An aging doctor in a blood splattered coat stands outside the towering façade of a towering yet dilapidated structure. “Welcome to my clinic,” he exclaims—his arms outstretched. “I am Dr. Butterfield.” He notices me eyeing the blood on his coat. “Oh, don’t mind this. My patients, well, they just got out of their cages… I mean, rooms.” We laugh at his joke—I mean, I hope it was a joke. “They just like to bite. So often in fact that I run out of bandages. Then I just rub it on here.” He pantomimes rubbing blood onto his blood-stained lab coat. “Anyways, my clinic is open. Welcome, welcome. Just don’t let them bite you too.” The Bloodshed Brothers bring a haunted carnival to Temecula Valley with Temecula Terror.

Temecula Terror is a first-year haunted attraction in Temecula Valley at the Galway Downs. Produced by The Bloodshed Brothers and Clever Coven, this carnival styled experience offers three mazes, a circus-themed scare zone, local vendors, multiple bars (including a VIP Spookeasy), food vendors, a Monster Roulette scrambler ride, and even some live entertainment. As such, the experience is worth arriving early and staying until close.

Welcome to Temecula Terror

Pulling into the parking lot, it may look like you’ve reached an abandoned park, desolate and dark. Yet, upon your trek through the lot, and over a small hill, you’ll arrive at two strobing tunnels, illuminated in an otherworldly green. This marks your passage into the world of Temecula Terror, a portal to a world of haunts and Halloween.

The layout feels similar to Haunted Hayride, designating half of the location to the haunt mazes and VIP bar, and the other half to the vendors, food, and rides. As scare actors only congregate in the maze area, to which you step through a large open mouth of a vintage devil to enter, guests can enjoy the lighter faire of Halloween on one side and engage in more frightening past times in the other. Ultimately, this feels like part Halloweentown and part carnival of the damned.

Temecula Terror feels like you have found a secret traveling circus of horrors. A series of airstreams offers food and drinks. The inhabitants look as if they just stepped out of a circus. It’s a quaint pop-up town that feels personal and intimate. This is due to the look—and the actors in the scare zone. They were happy to engage and had great personalities (more the actors, than actual characters they were playing). Most were happy to tell us about their weapons, pose for photos, or joke that they ran out of gasoline—only to rev their chainsaw and chase us with glee.

While we have read that that Mayor Butterfield is prone to appearances, welcoming newcomers to their quaint town of scares, we attended on a Thursday night and did not get a chance to meet him. Personally, I’d love to see this idea expanded and for Temecula Terror to find their own identity for their town. Much like Midnight Falls has really emerged as a highlight for LA Haunted Hayride, I want to see the unique side of Temecula Terror’s town, to explore more of its buildings, and to meet more of its inhabitants. As a first-year experience, there’s still room to grow and I can’t wait to see where they take it.

A Haunted Maze

Butterfield Asylum

This maze is named after the real-life national Butterfield Stage route, in which prisoners and convicts toiled under the hot sun to build a railroad. While their bodies ached, their minds suffered—and many fell victim to the insanity of long hours of excruciating work. They have now found a new home in Butterfield Asylum and welcome you as well.

This maze was the second best of the evening. Filled with hospital beds with skeletal slumberers, this felt claustrophobic and reminiscent of how overcrowded conditions may have truly been. There were school settings, a nursery, and operating rooms—and with great props aged to perfection, this experience ended up feeling hyper-realistic and frightening. Don’t expect any sort of dark twist in this narrative; the only dark part here is our treatment of those deemed unfit for society.

This haunt also showcased the most actors (on our Thursday night), allowing for many of the best scares for us. They often were creepier rather than focusing on jump scares. Notably, a woman wearing a burlap sack over her face followed us silently, keeping close by, as if she was asking for our help but didn’t know how. This perfectly showcased the spectrum of insanity, from crazy to simply broken.

The Crypt

The Crypt offers a chance to see the cemetery and catacombs of Temecula Terror. Venturing into the mausoleum adorned with a large gargoyle atop its peak, strobed hallways and grungy marbled walls fill the insides. The highlight of this maze is an arachnophobia room with three massive spiders, hanging prey spun into cocoons, and webs adorning all surfaces. It was a beautiful room and the animatronic spiders were impressive.

