Photos by Brittany Woolsey.

As you walk up to the area, with a clown’s face looming over disguised as an entrance, it’s easy to forget you’re in an East Long Beach neighborhood. Instead, you’re at a makeshift haunted maze, but this isn’t your typical neighborhood haunt. Oh, no. The Allens have taken it much further.

Don’t mistake Katie Allen’s cute skeleton makeup as she greets you. What lies ahead is not for the faint of heart.

“It’s too scary for me to go inside,” Katie tells me at the entrance. “I just stay out here and greet the guests.”

Inside, her husband, Chris Allen, and his friends have transformed part of their front yard into what can be compared to a Knott’s Scary Farm attraction. As you walk through the clown’s mouth, you’re suddenly immersed into a room filled with freaks as you become easily disoriented from fog, strobe lights and the haunting sounds of Marilyn Manson, Metallica and Alice Cooper.

Not afraid of clowns? The Allens have you covered. Aliens, scarecrows—some stationary and some living—an insane asylum, a graveyard. You name the horror sequence, they’ve got it.

As a fan who indulges everything Halloween and attends all the events, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this maze, but I was quickly impressed.

The Allens use a clever technique of gutters and hidden holes to track and follow guests in the maze.

“If you go to Knott’s, sometimes it’s just one guy who jumps out at you,” Chris said. “We’re pretty much about scaring you and then pursuing you without you knowing. These are strategic scares. One of the things that I love the most is when kids come through with their parents, including a big, strong dad, and the dad gets scared.”

The frights are so real, in fact, that it’s easy for groups—limited to between three and six people for an ultimate scare experience—to become separated. As my friend and I walked through the maze, we noticed the four strangers in our group had disappeared far behind us. Perhaps they were easily taken aback by a demented scarecrow or alien in the scenes we had already passed by.

“We’ve had people sit down right where they’re standing from being in so much shock,” said Lucas Miller, one of Chris’ friends who helped build the maze.

Chris said he became interested in hosting a haunted house when he was a child.

“When I was 10, my dad put up a little pop-up canopy like you’d take to the beach, and I scared some kids,” he said. “That’s kind of where my obsession started.”

To construct this obsession, Chris was resourceful and used recycled materials—like wooden planks and metal sheets—from his job as a mechanic.

“A lot of people see trash and I see haunted treasure,” he said. “Other than playing music, this is our other creative outlet. This is a chance for us to be big kids once a year. We like to regress once a year.”

This is the Allen’s fourth year putting on the maze, and it has grown each year, they said. A line for the maze can easily stretch several houses down. By now, the neighbors are used to the event, including the days of construction leading up to it.

“It’s a lot of noise for them to deal with for three or four weeks, but they’re all on board with it,” Chris said. “They come through and it’s not like anyone’s calling the cops. I feel for a scary attraction, we make it very warm, local and grassroots. People think we’re kind of crazy because it’s so much work to do for a couple of nights, but it’s a labor of love. We know that we’re making such a good experience for everyone to go through.”

This will be their last year at this location, Chris said, but they are hoping to bring it to a larger area, like a pumpkin patch or warehouse, next year.

The Allen’s frightening multi-scare haunted maze can be found by going to the corner of Stearns and Palo Verde and following the directional signs. It will be open tonight, beginning at 7PM. Admission is free.

{FG_GEOMAP [33.795428,-118.10791749999999] FG_GEOMAP}