The 17th Door in Buena Park opens to an extreme haunt experience
Halfway through the 17th Door haunted house at the Buena Park Mall, a meat locker turns the maze into a chilling experience — literally.
A butcher taunts all who enter its frigid, tight quarters where the repulsive decor comes in the form of dangling, strung-up chickens.
Thrill seekers soon find themselves crammed into individual lockers where an arctic blast continues the haunt’s assault on the senses.
By the harrowing Halloween maze’s end, survivors will have endured a hurricane alley blasting 100 mile-per-hour winds, an earthquake simulator room and a corridor with live bugs and creepy crunches that sound beneath every panicked footstep.
It’s a philosophy of fear that Robbie and Heather Luther have honed since starting the 17th Door in 2015.
“What we offer here is just a totally different experience,” Heather said from an empty queue area before its opening Friday night. “The people that travel the world and go to all the haunts say there’s nothing like this place.”
This year’s Halloween boutique at Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar is dubbed the Gathering and boasts a witchy theme in helping to kick off spooky season.
Strangely enough, the married couple never built mini-haunted mazes at their home for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
But the 17th Door, named for the final room in the maze, stuck around as one of Robbie’s creative ideas for decades before the couple went all-in at the haunt’s original location at the Market Place in Tustin.
The haunted house then moved to Fullerton and resettled in a basement area of the Buena Park Mall last year.
Robbie and Heather have big expansion plans to add interactive horror movie theaters and year-round escape rooms by next Halloween.
For now, they are experimenting with new features at their seasonal maze, including a room with a tunnel where hurricane-level winds blast through.
The ingenuity behind new thrills brings a gleeful grin to Heather’s face as she walks through a guided tour of the maze before its opening weekend — and thankfully, before any scare actors clock in.
There’s only a loose storyline that threads all of the 17th Door’s maze rooms. All who enter “Perpetuum Penitentiary” are imprisoned by its horrors until they escape half an hour later.
A step inside the prison barber’s room doesn’t look too inviting.
“Your hair will be cut,” Heather explained. “Usually, it’s just a ‘17’ buzzed into the back of your head.”
That is, unless you cry “mercy” as a safety word or flash a pendant that works to provide instant relief throughout the maze.
A construction crew continued work on the earthquake simulation room, where a Yoda figure wearing an orange prison jumpsuit provides quick comic relief before the floor beneath you begins to rumble.
There’s even a room that brings the Stanford Prison Experiment to mind, as it allows once pelted guests to pull the trigger on pellet guns on another group in total darkness.
Don’t say the 17th Door didn’t warn you.
A trigger-warning banner hanging from a chain-link fence in the queue area lists all its offenses from foul smells to shocks to claustrophobia.
Haunt enthusiasts must also sign a waiver form before stepping into the first room.
“Some experiences are a bit challenging, extreme and intense overall but designed to be fun as well,” Heather said.
This year, the 17th Door is also offering an exclusive behind-the-scenes pass for people to see the cast, costume and makeup area.
After surviving the maze, pass holders can watch the scare monsters in action and get to hang out in the control room, which Heather refers to as the beating heart of the haunt.
Entertaining on the extremes gives the 17th Door the notoriety needed to open one street down from Knott’s Halloween Haunt and make a compelling addition to Buena Park’s fast-growing reputation as the Halloween capital of Orange County.
“Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines,” a maze at Halloween Horror Nights, highlights villains and heroines such as Saskia Van Helsing, the Bride of Frankenstein and Countess Marya Zaleska.
Even though the mall maze employs about 115 scare actors per season, it’s geared more toward psychological terror than typical “jump scares” found at walk-through haunts.
People are funneled through in groups of eight every 90 seconds. Last year, Heather boasted a headcount of 25,000 people braving the 17th Door before calling it a wrap for the season.
“We definitely get the adrenaline junkies and people who are just into haunts,” she said. “But, surprisingly, we get a big range of people from all ages.”
Heather recalled one exit interview years ago where a woman described the 17th Door as a “spiritual experience” after completing it.
It may seem strange to think of its delirious rooms as doors of perception waiting to be cleansed, but there’s an argument to be made.
“You’re going through all these crazy and intense things, but it’s all designed in a safe way where you can overcome your fears,” Heather said. “A lot of guests get that sense of accomplishment. They’re telling the world they’re stronger now.”
The 17th Door, at 8420 On the Mall, Buena Park, opened Sept. 27 and runs through Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, visit the17thdoor.com.
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