A terrifying new haunted maze coming to Knott’s Scary Farm invites you to step inside a Grimm’s Fairy Tale gone horribly wrong where a vengeful boogeyman eats people while they sleep — starting with their fingers.
Knott’s Scary Farm 2024 will feature 10 haunted mazes, five scare zones and four live shows on select nights from Sept. 19 to Nov. 2 at the Buena Park theme park.
The Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman haunted maze will take Scary Farmers inside the dark fantasy realm of a twisted children’s storybook tale.
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Knott’s Berry Farm maze designer Gus Krueger in the Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman haunted maze at Knott’s Scary Farm. (Photo by Brady MacDonald, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Knott’s Berry Farm maze designer Gus Krueger wrote a disturbing children’s poem inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales to help establish the backstory for the Eight Fingers Nine maze.
“I wanted to feel like we’ve walked into this storybook tale,” Krueger said during a tour of the maze. “I just wanted to take a really dark, disturbing turn down those paths.”
Eight Fingers Nine is the name of the boogeyman who is the central character of the grim fairy tale and the haunted maze.
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The Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman haunted maze at Knott’s Scary Farm. (Photo by Brady MacDonald, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Krueger has been developing the concept for the Eight Fingers Nine maze for five years.
“It’s been in the back of my head for a long time,” Krueger said. “This year seemed like a great opportunity to really bring it to life.”
The simple yet horrifying storyline is straightforward: A boogeyman eats you while you sleep.
Krueger has added layers of detail to round out the backstory for Scary Farmers who want to dive deeper into the nightmare tale.
The backstory for the Eight Fingers Nine maze focuses on a young boy whose parents died in a tragic carriage crash in colonial times. He grew up in the village orphanage where he was bullied by the other kids. He was eventually tied to a tree in the forest and left to die.
“The only thing keeping him alive is just this hatred and this hunger and this need for revenge,” Krueger said.
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The Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman haunted maze at Knott’s Scary Farm. (Photo by Brady MacDonald, Orange County Register/SCNG)
The magical forest transformed the boy into a 7-foot-tall monster who returned to the village to seek vengeance on the kids who bullied him.
The Eight Fingers Nine fairy tale grew out of stories told by the children of the orphanage about a monster that would suddenly materialize in their rooms in search of his former tormentors.
“The name comes from a children’s rhyme that the kids have created about what has happened throughout the town,” Krueger said. “This monster comes from the magical woods and starts eating people while they sleep.”
The Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman haunted maze at Knott’s Scary Farm. (Brady MacDonald/Orange County Register/SCNG)
The Tree of Woe that the bullies tied the boy to gave the orphan magical powers that allow him to travel through anything made of wood — trees, roots, doors and walls.
The boogeyman casts a spell over his victims that puts them in a sleep paralysis and keeps them awake while the monster slowly devours them alive — starting with their fingers.
A trio of diorama scenes in the Eight Fingers Nine maze queue will help establish the backstory — showing the boy being turned into a monster and introducing visitors to the boogeyman. Nursery rhyme voiceovers in each scene of the maze will help reinforce the narrative.
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If you don’t want to bother with all the storytelling, then all you need to know is the boogeyman is out to get you and you better watch out.
The Eight Fingers Nine maze takes visitors through a colonial village where the townsfolk are searching for the boogeyman.
“The townsfolk don’t really know what’s going on,” Krueger said. “They just know a monster is coming for them.”
We visit the orphanage where the kids are clearly plagued by nightmares of the boogeyman.
“The children of the orphanage have been seeing monsters in their sleep,” Krueger said. “There are drawings all over the walls. It’s just littered with visions of different versions of the monster they’ve seen in their sleep.”
Then we head into the woods toward the Tree of Woe and travel through the roots of the magical forest just like the boogeyman — seeing what he sees and how he chooses his victims.
“There’s several portals where you can see people sleeping,” Krueger said. “You’ll see how he’s able to pick and choose where he goes and who his next victim is.”
An area known as the Weeping Woods is where the boogeyman keeps the souls of his victims trapped inside the trees of the forest.
“You see some of the tree branches resemble arms and hands like they’re trying to force their way out of the trees,” Krueger said.
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In the maze finale, the trees come alive with the help of stilt walkers and a surprising bungee scare.
Eight Fingers Nine: The Boogeyman is one of two new mazes debuting this year at Knott’s Scary Farm.
The new Widows maze mashes up two disparate things: spiders and nursing homes where the web-spinning arachnids burrow into the bodies of widowed woman.
The eight returning legacy mazes include: Chilling Chambers (2023), Cinema Slasher (2023), Room 13 (2023), Bloodline 1842 (2022), Grimoire (2022), Mesmer: Sideshow of the Mind (2021), Origins: Curse of Calico (2019) and Wax Works (2019).
The Depths and Dark Entities mazes were retired at the end of the Knott’s Scary Farm 2023 season.
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