Review of Fright Fest Extreme 2024 at Six Flags Great Adventure
Fright Fest Extreme 2024 at Six Flags Great Adventure enlivens a long-running event with new creative energy to help broaden the scope of what Fright Fest has ever been able to offer.
By Ricky Brigante
Six Flags Great Adventure is making extreme plans to dominate Halloween in the northeast U.S.
Six Flags made a bold statement when the company dubbed its annual Fright Fest haunt event “Six Flags Fright Fest Extreme” for 2024 at a handful of its parks nationwide, including Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, N.J. — an intentional push toward becoming the standout Halloween event in the northeastern United States.
Introducing Six Flags Fright Fest Extreme
This year the long-running Six Flags Fright Fest not only features all-new and enhanced original haunted houses, but also six well-known, popular IP franchises, taking a page out of the playbook of Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights.
Six Flags Great Adventure has now become the only haunted attraction in the northeast U.S. that has officially licensed the worlds of “Stranger Things,” “Trick ‘r Treat,” “The Conjuring” universe (with “Annabelle” and “The Nun”), “Saw,” “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and “Army of the Dead” — IPs on loan from powerhouse studios including Netflix, Legendary, and Warner Bros.
An aspirational vision for the future of Six Flags Fright Fest
For Six Flags Great Adventure, the “Extreme” addendum to Fright Fest represents more than the spooky new additions, also reflecting the passion driving the small-but-fearless entertainment team determined to propel the event into a new era of fear.
While Six Flags Great Adventure’s goals of becoming a world-class Halloween event are still very much early in the works — and honestly much more aspirational than today’s reality presents — there does appear to be a shockingly real sense that Six Flags could very well build enough momentum that perhaps someday Fright Fest might just rival the other renowned events. And in talking with the event’s creators, it’s clear they have a plan for how they intend to infuse the event with exciting new chills and thrills in the years to come.
Rather than trying to make it all happen in-house with their small team, they have turned to a wide array of partners to enliven this event with new creative energy that can help broaden the scope of what Fright Fest has ever been able to offer. This means more familiar franchises, more details, more effects, and new opportunities to be amazed.
The partners include RWS Global, which helped design, conceptualize, and build some of this year’s IP haunted houses, as well as bring together the performing talent that makes the experiences come alive.
Haunted house reviews for Great Adventure’s Fright Fest Extreme 2024
So how much of their grand plan is evident in the 2024 event? Hard to say, exactly. The park did get off to a bit of a rocky start for this year’s Fright Fest, unable to fully open as scheduled for a variety of logistical reasons largely outside of their control. As such, we were invited to a “preview” of the offerings they’ve been devilishly preparing since February, with the full rollout seemingly scheduled to arrive beginning Sept. 26.
But even in the preview state, there were indeed moments within these new IP-based houses that were strikingly reminiscent of those seen in some of the much-larger-budget experiences around the country. That’s not to say that everything’s perfect, as some experiences are definitely stronger than others. And it’s clear that Six Flags is still figuring out how to best work with IP rights holders to balance internal creativity, external creative control, and limited time and budget.
‘Saw 20th Anniversary’ and ‘The Conjuring Universe’
“Saw” and “The Conjuring” were introduced to Six Flags Great Adventure for the first time in 2023, both back again this year with improvements to add details and layers that make the environments feel that much more rich, believable, and familiar.
“The Conjuring” in particular has expanded to also include the full “universe” of characters that now includes “Annabelle,” “The Nun,” and the Crooked Man from “The Conjuring 2.” The maze (or “trail” as Six Flags likes to call it) features quite a few exceptionally clever moments that offer effects and scares I’ve never seen in any haunt before. The haunted house excels at setting a dark and twisted mood that feels increasingly foreboding the further you go. It most certainly has benefitted from sticking around for another year. It seems improvement by annual iteration is a big part of Six Flags’ ongoing strategy, something theme parks generally don’t do with IP-based haunts.
‘Stranger Things’
The “Stranger Things” maze arrives to Fright Fest Extreme at Six Flags Great Adventure with a fun new conceit that you are stepping into Hawkins High School as the students have put together their own haunted house. It’s an expansion of the “Stranger Things” universe in a way we haven’t seen on the TV show, which is a treat for fans. However, while the rest of the house does feature memorable moments across many seasons of the show, it often feels like a series of greatest hits vignettes with no connective tissue.
