The first sign something was off? That would be the deranged landscaper in overalls who issued dire warnings at the entrance of a hedge maze.

“Be careful!” he snarled from behind a clear plastic mask, his hedge trimmers dangling by his side. “Watch your feet — and your back!”

The next? The arms thrusting out of hedges, which were adorned with smoke-scorched baby dolls of all sizes.

Welcome to the annual FX activation at San Diego Comic-Con. It’s where the network takes over the lawn outside the Hilton San Diego Bayfront to create experiences that bring fans into the worlds of such shows as “American Horror Story: Dollhouse,” “What We Do in the Shadows” and the upcoming “Little Demon.”

Fans, including mother and daughter Redd and Caroline Thorpe of San Diego, made their way through the maze in separate small groups. The Thorpes were having a blast, posing in mock fear on a sculptural contraption that emulated the Rubber Man from earlier seasons of “American Horror Stories,” and laughing as mom pretended to push her daughter down an evil-looking fairy-tale well a few yards farther into the labyrinth.

“It’s absolutely fantastic,” Redd Thorpe said of the activation. “We love ‘American Horror Stories’ and ‘What We Do In The Shadows,’ so it’s really neat to experience it like this.”

After passing by a banquet table where actors made up as undead dolls moved around a feast of rotten delicacies — hats off to the set designer who thought to place an eyeball atop a moldy blueberry tart — they reach Nadja’s Nightclub.

“What We Do In The Shadows,” which recently premiered its fourth season, features the vampire Nadja’s realization of a long-held dream to open a bangin’ club for vampires. Here fans could dance on a small platform while a camera swung in a 360-degree rotation and make a short video perfect to post on social media.

“The interactive aspect makes you want to watch the shows even more,” Caroline Thorpe said after walking out of the shadowy discotheque and into sunshine bright enough to incinerate any real vampires.

The final stretch of the walk-through experience featured “Little Demons,” a new animated series that debuts on FX on Aug. 25. Here, people walk through dangling rubber strands of yellow, orange and red — hellfire, presumably — to a stage where the show would be premiered for viewers several times throughout Comic-Con.

The last stop was a roulette wheel where, depending on where your ball landed, you won a personalized hat — the hardest to earn — or a consolation prize of a bottle of Little Demon hot sauce. We tried it later at home, and man, it was hotter than — well, you know.