Here's my updated review after opening weekend:
Houses
Overall - The houses this year were pretty good for the most part. It's hard to live up to the incredible houses we had last year, but they did a pretty good job with them this year and created some pretty unique and fun experiences.
Silent Hill - Silent Hill, Silent Hill. I
really wanted to love this house. The theming was really spectacular. The facade was unique, I was thrilled to see rooms such as
the bathroom from the movie with the janitor in the following room and the staircase was pretty freaky.
However, throughout all 3 of my runs, I had very few scares or even scare attempts. It took 2 runs alone for me to see Pyramid Head and on the 2nd and 3rd runs, I only managed to get very minor glimpses of him walking away. The
while cool, should've had at least one or two more real nurses because the current setup is just OK. The house clearly has a lot of scare potential and by the sound of it, I may just have the worst luck in the world with this house's scares. I truly believe this house will be intense by the end of the event.
The Walking Dead - This was an interesting house this year. I had this at the bottom of my anticipation list, but ended up loving it both runs through, despite it being very sunny out. The theming was very cool and well done, and will probably be even more interesting for fans of the series. The scareactors are what really made this house though. Both times through, the actors were very active, very prepared for scares and always fun. I heard that the
store room actually had a large number of scareactors at times and I can't imagine how good that must've been because I enjoyed it with just 3 actors in there.
Penn & Teller - Fun, fun, fun. This is definitely the funnest house of the event for me, as expected. My review for this one is basically the same as my first one and that's a fairly good thing. The actors stayed active and on top of their games, the props were interesting, and the effects were very fun. It's not the scariest house, but it doesn't lack the scares either.
Alice Cooper - Even after four runs, I'm a mixed bag on this house. The 2 daytime runs I had were just okay. I still can't figure out exactly what the deal was. Obviously the lighting played a factor, but even some of the house effects weren't on during these runs (unless I'm going crazy). There was no music during the day and I found that to really add to the atmosphere when it was on at night. At night, this house is actually really entertaining. I love the
insane Alice that kept messing with the eyes on the wall and I saw the jock get quite a few really good scares.
Once I learned a bit more about AC and their/his work, the house made a bit more sense and improved a bit. I really like the final scene as well.
House of Horrors - I realize this house isn't finished and I'm only judging off of what we were given on opening weekend. This was my least favorite house of the event. I actually liked a few things such as the crawling room and the final room (loved the Frankenstein effect), but there was just a lot of rough spots. I won't get too much into it because of the house's situation, but I just found it okay. I'm sure this house will improve drastically throughout the event.
Gothic - Very, very good house. I loved a lot about this house including the theming and the scareactors. It was simply fantastic.
Dead End - Another amazing house. I actually ended up going through it with Mike Aiello and Jim Timon right behind me and it ended up being an incredible walkthrough. The effects, like I mentioned before, are just insane and the scareactors are brutal. We witnessed one crazy scare where three actors got a group of three older women who were flat out stopped in their tracks by the actors and ended up screaming for a good minute before they managed to get around them. Everyone was laughing really hard at the scare and it was really good. I still don't quite get the
but I'm sure it's something that gets some people and it was still quite unique.
Street Experience
Overall - I'm going to be straightforward and say that I enjoyed the streets as much as the houses this year. They are just really hectic and the actors are all incredible to watch. I witnessed people being chased into restaurants, actors banging on the windows of Mel's, actors in very unique places, a lot of awesome scareactor interactions and a lot more. The sound effects added around the areas added a lot to the environment and I liked having the lagoon show bringing the misty waters, even when a show wasn't going on. I really hope we end up getting streets more like these in the future, but with more theming. I honestly had no expectations for the streets this year and was prepared to be let down, but I was really blown away.
Traditionals - I
really underestimated this group and they ended up being in my Top 2 for sure. The scareactor with the fox mask and the horn was seriously one of the best actors of the whole event. She was hilarious to watch and talk to, and I saw a lot of funny and unique interactions with her which I mentioned in the other thread. Pumpkinhead and the twitching trick-or-treater with the cat mask were other standouts from the group, but honestly I loved everyone in this zone and their march through the streets was definitely the most entertaining.
Prisoners - The other giant, standout group that are in my Top 2 for this year. My god, is this group energetic or what. The best scares I witnessed all night definitely came from this group. The scareactors in this zone all played some pretty entertaining characters and the namecalling/mocking was hilarious. They'd scare someone to the point of screaming and then start putting their hands up to their face and screaming as well which was hilarious every time. There's a lot of other examples like that one, but just realize that they're worth visiting a few times.
Warriors - Another really good group in my opinion that was filled with some crazy and energetic actors. Even the ones without spears were all over the place and gave it their all to get the scares. My favorite example of this was one actor who constantly got on all fours when charging and jumping out at people. There group was also really entertaining to watch during and after their march.
Iniquitus - For the most part this group ended up being a photo-op, but I'm okay with that. They actually still delivered quite a few scares on me and I had quite the interesting experience with one of the Grim Reapers which I mentioned in the other thread.
Vampires - I'm not a big fan of vampires, but I was still pretty impressed with this zone. Quite a few good scares and fairly interesting to navigate through.
Beasts - I didn't see too much of this group, but I liked everything I did see. They seem like a fairly intimidating group.
Walkers - Fairly decent horde. I liked the gun fire sound effects going on in the background, but I can't say I had much scaring going on. A lot of potential here though and from what I've heard, they're still working out a few things (the 75 actors coming out every 45 minutes).
Overall - I really would like to make it out to the event one more time before it ends to see how drastically everything changes and simply due to how much fun I had on the second night. This year seems to have a lot of potential and I enjoyed what I saw on opening weekend.