The Pirate’s Cave home haunt has been providing family-friendly scares to the city of Villa Park & Orange for 22 years. It’s a labor of love headed up by the father and son team, Dave & Jacob Larson at their home in Orange, CA. New to the neighborhood, Dave started the unofficial Pirate’s Cave back in 1999. That first year, Dave simply stood out in the front yard with a “Phantom of the Opera” mask and a shovel. The haunt has been growing each year after.

In 2004, his son Jacob was born into the haunt life. Over the years, Jacob grew a strong passion for Halloween and slowly began to help his dad more and more every year to construct the annual haunted house. The father and son now work hand in hand and create memorable screams for years to come. It takes them about 6 months of preparation and up to 25 volunteers to run the haunt each year. Volunteers include Jacob’s fellow students & some of their parents.

While last year’s show was a socially distanced stage presentation in the front yard, Pirate’s Cave is excited to be back to the walk-through format for this season. The event is titled “Pirates Cave: Curse of Calico Jack.” This year’s haunt is 3 times the size of their previous walkthroughs, and they’ve spent the last 6 months working on some new high-tech scares!

For those families with kids that are too young for scares, they will open up the cave for a “No Scare Candy Hunt” during the last two weekends of the event, from 5-6 pm. Families can tour the Pirates Cave with the lights on and no monsters in sight. Kids can search the mine for 3 candy stations throughout the haunt if they are brave enough. This is brand new for this year!

Creating attractions at a high artistic level is costly. Every year the Pirate’s Cave team relies heavily on their sponsors, as well as donations from fans. This year they are happy to welcome, Jeffrey Simons of Keller Williams Realty and Pam Dunn of Mulberry Street Mortgage as returning sponsors.

More details for Pirate’s Cave Haunt can be found on their website HERE.

When: October 16-17, 22-24, 29-31 from 6:30-10 PM (Sundays close at 9 PM)
Children’s Candy Hunt: October 22-24, 29-31 5-6 PM

Where: 2548 E Garfield Ave, Orange, 92867

Tickets: $4 suggested donation per person. Also – new for this year, Express Queue.