Knott's returns to the fog with a stronger Halloween Haunt line-up

Knott's Berry Farm's less-is-more approach to Halloween Haunt in recent seasons has resulted in fewer but better haunted mazes with a greater focus on storytelling and attention to detail.

In its 45th season, the granddaddy of theme park haunted attractions is playing catch-up with Universal's Halloween Horror Nights, which specializes in mazes based on brand-name horror films with movie studio-quality sets. As it has throughout its history, Knott's continues to rely on tried and true Halloween tropes for its maze themes.

The increased competition has lead the Buena Park, Calif., theme park to adopt a quality-over-quantity ethos that has produced a line-up of haunted mazes that has grown stronger each of the past few seasons.

I returned to the fog on opening night of Knott's Scary Farm to review each of the nine haunted mazes. Let's take a best-to-worst