Los Angeles’ Haunted Hayride promises a blast from the past. It mostly delivers the past.

This retro fright fest invites guests into Midnight Falls, a fictional town stuck in time on Halloween in 1985. Running select nights from Sept. 18 through Nov. 1, the event pairs haunted mazes with the signature hayride, where attendees are loaded into a hay wagon and driven through a series of monster-filled scenes. Roaming townsfolk – actors donning tattered versions of small-town attire, from prom dresses to football uniforms – and an undead entertainer Monte Revolta keep the town square alive. Admission starts at $34.99, with activities such as axe throwing, mini escape games and a séance – where attendees communicate with spirits of Midnight Falls – available for an extra fee. Yet, for a town celebrating Halloween on repeat, Midnight Falls seems overdue for a rehearsal.

The town makes a promising first impression. After shuttling from the parking lot, visitors descend a dim path dotted with lampposts as they glimpse the colorful Halloween festivities ahead. Orange, red, blue and purple lights wash over the grounds, while seemingly overworked smoke machines supply copious Halloween haze. Scare actors stationed near the entrance to greet visitors are as fun as they are creepy, easing visitors into the town’s Halloween antics.

Up close, however, the town loses much of its mystique. Decorations look less like pieces from a fully realized fictional world and more like a haul from Spirit Halloween, with towering plastic skeletons in assorted colors and equally tacky pumpkin-headed counterparts scattered throughout the entire hayride. Occasional animatronics are more festive than frightening. The lighting and smoke do much of the work. The actors handle the rest.

With a VIP Fast Pass, the namesake hayride offers an initially encouraging return on wait investment – the ride is roughly 15 minutes, and the wait before was about 10 minutes shortly after the park gates opened. A separate Platinum premium-access line moves even faster, while queues grow considerably longer as the hayride progresses. Chainsaw-wielding figures, clowns, pumpkin-headed characters, witches and an alien encounter populate its loosely connected scenes, but the strongest scares come when actors approach from behind, strike the haywagon or climb aboard. Detailed makeup and well-timed interactions make the actors more convincing than their surroundings.

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Unfortunately, the production frequently falters. Strobe lights expose speakers, and visible support rods undermine the illusion of white-clad figures whose pumpkin heads appear to float above their shoulders. An alien’s conspicuous mask with large eye holes undercuts its eerie contortions. Elsewhere, a family’s head-smashing routine ends in a red-lit dance to Awolnation’s “Run,” trading potential menace for choreography too literal to properly sustain the scare. The performers work hard to pull riders into the scene, but the exposed mechanics keep pulling attendees back out.

Without a clear sense of Midnight Falls’ backstory, the fictional setting connecting the event’s attractions, the scenes aboard the Hayride feel more like a collection of Halloween setups than a cohesive journey through one haunted town. Midnight Falls has a backstory, but it seems oddly reluctant to share it.

The mazes repeat the hayride’s imbalance of underwhelming scenery and committed performers. Elvira’s Trick or Treat Mayhem, one of the event’s three mazes, leads visitors through movie-themed displays and an outdoor stretch populated by animatronics. With actors scattered throughout the route, the mechanical figures aren’t much help in keeping guests scared. A pitch-black passage through an inflated tunnel creates a sense of disorientation but gives attendees little to look at.

The strongest scares rely on classic tricks. A chainsaw-wielding actor lunging when you don’t expect it and a performer concealed behind the entrance of a rundown movie theater deliver more impact than the props themselves.

Inside a striped carnival tent, Madame Aurora’s Séance Theater finally contextualizes Midnight Falls’ scattered horrors for attendees willing to pay the additional $11.25 fee. A mostly one-woman ceremony punctuated by images of townspeople in mirrors explains how a mayoral hopeful’s bargain condemned the town to an eternal Halloween. The revelation supplies the connection missing from much of the experience, though burying that explanation in a separate attraction accessible only via surcharge makes the storytelling feel like an afterthought.

The séance’s moving table and a seemingly falling shelf fare better than its cheesy mirrors. The spirits, however, sometimes miss their cues. Aurora has to repeat requests before a bell finally rings, making the pauses feel like backstage miscommunications. Her possession supplies the strongest ending, with bursts of strobe light revealing performers moving closer between flashes of darkness.

Also available is is a paintball-style shooting game called Zombie Splat’s Gellyball experience, which also incurs attendees another $11.25 cost, despite its little payoff. Participants fire small gel projectiles at targets from a range-style booth, but during the 90-second session, targets neither fall nor visibly register hits, and lackluster animatronics provide minimal excitement. Despite the advertised live zombie actors, the only performer attendees encounter is outside the room where the game takes place. No live performers appear during the session, leaving the experience closer to a static shooting gallery than a zombie encounter. Worse, gel fragments ricochet from nearby targets toward participants, who receive no protective eyewear.

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A $26.60 Combo Pack bundles the séance, Zombie Splat, five axe throws and a carousel ride, but the discount does little to strengthen its value. Midnight Falls Axe throwing, $9.21 separately, is limited to five attempts. The $6.14 Scary-Go-Round, meanwhile, is exactly that – a standard children’s carousel. Sitting next to a scare actor adds some novelty, but otherwise, the ride has little to offer beyond going in circles.

A free tarot reading outside the hayride provides a gentler encounter, though its long line leads to advice that feels somewhat generic. Still, the reader’s warmth and encouragement make the interaction a pleasant break from the scares.

The Monte Revolta Show and his live band bring welcome energy into the town square, though prerecorded audio accompanying scare actors’ performances makes the entertainment less lively. Between sets, the playlist also struggles to set up a consistent mood. “Thriller” fits the Halloween festivities, but an abrupt transition from Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” to Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” makes the supposedly time-frozen town feel more like a contemporary costume party.

LA’s Haunted Hayride has its moments, largely thanks to performers who offer personality and well-timed scares amid otherwise underwhelming attractions. But thin production, disorganized storytelling and lackluster paid extras leave too much of the experience resting on performers’ shoulders.

The self-proclaimed “Ultimate Halloween Event” has spirit. Most of it is on the payroll.