Sinister Hollow is Disney's most immersive land yet, featuring a multitude of practical and digital effects, a multilayered storyline that can be explored throughout the land, and a combination of mild attractions and intense thrills. Located in upstate New York, the town of Stonecraft Grove is surrounded by a forest that keeps people out, and secrets in. In the daytime, Stonecraft Grove is covered in shadows, and the whole town feels like it's hiding smoething. At nighttime, the town comes to life, as happy haunts materialize.

The Gracey name is already well known in Disneyland lore through its Haunted Mansion connections. In Stonecraft Grove is found the ancestral home of the Gracey family. Here guests can learn of the history of hauntings that has followed the Graceys for decades. Trying to escape the curse put on his family, young Master Gracey left Stonecraft Grove. After making a name for himself in the shipping business, he built himself a mansion in New Orleans and discovered the curse had followed him all along...

Location

As one of Disneyland's largest lands yet, Sinister Hollow resides outside the berm, across Disneyland Drive from the rest of the park. This distance necessitates a second park entrance, as well as a land bridge over the road below. To accomplish this, an expansion of New Orleans Square will accompany Sinister Hollow. As part of Splash Mountain's retheme to the Princess and the Frog, Critter Country will become an expansion of New Orleans Square, and serve as the connector between Sinister Hollow and the rest of the park.

Atmosphere

To follow the banks of Disneyland's Rivers of America from Frontierland through to the furthest edges of present day Critter Country is to follow the geography and history of America itself. Sinister Hollow continues that progress further east and further into the past, with its setting heavily inspired by New York's Hudson River Valley in its earliest settler days. Guests will discover this land at a much later date, long after the initial buzz of settlement has worn off and the once-thriving towns have fallen into disrepair. In this world, Disney draws from American Gothic inspirations, from the dark fantasies which make up part of our national mythos. Think "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" in style if not in content, merged with the works of Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and others. All of this is filtered through Disney's typical romantic lens, of course. Much like Shanghai Disneyland's Treasure Cove and its expansion of the Pirates of the Caribbean concept, Sinister Hollow expands upon Haunted Mansion's premise into a complete, fleshed-out land.

Sinister Hollow uses lighting to effectively set a mood for the whole area. The multitude of trees and tall structures found in the land provide a shady, sinister feeling during the day, and tactically placed lighting provides an equally mysterious feeling at night. The slightly dilapidated appearance of the buildings in the land also contributes to its cold atmosphere.

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Wander Through the Mysterious History of Stonecraft Grove