. We look forward to seeing them at Midsummer Scream next year and uncovering what year is reproduced next.

For more information about The Dreich Society, check them out on Facebook or Instagram.

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