Considering they had THREE back to back years where they themed it entirely on the Walking Dead, that’s quite a statement.
I actually liked all the Walking Dead Terror Trams. I felt like they were budgeted pretty well.
My rankings of the Terror Tram:
AMAZING - 08, 09
GREAT - 16, 13, 12
GOOD - 14
AVERAGE - 07, 10, 17, 21, 22
OKAY - 15
BAD - 18
WTF - 11
If it weren't for the NOPE/Us section, '22 would be dead last on this list, even worse than Scream 4 Your Life Terror Tram. The first 3/4 of this year's Tram is by far the most lazy I have seen it, production-wise. Scareactors are doing the best with what they got, but it truly is a former shell of itself.
Anyway, here's what I could find of my 07 and 08 retrospective reviews, which just look like long paragaphs about each year. For perspective, I wrote both of these in 2010, so that's crazy how time flies bahaha:
2007
2007 was my first time experiencing HHN. It was AMAZING. It was Halloween night, the last night of the event and at the time, I had just gone through a break up DAYS earlier. My ex and I were still supposed to go anyway but she backed out at the last minute so I had no other choice: I was going solo. I wasn't going to miss out on Freddy, Jason and Leatherface all in one place at one time! So I braved the LA traffic and got to Hollywood and waited in the long line to get through the parking. It was an exciting experience. Walked through the long line of metal detectors around 10 PM, I was THAT late. Even worse, the event was closing at 12. I was pretty much SOL, but oh well. Got my ticket and the first thing I did was venture over to the Terror Tram. Along the way I saw the Zombie Invasion scare zone, which I didn't really get because there wasn't much scaring going on but it was still exciting. Hit up the Terror Tram with little wait and ventured through. This was the coolest thing ever being able to walk onto the Psycho set. It was pretty gnarly and felt like it took a long time to go through which was a plus in my eyes. Camp Crystal Lake was by far the best part. Seeing Jason hanging up dead teenagers was a dream come true. Back to the upper lot, it was already around 11. I heard TCM was by far the best maze so I went all the way down. The chainsaws were abundant down here and I had my first run in with the flasher. This felt like the scariest scare zone I had been through in all my years of haunting. The queue was way into the Backdraft area and OUT of that. It was a 90 minute wait, or something like it. I waited anyway. I didn't come all this way for nothing! It was more like an hour wait so that was good, plus the clips on the monitors were helping the boredom. Went through the maze, SCARIEST MAZE EVER. The entire mood and feel was perfect. It felt just like the movies and going through alone was terrifying. Got back to the upper lot again and over the intercom: "Due to popular demand, the theme park will now be closing at 1 AM." I was ecstatic. I now had time to do everything else I wanted. So I ran over to F13, as that was the second most one I wanted to see. Some pretty good scares and AMAZING detail. The Jason's were AWESOME. Great maze but it didn't have that scare factor that TCM did. That queue was about 30 minutes even though it zig zagged through the entire auditorium, but once again, Jason clips helped. Went over to NOES, moderate line that went through really quick. Didn't care much for this maze but it was still pretty cool. Went over and got myself a souvenir cup and sat my happy ass down for the last showing of Bill and Ted for the night. There was nothing like it and it made The Hanging just seem downright stupid. Drove back home tired as all hell and alone but it was worth it. 2007 was a good year and I couldn't wait for the next year.
At the time, I give it an A+. In retrospective, I give it a --
89.5% B+/A-
2008
07 was bittersweet for me; hot off a relationship, going alone, getting there late at 10 and expecting only to be there for 2 hours but still being able to see some of the biggest horror masters of all time at a theme park haunting.
08 was the same but better and it felt a bit amplified. I'm not sure what it was; being able to enjoy it with someone, getting there on time, the horror masters completely taking over the way they should've in 07
09 was a helluva lot of fun too but we'll get to that later.
So yes, we got repeats and for the most part, they were 100% the same but when comparing it to 07, the event did improve by a whole lot. My main case in point is the Terror Tram. Freddy taking over was the most awesome story line ever and then having Elm Street as the WotW set was amazing. It was a horror fan's dream come true passed beyond the point they already went last year. Another big up was Bill and Ted, with the intro alone being damn near the price of a ticket. And did I forget the arrival of the Bushman (who at the time I thought was Bigfoot) who gave me the scare of a lifetime? I have to say 08 was their best year; they took something they had done already which already seemed perfect and perfected it anymore. Sure at times while walking through TCM and F13, it felt like too much deja vu but I mean, these guys were my childhood so it was nice to see them at least one more time before I wanted something a bit more the next year (and at that time, I didn't even know if we would get more movie properties or what, even though I was hoping so and was grateful just for the NLC 3). Also, this year introduced the Strangers into HHN, which I'm hoping have become a staple into the event. I mean, the movie was VERY eh but these characters I LOVE. Chucky's Insult Emporium phased out but let's face it, so did his jokes so I didn't care much about that. Murdy's right, youtube gave death to it -- you can see how many times he uses the same joke. And really, that's all you need. Yes, it may eat up crowds but I want the Chuckster to be up to a little more than insulting people nightly. He's a killer dammit, have him be a bit more menacing (thanks to 09 and definitely 10 will be doing)! This felt like a perfect year in my eyes with TCM being the scariest, so far the only PERFECT Terror Tram, Freddy getting some new revamping, Jason being badass as his usual self, the funniest Bill and Ted yet and so on and so on.
I give it a perfect 10, especially in comparison with the year before and after. I LOVED 08.