Hallowed Haunting Grounds
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Halloween Home Haunt
Formerly at: 4343 Babcock Avenue, Studio City, CA
www.hauntinggrounds.org
 This decorated yard haunt lasted until its thirty-third year, and people kept coming back – because it was the best in Los Angeles. Each year, it just grew bigger and better, until 2005, when the Hallowed Haunting Grounds announced that that October would see its “Final Manifestation.” We wish them well in their future endeavors, but what will we do without them during Halloweens to come?
More spooky than scary, this amateur haunt was an excellent place to bring young trick-or-treaters who might be scared by professional haunted mazes, setting the standard for numerous other Halloween yard haunts in Los Angeles (House of Restless Spirits, House at Haunted Hill, etc).
There were no actors performing jump scares. Basically, this was a front yard filled with mechanical effects (moving gravestones) and projected images (ghosts rising from the ground), with some wonderfully eerie music and sound effects. Visitors walked down the driveway, looked into the house (where ghostly musicians appeared and disappeared at their instruments), got a glimpse into the backyard (a fog shrouded cemetery), and exited down a walkway (past a monk delivering in invocation over a well filled with strange light).
It was possible to make the entire circuit in a few minutes, but that would have been a mistake. In a way, it was lucky that the Hallowed Haunting Grounds was usually crowded, forcing the audience to stand and wait, so that its many low-key and carefully timed spectres would eventually make themselves known to mortal senses that would otherwise have been blind to the presence.
Hallowed Haunting Grounds Articles
Learn more in the Haunting Grounds Archive…
Gary Corb, R.I.P.
Halloween Haunt Awards 2016: The Winners
Farewell to the Hallowed Haunting Grounds: Gary Corb Interview
HHA 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award: The Hallowed Haunting Grounds
Find more great departed attractions in the Hollywood Gothique Hall of Fame.
