Heartstoppers Haunted House — Local services in Rancho Cordova

No spoilers here. A clearly beloved local haunted house with a lot of heart and potential, but not a lot of props or immersion. If you love engaging acting, great special FX makeup, kinesthetic components, and a fun vibe, this is the haunted house for you.

Logistics- Parking maybe challenging. A wildly popular haunted house- absolutely buy the Fast Pass in advance. We went early on a Friday and it was PACKED.

This one has four separated, distinctive haunted houses based around a lively central midway with craft shops and a large cast of rotating and engaging and dramatic special FX characters. Each minihouse is pretty short, but with a lot of scenic ambiance. There is a real commitment to classic haunted house tropes- dark, stumbling, disorienting, atmospheric. The actors are deep in their roles and all have fully developed, interactive characters: several had fun bits and stories to tell, but this sometimes made it challenging to discern how long to stay at each scene. Special FX makeup was extremely well done, and seen inside and outside of the houses. Many houses had a kinesthetic component to climb, crawl, smush, or blindly stumble your way through.

Some scenes lacked cohesiveness, and overall the props are minimalist and limited, with a distinctive DIY/homegrown vibe - no big, fancy electronics or elaborate scenes here. The pacing was a little awkward in spacing and timing in several spots, which prevented this house from achieving the immersive experience I crave from a haunted house. Most scenes had multiple actors, and it worked great for some areas but was disruptive in others. We continuously ran into the groups in front of us and behind us, so we missed the timing on a lot of the jump scares. Overall, I would rate the current house as "Just OK".

I firmly believe the foundation of a great haunted house is rooted in the actors- I can see the passion here and the strong community around this one, and I'm looking forward to watching this one grow into it's...

Being new to the Sacramento area, and a monstrous lover of all things Halloween, I was very excited to discover this local attraction. My fiancée and I opted for the fast pass option, which was absolutely worth the extra cost. There are 4 haunts and we didn't have a single person in front of us in any line. The whole park can be walked through in approximately an hour vs. the extended wait times of the standard pass.

Now, for the haunts themselves. Having been to many similar events, my expectations are always set high, and this group certainly ranks in the top 10%. The sets were well built, the settings were appropriate, the actors were PHENOMENAL (especially some of the younger ones) and the themes were very consistent. Each haunt was vastly different from the other 3, which is not an easy feat to accomplish.

To top off this great experience, the convenience was astounding. The site is minutes from Highway 50, there was no line to wait for parking (Note: bring an extra $5), and the lot was a very short walk to the main building. The restrooms were well maintained and easy to access and all staff members were super friendly and helpful.

We will definitely be returning next year and inviting...

It was fun, but overall, for the amount of money you're paying, they could have done better. One of the haunted houses was extremely short. Another one had literally nothing scary in it for almost the entire walk-through. For a minute there, I thought they were closing down it was so dull. They let so many people in at once that you can't get scared because the people end up scaring the first group, and we are right behind them, so we see it coming. We were doing the games at one point, and we were in this long line . They paused the game for 7 mins so everyone could watch the live show they were having. I didn't want to watch the show. I wanted to play the game and not be out there freezing in the cold. The food was ridiculously priced. On top of all the money you spent to get in they also make you pay for parking. They could have made an effort, is...