{Sorry I have a lot to say
}
The combination of both seasons was something else I felt that didn't work to their favor. There were aspects and scenes from both seasons that were missing. In Season 2, the pumpkin patch, the Byer's house with the tunnel maps all over the house, and Will's exorcism scene are the only ones coming to mind right at this second. In Season 3, we missed the Sauna scene, Starcourt Mall (that finale scene was not everything they could have done in Starcourt), the dinner scene when Billy and Heather murdered her parents, the Flayed all lined up in the sewers (I'm imagining rows fo dummies with one or two live actors in the mix), and more. There was just a lot missed that I wish we could have seen. Also, just remembered that there was no Joyce at all! They had great Joyces last year in the first house!
What the house did positively was still being able to deliver some really cool scenes. Hopper's Cabin was the scene that blew me away because of the, whaddaya know, amount of live scareactors in the room and the set and lighting and sound cues all at once. I had moments like these throughout the entire house! I think that people's colossal expectations (which they had a right to have after last year) and other unfortunate aspects, have been leading some people to not like the house at all. I still commend A&D for their final product and it was gorgeous to look at. There were just some things not taken into full consideration that made for a house that slightly misses the mark, at least for me.
If the property does return to any years in the future, I hope that they can take what they learned from both this year and last year's house to perfect that formula!
Okay rant done now. :faint:
Just for starters, I’m not criticizing your opinion. This is all valid and I 100% agree with you.
I think the central problem isn’t that the scenes have mannequins, per se, but that the scenes they used just didn’t work. As a haunted house, I see Stranger Things II as having missed the mark. Last year’s wasn’t incredibly scary, either, but I do have memories of some pretty creepy atmospheres and cool scares (Will’s bedroom with Should I Stay or Should I Go and the demogorgon / the woods all Upside Down-ified stick out). Let’s go through these rooms. This is subjective, of course, but:
1. Repeat of the classroom scene from the first house, but with actors this time: one joint scare.
2. Upside Down hallway transition: one protagonist jumpscare.
3. Arcade: atmospheric, but no scares.
4. Upside Down hallway transition with mirror: cool effect, but this isn’t a scare, so no scares.
5. Dustin’s bedroom: one protagonist jumpscare.
6. Basement: one protagonist jumpscare.
7. Upside Down tunnel: four protagonist jumpscares, one demodog scare-
-and I’ll leave it there. Do you see the pattern? It seems that the actual frightening parts of Stranger Things - the Byers’s house and Will’s exorcism, as you said, as examples - were left out in favor of...visuals? Those would have made GREAT scenes, scare-wise and visually, but they were replaced with Will looking into the Upside Down, mirror tricks, and so many characters that you love jumping out to remind you “hey! This is about Stranger Things!” They aren’t scares because they aren’t frightening, that’s it. Nothing about those characters says they want to hurt you, which is the most effective element of most scares, IMO.
The scares that are actually intimidating are the demodogs, of course, but we got a few small puppets and several statues. Not sure how they could have done this more effectively, but I think the inclusion of the statues in Bob’s death was downright silly. They almost look like a window display. Alternatively, why not include more of the flayed? The sauna would have been perfect; it was one of the freakiest parts of the season for me. How about the old woman and her fertilizer? Aggressive. Scary. Not present (because she isn’t iconic for the show and Steve is...? Hmm...)
The portal scene, if essential enough to need to be in the house, could have been downsized to the scale of what the Will-looking-into-Upside-Down scene is. It isn’t effective as it is, at least to me.
Anyway, that’s just a little rant. It’s an interesting and actually really beautiful interpretation of Stranger Things, but as a Halloween Horror Nights installation, it’s clear that the design leaned more in the “let’s look cute and market our show, look at these pretty people that you love” direction rather than any kind of horror. I don’t know. Just my thoughts.