Santa Ana Haunt – Shades of Hell 2023

We’re proud of Santa Ana Haunt for expanding and developing their brand by producing events for other companies. And while most of these were successful for Santa Ana—their partnership with The Hauntinental Room (at the Continental Room in Fullerton) to create UNSEEN did not find its form this Halloween. This experience was supposed to be Santa Ana Haunt’s first commercial haunt (that the public can attend) and featured a mystery shot during it (we heard it was Tequila). And while that event did not come to fruition, Santa Ana Haunt was able to revive their Shades of Hell 2023 home haunt in Santa Ana for one more year—and it still is incredible.

Santa Ana Haunt and their Shades of Hell 2023 Home Haunt attraction is a lengthy haunted house that extends past a massive steeple façade, through the front yard of creator Chewie Garcia’s father’s home, around the side yard, through the backyard, and back up the side of the residence. It’s an impressive length for any haunted house and even more so, it’s cohesively themed and well executed. With only a week to build this year, Garcia returned to Shades of Hell 2023, after 2022’s Shades of Hell: Goodbye, and found ways to inject new life into this hellish place for the dead.

One of my favorite elements of Santa Ana Haunt is engaging with the actors. A hulking creature with a mallet tormented us while in line—and then when we entered the haunt, we already had a specific rapport with this demon. He offered to bash our heads in and end our night early if we wanted. While the creatures deeper in did not have the same level of conversation with us, they offered us more cinematic moments. In Shades of Hell 2023’s infamous crawling / ducking portion, an actor at the end of the experience, illuminated by bright lights serves to create the perfect sense of dread—as we must crawl ever closer to a scare we know is coming on the other side of the tunnel.

While some favorite elements, like the insect room, have been removed, the abyss at the end of the experience remains. We heard numerous groups comment to the fact that they were completely lost in the pitch black and spent considerable time trying to find a way out. This is a great way to end the haunt and such an effective way to create fear without even the need for actors.

Santa Ana Haunt and their Shades of Hell 2023 home haunt continue to be a hallmark of the Southern California haunted house scene. While we’d love to see what they can do in a commercial space with some increased funding—we are sure to mourn the loss of a great home haunt with enough passion to fill a never-ending abyss. We’ll gladly accept one more year of this amazing home haunt.

For more information about Santa Ana Haunt, check out their Instagram. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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