The man has no features, but dark, sunken eyes leading to two pools of black. But he’s not alone. Another hulking beast, wearing the skull of a roe deer, stands next to me—but he also holds my phone. Set to camera mode, the deer and the shapeless man both tap at my screen, until it starts a video. They stare into the camera quizzically, until they run off, to capture some scares of the guests on their new-found video recorder. When they return, I watch the footage with glee, laughing at the exploits of these two, terrorizing the line and recording it all for my memories. High Desert Haunted House 2021 is back with a full walk-through haunt.

High Desert Haunted House is a professional haunted house that combines an exterior section known as Deadwood Ghost Town with an decrepit excursion into the interior of Victoria Manor. This twenty to thirty-minute haunt experience feels authentic and realistic—because it is. Deadwood takes place in the desert with only a collection of metal siding, mannequin bodies wearing realistic horse heads, and old sheds to direct you forward. Then Victoria Manor feels more like a Rob Zombie film depiction of a home than an actual home. The dirt floors, narrow passageways, and labyrinthine structure reveal that this is no one’s home, but is a haunt that feels like it could be someone’s demented house. While you may get touched (lightly) in this experience, anything more extreme is reserved for their specialty nights: a gore night and an extreme night.

High Desert Haunted House 2021

Upon driving to High Desert Haunted House 2021, you’ll quickly notice a difference between it and other Apple Valley haunts. While All Saints Lunatic Asylum exists in a strip mall, High Desert Haunted House requires a drive down a dirt road that leads you away from the comforts of the city lights and into the desolation of darkness. You’ll know you made it when you find a white metal face with a Jack-O-Lantern’s smile painted across it.

A highlight of this experience is the interactions of the actors while waiting in line. Wielding chainsaws, dull metal machetes, and more, these actors will move in close to unsuspecting guests, often hiding behind them or within large groups, creating a great scare. For those groups that are less startled, they will engage, chasing some, taking the hats of others, and as mentioned, stealing phones from us.

In previous years, Deadwood Ghost Town and Victoria Manor were separate attractions, despite having to survive Deadwood to attend Victoria. Yet, this year in High Desert Haunted House 2021, the path between them was a bit more seamless. As parties were spaced out better at the start, there was no line needed to enter Victoria Manor; parties simply moved from the exterior landscape into the interior of the manor.

Deadwood Ghost Town

Deadwood Ghost Town, as the name suggest, is reminiscent of a desert ghost town, abandoned to the elements and left to rot and decay. As such, vestiges of civilization can be seen, but they have been appropriated by the wastelanders who now inhabit the space. The maze feels a bit like Rob Zombie directing a Mad Max film.

This is not a prefabricated maze; instead, it is a permeant installation of metal sheeting plunged into the Earth, small sheds and shacks, and a collection of mannequin bodies wearing animal heads. Further, there are numerous holes and passageways that actors can take full advantage of to maximize their scares—providing frights at multiple locations without having to navigate the maze themselves.

While we noted animalistic behavior from actors during our last visit to High Desert Haunted House, we did not see the same frenzied energy of tusked scare actors barreling towards us on all fours. Instead, the actors focused more on subtle scares and jump scares, emerging from unsuspecting places—or simply staring at us, watching us, observing us as we passed by them. A highlight was a pagan mystic who demanded a sacrifice, but then stood to take a hair from each of us to help with her magic. As her long metallic fingers plucked a hair from my head, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of excited fright that haunts have been unable to stir for a while.

In High Desert Haunted House 2021, we noted the addition of a neon-painted circus area, complete with glowing striped walls, and a neon vintage piano. This is not your pristine circus, but rather an aged, grimed carnival of the damned, complete with clowns who look like they’ve grown tired of making people laugh and want them to hurt instead. It’s a great addition and seems to only add more personality to the Deadwood Area. I could see more areas like this being added in the future, potentially becoming a third section of the High Desert Haunted House.

Victoria Manor

The vast open space of Deadwood Ghost Town gives way to close, claustrophobic corridors of Victoria Manor. Even more so than Deadwood, this location does not feel like a haunted house—nor does it resemble one. It looks like a set of a film. I’d say an actual home, but due to the layout, I highly doubt someone could actually live in it.

The theme feels part wasteland, part Victorian Gothic, and part insane family. There’s luxurious vintage couches in which a nude mannequin wearing a rabbit’s head sits to keep a young girl in a Victorian dress company. There’s a ritual chamber with runes adorning the walls. There’s a laboratory setting with colors jars holding various specimens, a monster of Frankenstein seated upon an electric chair, and an invisible man waiting to greet you. And then there’s the room lined from head to toe with neon soaked dolls, and the two sisters wearing matching blacklight makeup. The themes may sound slightly disparate, but they work perfectly together and elevate the manor, giving it and its residents a bit more personality.

Further, like Deadwood, the props and décor inside all feel real. They aren’t fabricated skulls—or skulls purchased from Spirit Halloween—everything here looks authentic, aged to perfection, and probably coated in layers of desert dirt from years of operation. As such, even the ground in Victoria Manor is dirt and sand, allowing you feel like this is something out of a surreal nightmare.

A heavy metal soundtrack permeates the space, infusing it with powerful energy for both audience and actors. Music can often provide simply ambiance and atmosphere, but at Victoria Manor, the music is front and center, providing a soundtrack to the death and dilapidation inside.

Finally, the actors in Victoria are incredible. While Deadwood hosted a large number of actors that were able to seemingly appear everywhere at once; in Victoria Manor, the tight hallways and small rooms only amplified this effect. Actors appeared in front and behind you, often when we least expected it. We felt surrounded and played with, a mouse in a game of cat and mouse. Actors here don’t just rely on jump scares either; they are far more interactive. Numerous actors told us of their experiments, offering to allow us to become a part of one—as a child actor trapped in a cage begged us to release him. The girls in the doll room invited us to play with them, and then screamed bloody murder when we left them alone.

Final Thoughts

High Desert Haunted House 2021 is a must-see haunted house—due to it achieving an authenticity and realism that other haunts simply dream of reaching. With passionate actors, some of the best sets I’ve seen, and two distinct haunt experiences, this experience is unlike anything you’ve done. If you’re wanting something a bit more than a haunted house, make sure to plan your visit to align with their gore or extreme nights. And for the kids, they also do a kid friendly night that adds some Disney elements to the experience. But for the rest of us, abandon the comfort of the city, leave the lights in your rear-view mirror, and welcome the darkness of the desert. You’ll never know what’s waiting for you out there.

While the High Desert can be a drive from Los Angeles or Vegas, High Desert Haunted House can be combined with All Saints Lunatic Asylum and Manor of Fears, also in Apple Valley. Fear Farm Phelan is close by as well, allowing this to be a fantastic night of some of the best haunt experiences. For more information on High Desert Haunted House, check out their Facebook and Instagram pages. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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High Desert Haunted House 2021 brings fear to Apple Valley. High Desert Haunted House 2021 feels real; as if you could be murdered in the dark desert; visit High Desert Haunted House 2021 to get your scares this year and next!