Regardless, coming face-to-face with a Demogorgon, seeing Eddie Munson, and being thrust into the upside down with Vecna are among its standout highlights. With that said, anyone who’s been to Universal’s versions of a “Stranger Things” haunted house should immediately lower their bar of expectations for this much smaller-scale interpretation of the IP.
‘Trick ‘r Treat’
The film “Trick ‘r Treat” has become a cult classic, but this haunted house feels more like a teaser trailer of the movie. All the scenes you’d expect to be here are here, though many play out in the simplest way possible. There’s not much for scares, but there are at least a couple detailed environments and surprising scenes that should delight fans of the film.
‘Army of the Dead’
Adapting the epic scale of the film “Army of the Dead” certainly became a daunting task for the Six Flags Great Adventure team among the IP houses — and it shows. This is easily the weakest of the bunch. It may be largest one in height, but there are too many sparse scenes with very little going on for it to even feel complete. The actors deserve credit here for really trying to make the most of it.
‘The Asylum’
Despite all the hype around the IP houses, the pride and joy of this year’s event for the design team is their new original maze simply called “The Asylum.” While that theme has been done a million times over, somehow the Six Flags Great Adventure team has pulled together a series of original ideas and unique takes that is sure to surprise even the most seasoned haunted house fan. The experience is full of long hallways, intimate interactions with performers, and up-close animatronics that really leave a lasting impression. This is easily the house that induces the most screams from attendees and is sure to be a favorite of the event.
One of the biggest reasons “The Asylum” works so well is because the park allows its performers to actually perform. This is one of the biggest advantages that Fright Fest has over an event like Halloween Horror Nights: the way it permits many of its most talented performers to shine. They have a chance to really sink into their roles, blasting through menacing monologues, performing strange tricks, and generally upping the experience overall, at least in the original houses. Unfortunately, due to IP restrictions, the same can’t be said for the franchise mazes, which generally restrict performers to very specific movements and triggered sound bites.
Scare zones and live entertainment
Beyond the haunted houses, Six Flags Fright Fest Extreme at Six Flags Great Adventure has a variety of shows and scare zones. Though the scare zones are plentiful, their fright level is quite minimal. Many of the actors do a solid job entertaining, but rely on shrieking, screaming, and shaking cans at guests to try to achieve startles.
Six Flags Great Adventure is a large park and all the experiences are quite spread out, so visitors should expect to walk a LOT. Fortunately, this year’s incarnation of the “Unleashed” show presents a wonderfully entertaining opportunity to get off your feet for 20 minutes or so and enjoy some seriously impressive acrobatics, circus acts, and dance routines that grab and hold attention. It impresses with high-flying, daring, mesmerizing moments that are well worth going out of your way to see.
Food
The food offerings for the event are nothing particularly noteworthy. Guests who take the RIP tours, which offer front of the line access to everything, also get access to an unlimited buffet throughout the night, for as many trips as you’d like. It sounds like a great perk, but other than the burger sliders, parmesan garlic chicken skewers, Swedish meatballs, and cupcakes, there isn’t much else worth going back for. And even those are not exceptionally good, though they are good enough to keep you fueled throughout the night. It’s largely standard theme park fare.
Tickets and dates for Fright Fest Extreme 2024 at Six Flags Great Adventure
Six Flags Great Adventure’s Fright Fest Extreme is scheduled to fully open Sept. 26, 2024 with tickets starting at $65. Beyond the Halloween offerings, admission includes access to many of the park’s rides throughout the night. The event continues select nights through Nov. 3, 2024.
Overall thoughts
Pennsylvania certainly has its share of outrageous and astounding Halloween entertainment and attractions that seem to be growing and getting better year after year. This year, Six Flags Great Adventure has really propelled its event forward to try to compete and stand its own ghoulish ground. The event does still have a lot of growing to do, but with a few more years of evolution it does seem possible, perhaps for the first time ever, that Six Flags could become a un-ignorable powerhouse of Halloween thrills that rival their world-renowned coasters.
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