While this maze was our least favorite of the night, it was beautifully decorated. My main concerns were two-fold: first, the maze felt a bit on the generic side, mainly focusing on catacombs that I’ve seen in many other haunts before, with laser light rooms that have become commonplace now; and two, this maze had the least actors, giving us large stretches of hallways with nothing interesting to see and no scares. We’d love to see this maze get a make-over in future years and be used as a platform to tell more of the town’s story.

We read in other reviews that Lanterns were given out for this maze, we love the concept but we understand difficulties in throughput with this feature. We did not see any lanterns given out on our night so it may have been cut part way into the run.

Hyde Street

The Bloodshed Brothers are known for Hyde Street, bringing it to life from 2008 to 2010, as well as at Midsummer Scream in 2018. Hyde Street tells the tale of social pariah Otis Hatcher, a man who loves Halloween—to obsession. His entire shabby home is adorned with a massive collection of Halloween decorations, hoping to use his home and title as King of Halloween to win over the town he’s always lived in. Yet, when the Halloween Harvest Carnival upstages his décor, he snaps—his fragile fantasy of acceptance has eroded, and now Otis is luring trick-or-treaters to collect candy in a deadly trap.

In case it isn’t clear from the backstory, this haunt is a Halloween fan’s dream. Some of the rooms feel more like a museum to Halloween décor than a haunted house, showcasing the best blow molds, vintage wall décor of skeletons, witches, and more, as well as animated ghosts and monsters. There’s even an endless hallway filled with at least fifty hanging pumpkin trick-or-treat pails—hopefully not all from kids Otis has murdered.

Yet, the nostalgic whimsy of vintage Halloweens slowly gives way, much like it did for Otis, and its replaced by a darker side of Halloween, one of ragged dolls and pagan ceremonies to candy corn gods, bodies wrapped in plastic, and skin coats sewn by hand. It’s a slow transition, but one that sneaks up on you—and the scares come from unexpected places. This maze truly has it all from jam-packed décor to a strong narrative to great scares. This is the maze to come to Temecula Terror for—and that statement is reinforced by the fact that Hyde Street was the only maze with a line on our Thursday night.

VIP Spookeasy

For those willing to buy VIP (it’s not needed for the lines at the haunts, but for the bar, it may be worth it), there is a VIP Lounge resting above all the mazes. Even with the view of the carnival below filled with chainsaw wielding maniacs, the view inside may be better. A dimly lit lounge with vintage couches, skeletal guests dressed in fur, great ambiance, and even better drinks, this is the type of spookeasy I’d come to weekly if possible.

They have three specialty cocktails here, each costing $12. The first is A Night In the Woods, a smoky bourbon cocktail with cinnamon, black walnut bitters, and black cherry. It is a strong take on an old fashioned with a bit of a cinnamon bite to it. I liked it—but I’m a bourbon fan. The next is the Muertos Mule: mango vodka, mango puree, ancho reyes chile, lime, and ginger beer. This is the sweetest of the three with the mango puree, and is a wonderful drink. The spicy rim compliments the sweet, making this my favorite drink of the night. Finally, the Corpse Reviver is Gin, fillet blanc, elderflower, lemon, and blackberry. A classic—our resident gin lover was a big fan of this drink.

Final Thoughts

Temecula Terror is a haunt with a ton of potential. I see what The Bloodshed Brothers bring to the table with Hyde Street—and I want to see more of that. Obviously, that’s not realistic as they’ve had years, if not decades, to bring Otis and Hyde Street to life—but now, they need to bring this town to life. They need to expand outside of 301 Hyde Street and develop the street, the neighborhood, and beyond. It needs to differentiate itself and have its own identity. If they can accomplish that, it will be bigger than the LA Haunted Hayride.

Ultimately, I love what they’re doing. The combination of vendors, food, bars, and haunts have been done many times, but here, it feels so cohesive and magical. It truly feels like a carnival has come together in the hills of Temecula, hidden from the world, to celebrate the darker side of Halloween, away from society. And it works. I want to know more—which is a great thing. I also want to go back, see more of Hyde Street, and have another drink in the Spookeasy. All great signs.

I truly can’t wait to see how this develops next year. What new innovations The Bloodshed Brothers create and how they make this their own. I’ll be the first to get a ticket.

For more information about Temecula Terror, check out their website, Facebook and Instagram pages. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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Temecula Terror is a new Halloween experience created by The Bloodshed Brothers and Creepy Coven.