Are you prepared to get scared?

Frightmares is the name of Lagoon's Halloween event that occurs at the end of the park's operating season. This even lasts for about 5 weeks and includes haunted houses, live entertainment, a children's trick-or-treat house, ghouls wandering the midway, and the usual lineup of rides. On top of that, Lagoon dresses up the park with plenty of decorations, has haunting music throughout the entire park, and places fog machines throughout the park. The transformation from the normal Lagoon midway to the Frightmares midway is something to behold and enjoy.

The main focus of Frightmares is of course the haunted houses and other haunting attractions. Currently, Lagoon operates four haunted houses: Nightwalk, Lockdown, Deception, and the Fun House of Fear. Each house offers a collection of interesting rooms and scary characters. You can find these haunted houses by heading back into the pavilions next to the Bat and Jet Star. Also by Jet Star is Psycho Dave's junkyard which houses a fantastic collection of stuff from Lagoon's past as well as some not so friendly junkyard employees.

For the kids, Lagoon offers a trick-or-treat house, Spook-A-Boo, and a straw maze, Scary & Crow's. Spook-A-Boo is located on the Main Midway across from Terroride and replaces Scamper (children's bumper car ride) at the end of the year. There are a variety of friendly characters waiting to meet your kids and give them some candy as a reward for visiting. Scary & Crow's Straw Maze is set up in the grassy field next to the Jumping Dragon. To be able to participate in both attractions, children must be less than 54" in height.

Live entertainment is also a big part of Frightmares. The Carousel Theatre receives a Frightmares makeover, and temporary stage is erected in front of Game Time. The Carousel Theatre usually has the more modern songs that the cast sing and dance to while the Game Time Stage cast sing and dance to older songs. In addition to the song and dance shows, Lagoon hires a stage hypnotist that performs a few shows each night. You can find the hypnotist behind Deception and the Fun House of Fear in the Meadow Terrace. For the kids, Lagoon has Windy the Witch wandering Kiddieland and performing at the Carousel Theatre. She is usually on the park between noon and 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Finally, there is also a dance group known as Hackenslash that usually performs right before one of the scheduled entertainment shows. You can find them at the Carousel Theatre, Game Time Stage, and the Meadow Terrace. In my opinion, Hackenslash is the most popular live entertainment group that Lagoon has all year.

History

In 1995, Lagoon introduced park guests to "the dark side of Lagoon" with the introduction of Frightmares, their yearly end of the season Halloween event. During its first year, Frightmares featured just one haunted house, the Nightmare Midway, which was designed by Drew Hunter, aka Dr. Blood and President of Vorta, a company that specialized in Halloween and haunt design. The original Nightmare Midway was a wonderful haunt with the theme of a demented traveling carnival featuring oddities such as a fat lady, a funeral fun house, and a knife thrower, as well as carnival games that participants could play. The Nightmare Midway was placed in the Davis Pavilion, which still houses two of Lagoon's haunted attractions today. A large carnival-like façade was placed over the front of the pavilion, which served as the entrance and exit to the haunted house.

In addition to the Nightmare Midway, Lagoon also transformed the Speedway Sr. Ride, now removed, into the Utah Trollroad. The Trollroad featured ride operators in troll costumes operating the ride as well as scaring participants as they drove their car around the Speedway track. The Carousel Theatre was also transformed into an attraction as well featuring periodic live Halloween music as well as spooky story telling for the kids. After the stories, kids could follow a "pied piper" character around the area to go trick-or-treating. Finally, Lagoon featured a parade of ghouls and zombies that walked around the park interacting and entertaining guests, but at the same time being careful not to scare little kids. To help add to the transformation of the Halloween haunt, Lagoon also created a "Legend of Frightmares" story that was printed in the flyer given to guests as they entered the park (LagoonIsFun.com is searching for this story. If you or someone you know still have this brochure or can remember the story please contact us!).