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Photo Galleries: East Valley Yard Haunts

DIY Halloween Attractions in Burbank, North Hollywood, Studio City: BRC – A Place to Scare, Grimwood Hollow, Forbidden Woods Cemetery, Holiday Fantasies Come to Life, Pierdell Cemetery, Rosehill Haunt, Rotten Apple 907 & More.

Once upon a time, Hollywood Gothique ran an annual “Halloween Yard Haunt Odyssey” that covered every amateur haunted house we saw on Halloween Night. Those days are long gone. There is so much to see that we can’t reach everything in one night, and we can’t fit all yard haunts into one article. For Halloween 2019, we so far have posted about the Verdugos, San Gabriel Valley,  Antelope Valley, and Northwest County; we even went outside Los Angeles to Orange County. Now, we are turning our attention to Halloween in San Fernando Valley.

The density of home haunts is so great in this region that we are sub-dividing it into sections more or less as laid out in SanFernandoGuide.com: East Valley, North Valley, etc. In order to make geographic sense out of the various haunt locations, we may reassign a neighborhood or two to a different section; the idea is to group these amateur attractions together, so that haunt-seekers can use this post next year as a guide for targeted excursions to specific neighborhoods instead of wandering from one to another.

In this post, we explore yard haunts in San Fernando Valley East, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, and Burbank. Along with familiar favorites like Rotten Apple 907, Forbidden Woods Cemetery, Holiday Fantasies Come to Life, and Rosehill Haunt, there are some new and/or less less well known efforts: Pierdell Cemetery, BRC: A Place to Scare, Clybourn Manor, Grimwood Hollow, and a handful of others scattered throughout the area.

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East San Fernando Valley Halloween Haunts: New for 2019

We begin with three East San Fernando Valley Halloween haunts that made their debut in 2019. Two were yard displays; one was a non-profit wallk-through haunted house.


NEW: BCR – A Place To Scare
Halloween Walk-Through Haunted House
230 Amherst Drive, Burbank, 91504

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BCR: A Place To Scare was not actually a yard haunt, but we include it here because it was an amateur, do-it-yourself effort, put on as a fundraiser. Set in the activity center of BCR: A Place to Grow, a non-profit charity organization that offers programs for the developmentally disabled, the haunted attraction cast its location as a haunted hospital where an over-eager nurse was far too enthusiastic about drawing blood donations. Apparently, this was a front for something even worse, as we soon encountered vampires hungry for blood straight from the source.

Though obviously mounted on a limited budget, BCR: A Place To Scare exploited its location to great effect. The building provided more space than most amateur efforts can afford, and the sense of being in a real place helped immeasurably, aided by eerie lighting and ominous soundscapes that turned innocuous corridors into haunted hallways.

Making its debut this Halloween, BCR: A Place To Scare was open for two days only, the last weekend of October. The proprietors plan to resurrect it next year.


NEW: Pierdell Cemetery
Halloween Yard Display
6245 Whitsett Avenue, North Hollywood, 91606

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This home haunt made its debut this Halloween with a modest front yard display that showed promising signs of future expansion. Pierdell Cemetery benefited from being set on a property with large overhanging trees that filtered out local street lights, casting ominous shadows on the sparse soil, which was dotted with cactus and other succulents – the perfect setting for a creepy cemetery.

The decor was home-made, adding a touch of personality that doesn’t come with store-bought props. Transparent ghosts floated over the gravestones, and a demon baby glowed near the house, an intimidating obstacle to wary trick-or-treaters.

Pierdell Cemetery was open the last week of October. Hopefully, it will return next Halloween.


NEW: Ontario Street Circus
Halloween Yard Haunt
715 N Ontario Street, Burbank, 91505

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Just around the corner from Rotten Apple 907, this yard haunt made its debut this Halloween. The haunt has yet to adopt an official name; for now we’ll call it the Ontario Street Circus. It’s a large and fully themed yard display to enjoy from the sidewalk. Be careful, however; one of the clowns isn’t an animatronic, though he’s good at acting like one until you’re nice and close.

– Capsule Comment by Marie DeLoups

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East San Fernando Valley Yard Haunts 2019: NoHo & Studio City

Next we look at a pair of East San Fernando Valley yard haunts in North Hollywood and Studio City. The first is a scary walk-through haunted house; the second is an atmospheric Halloween yard display.

Forbidden Woods Cemetery
Halloween Walk-Through Maze
11238 Califa Street, North Hollywood 91601
facebook.com/Forbidden-Woods-Cemetery

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Forbidden Woods Cemetery immediately became a favorite of ours when we first visited it last year. The walk-through haunt began in a garage haunted by a witch before moving into the front yard, which was thick with foliage and trellises that defined a narrow pathway, filled with monsters lurking within dense layers of fog.

For Halloween 2019, Forbidden Woods added a small interior setting, a funeral room inside a Gothic, church-like building, decorated with stone gargoyles and with candles glowing in small arched windows. This was a nice little cherry on top of the haunt’s cemetery setting, which used some fairly basic building blocks (spiderwebs, white props glowing in black light) to create a surprisingly immersive environment.

Unfortunately, Forbidden Woods Cemetery was open only the last two days of October. When you’re planning your own personal Yard Haunt Odyssey next Halloween, put this atop your list.

