“Help me, help me!” A guest in line, directly behind me screams. A demonic nun, her face pale as snow, reaches for him. But his dramatic cries for help find no solace among the line of haunters, ready to enter Hell. The man falls to his knees, but the demons grab him—and drag him inside. Moments later, the doors open for me, and I step past the threshold, finding the very same man, now strapped to a table—as a veiled woman with glowing green eyes plunges a dagger directly into his heart. Shades of Hell: Goodbye is Santa Ana Haunt’s Third Walk-through haunt.

Santa Ana Haunt presents Shades of Hell: Goodbye, a seven-to-ten-minute walkthrough haunted house that represents hell across eight to ten distinct rooms or scenes. While hell has been the common theme of Santa Ana Haunt for the last three years, Shades of Hell: Goodbye is a brand-new creation with nearly all rooms being designed from the ground up. One of the major differentiating strengths is the theatrical elements, where guests are able to stop, engage with actors, hear stories, and feel further connected to the story.

Creator Jesus “Chewie” Garcia created Santa Ana Haunt in and around his father’s home in 2020, after years of working at haunts such as Empty Grave, Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, Knott’s Scary Farm, where he played the Iron Master, and even trained sliders at Boomer’s Halloween Haunt in 2018. Now in it’s third year, Santa Ana Haunt has continued to prove that it is a prominent and impressive home haunt for Southern California.

Each year, we’ve loved Santa Ana Haunt’s focus on narrative and storyline. While the haunt is structured as a linear walkthrough (with some ducking), the experience offers numerous opportunities for participants to stop and engage with actors, allowing for more narrative and interplay—two aspects we love here at Haunting. A devil on stilts playfully probed us on how we died—and how we have been sent to hell twice, messing up our second chance. While this is a highlight, we did run into other groups on our time through, creating a jam on our section time as we waited for an actor to finish engaging with a group ahead of us before we could continue.

While this is a linear walkthrough, Santa Ana Haunt creates variation in its rooms to ensure that it feels novel and fresh, with surprises in each area. Guests will have to duck or crawl through a gated crawlspace—which provides perfect clearance for a slider to slide through when you’re about half-way through. A neon room covered in graffiti allows an actor to jump on chain link fences, creating unique scares. And like previous years, the haunt ends with a fully blacked out section, in which guests must explore the darkness to emerge back in the world with a second or third chance at life. The darkness fills a large space—not tight turn-backs like other haunts—allowing for opportunity for guests to get lost without their senses. It’s a great time.

Themes we loved in previous years—like the elderly woman left to die alone—have now been replaced by new innovations, like a new favorite room: a bug room. Guests wait at the door, as a masked stranger inside pours various solutions back and forth—all part of his experiments. Then he lets you inside. Fake cockroaches and skulls fill his shelves, but then he grabs a carton full of real roaches. While this isn’t The 17^th Door—and he never put any on us—it’s an elevated scare that is sure to send many participants running from that room. Stay long enough, and the actor will tell you stories of his experiments.

Santa Ana Haunt’s Shades of Hell: Goodbye is a wonderful continuation of this home haunt which grows year after year, further exploring the horrors of hell. With strong acting, some clever additions, and a great use of space, Shades of Hell: Goodbye is a great Halloween experience. Just make sure you aren’t dragged through the doors, strapped to a table, with a dagger plunged through your heart.

You can find Santa Ana Haunt at 2309 W Cubbon St, Santa Ana, CA, running through the Halloween Season from 7pm to 11pm. They are asking for a $5 donation—with a portion going to local school music programs. For more information on Santa Ana Haunt, check out their Instagram page. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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