Hollywood Gothique

Pirates Cave Home Haunt

The Pirates Cave Home Haunt

Hollywood Gothique Says:

Pirates Cave home hauntThe Pirates Cave was a home haunt with a professional feel, offering numerous animatronics and very impressive interaction with ghostly cast members. Highly recommended.

2548 E Garfield Avenue
Orange, CA 92867
Website

Status: On hiatus. In 2022, this home haunt teamed up with Dark Harvest to present Shady Pine’s Asylum, a pro attraction. For 2023, the proprietor is offering his tech services and products to other haunts.

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The Pirates Cave Home Haunt History

Haunting since the year 2000, The Pirates Cave is the work of the father and son team of Dave & Jacob Larson, who typically present a combination of yard display and walk-through. Dave Larson, who used to building haunted houses in his parents’ garage, explained the origins of Pirates Cave to the OC Weekly:

“I always enjoyed Halloween as a child, and really appreciated those houses that decorated and made it extra special. I want to do that for my community. It’s the only holiday where people will come visit your home and actually walk up to your door. Why not make it something fantastic? It’s also our chance to be Disney Imagineers for a season, which is what my son plans to do some day.”

The pirate theme emerged from a present:

“My wife bought me an old wood pirate steering wheel from the thrift store and we decided to build our own ‘Spooky pirate at the wheel’ prop just like you see at Disneyland. We thought it looked so good, that we decided to explore a pirate themed haunt. It’s a great theme for kids, but can be scary as well. The pirate at the wheel on our roof remains the oldest prop we’ve built. Most everything is built from scratch as Halloween stores don’t have quality props that would fit our theme.”

In 2017 Pirates Cave began accepting sponsorships, which helped raise production values.

“Some of our parents who are big fans recommended that we start taking donations and seek sponsorships. It was an idea I hadn’t considered, but was needed. As the haunt has grown, so has the expenses, work hours, and the number of volunteers needed. Creating a high quality event takes money. My dream is some day to get enough donations that it’s just a matter of volunteering time. But for now what isn’t covered in donations is paid for by my company CreativeCommotion.tv.”

For Halloween 2020, Pirates Cave switched to an outdoor show instead of an indoor maze. Designed for safety during the Covid-19 pandemic, “Origins” was a 6-minute presentation using video, lighting, effects, to portray the haunt’s back story. The cast of six received nightly health checks and maintained social distance from the audience, who were required to wear masks and stand in designated spots.

After the socially distanced outdoor show of 202, The Pirate Cave resumed its walk-through format in 2021. Titled “Pirates Cave: Curse of Calico Jack,” that year’s haunt promised to be three times larger than before, requiring over six months of work on new high tech scares. There is also a Kids Candy Haunt on the last two weekends of the month.


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