Rosehill Haunt
Halloween Yard Display
11560 Acama Street, Studio City, 91604

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The Rosehill Haunt featured some additions this Halloween, most notably a large painted backdrop (debuted at Midsummer Scream), which gave a much larger sense of scale to the cemetery display in the front yard. Though not exactly a walk-through, the haunt once again allowed guests to enter a walled area to the side of the house, occupied by skeletons in various poses, including two musicians “performing” Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. The slightly cartoonish look of the new backdrop perfectly captured the tone of Rosehill Haunt – good spooky fun for trick-or-treaters and Halloween fans of all ages.

The haunt was open five days this season, during the final weekend of October, plus Halloween Night and November 1.

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East San Fernando Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Burbank

Finally, we explore East San Fernando Valley yard haunts in Burbank, with a brief detour into nearby Toluca Lake.

Clybourn Manor
Halloween Yard Display
4336 N Clybourn Avenue, Burbank 91505

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This small Burbank yard haunt offered pirate-themed Halloween fun with skeletal sailors flying the skull-and-crossbones flag, a treasure chest, and creepy Kraken tentacles reaching up out of the “ocean.” The display was visible the last week of October, plus November 1.

Though located in Burbank, Clybourn Manor‘s address is conveniently close to Toluca Lake, which has a reputation as a trick-or-treating mecca filled with numerous yard haunts. If you visit next season, chart a course west through the winding streets to find other haunted houses, two of which are pictured here.


Grimwood Hollow
Halloween Yard Display
618 N. Sparks Street, Burbank, 91506

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We ran a brief capsule of this Halloween display in last year’s Burbank installment of the Halloween Haunt Odyssey, but words don’t fully do justice to Grimwood Hollow, which grew even more elaborate this year. The numerous lanterns, candles, gravestones, and figures combine into their own little Halloween wonderland, enhanced with beautifully colored lighting.

Grimwood Hollow gets bonus points for including Nathan Grantham’s tombstone from Creepshow (1982) and extra special nerd points for Arthur Grimsdyke’s tombstone with the correct dates (1907-1972) as seen in the film Tales From the Crypt (except that the Grimwood Hollow version looks even better).

The yard haunt was open four days this season, the last weekend of October, plus Halloween Night and November 1. With so many other haunted homes in Burbank, there’s no reason not to swing by this one next year.


Holiday Fantasies Come to Life
Halloween Yard Display
1505 N. Valley Street, Burbank 91505

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We first wrote about this this yard display last Halloween, when it presented presented a Disney’themed pirate ship. This year’s iteration is still essentially Pirates of the Caribbean in the front yard, but the backdrop has been transformed from a ship into a castle (e.g., the gangplank to the ship is now a drawbridge).

No matter. The profusion of colorful decor was overwhelming, and the familiar props and settings were altered into new arrangements. The Disneyesque quality of Holidays Fantasies Come to Life made it safe for even timid candy-seekers, but even diabetics could get an overdose from all the eye-candy on view.

 


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Rotten Apple 907
Halloween Walk-Through Haunted House
907 N California Street, Burbank, 91505
rottenapple907.com

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Rotten Apple 907 has been a long-time favorite walk-through home haunt in the heart of Burbank, with a new theme every year and impressive sets and costumes to match. This year’s theme is The Death Triangle, a nautical horror adventure. As in previous years there’s a little bit of story in store to elevate this attraction above the mere jump scares offered by some.

Your adventure begins outside at the front of the line, where a traumatized sailor recounts to your group his harrowing tale of barely escaping his own visit to the Death Triangle. Given his warnings it seems unwise to enter the triangle yourself, but you’ve come this far, there’s no turning back now, spoilers ahead. Ushered inside, you meet the captain, who has another warning for you now that it’s too late. The ship is sinking and the crew is mostly dead, or undead as the case may be. Wind your way through the tilted corridors of the ship, avoiding the corpses of the crew and tentacles of the kraken until you find your way to the surprisingly breathable ocean floor.

The real sand used on the floor here was a nice touch. I’m sure it’s a chore for them to clean up, but the added bit of realism makes the experience all the more vivid. Rotten Apple spares no expense, and it’s still a free haunt, though donations are accepted to support Volunteers of the Burbank Animal Shelter. In the end there is no escaping the belly of the kraken, and if you don’t want to be trapped with the sunken ship forever, the only way out is to enter the monster’s maw.

This Year’s Rotten Apple was about five minutes long, and though it was tame enough for your children, with the homemade sets, costumes, and some jump-scares, it was definitely impressive for adults as well. The line started at about 6pm, and they started turning people away before 10pm so that they could close on time. Plan accordingly next year, but do not be deterred; the line moves quickly.

If you can get to the area early, check out HalloweenTown, a store that has Halloween on every shelf all year long. It’s right around the corner.

– Capsule Comment by Marie DeLoups


East San Fernando Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Random Burbank Displays

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This is a collection of relatively low-profile Halloween yard haunts in Burbank. Most have little or no webs presence and do not bother listing themselves on the annual SoCal Haunt List. Nevertheless, they are worth a drive-by on the way to other, more well-known Halloween home haunts.

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East San Fernando Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Conclusion

As always, we apologize to all the house haunters whose efforts we did not cover until after they had closed. We hope this belated tribute to your hard work is some small consolation.

Steve Biodrowski, Administrator

A graduate of USC film school, Steve Biodrowski has worked as a film critic, journalist, and editor at Movieline, Premiere, Le Cinephage, The Dark Side., Cinefantastique magazine, Fandom.com, and Cinescape Online. He is currently Managing Editor of Cinefantastique Online and owner-operator of Hollywood Gothique.