San Diego’s Haunted Trail transforms Balboa Park into a playground where characters materialized from horror movies run rampant, merciless in scaring anyone who may cross their paths. The trail boasts an impressive array of sets for attendees to walk through, such as an abandoned school bus and a slaughterhouse, recreating familiar scary movie scenes. Actors with bloodied makeup, intimidating costumes, much-too-realistic chainsaws and eerie expressions are stationed all along the trail and don’t hesitate to come face-to-face with and even chase, attendees. This year, the attraction features an addition called “The eXperiment,” a 5,000-square-foot maze, which precedes the trail for those who are brave enough.

“The trail is over a mile long and it zigzags through the park,” an ominous man dressed in black announces. “And we’ve got 30, 40 creatures running loose out there tonight, so good luck!”

Luck might be needed for more squeamish guests, who owner Greg DeFatta has seen his fair share of after 20 years in the haunted attraction industry.

“I’ve seen people urinate on themselves, they throw up on themselves, it’s all [points to his head] up here,” DeFatta said. “I wish we could scare somebody that much, but it’s really — it’s all in your mind.”

Though most of the fear might stem from the in-your-face interaction with actors and freaky set presentations, DeFatta hopes that visitors might notice some less direct details.

“It’s hard to mess with your mind too much,” DeFatta said. “There’s little subtleties inside that you’ll hopefully catch.”

The Haunted Trail is open every night until Halloween night from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 7 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on weekends. General admission ticket prices range from $15 to $22 and VIP tickets, which come with fast passes, range from $25 to $32. The location in Balboa Park is at Sixth Avenue and Juniper Street at Marston Point, just south of the Laurel Street Bridge.