Having gone through both houses 4 times over the weekend, I felt both houses are honestly solid. If this is just a taste of what's to come for next year (even in pandemic mode), I think the 30th is gonna' be something special here.
Bride of Frankenstein Lives - After Universal Monsters which was one of my favorite houses last year (and downright period), this is a nice spin-off house! The Bride looks really good in Frankenstein's labcoat, and I liked the look of Dracula's Brides and BoF's assistant who I wish I knew what her name is. The set's are really nice, and they get pretty grand at points. The house also has the more unique gags/tricks out of the two, which led to some honestly good scares when they hit. The ones that really stood out to me are...
The dungeon cell where there door can be slid out of the way.
This'll be more effective without the plexiglass, but I saw this scare happen to a couple in front of me and they BOLTED when the BoD threw the door aside.
The Floating Bride in the fog.
I was able to see this effect (and accompanying scares) on my first run through and it's killer, and personally to me it feels very akin to the Floating Mother section in Graveyard Games last year, only this time it's a live actor!
The hallway before the final lab scene -aka- The Vampire Gauntlet.
This hallway, this. friggin. hallway. For me this is where the best scares are in the house so far. The vampire brides I encountered here were giving it their all and I had some very memorable moments in this hall. One time I got hit by all of them and got spun around, that alone was great, but apparently the woman behind me saw the whole thing...and proceeded to do this awkward squat and dash to try avoiding the brides (didn't work.). On my final run through I tried scampering right through since I though I had a clear path, both those brides were waiting at the end and wrecked me.
With the way that hallway is in pandemic mode, I can see that hall being downright killer in full HHN form. Also, props for having a boo door that has an actor behind it! I was used to seeing a dummy behind one, so I got a surprise when that one dropped.
Revenge of the Tooth Fairy - At last, we finally see this house come to life after a little delay due to them landing Us. As it's been mentioned before, normally situations like that lead to the scrapped house not coming back, so for this to be brought back is quite telling. An I'm very glad they did since this house surprised me in more ways than one!
First off, that entry hall and façade. That was bout' as close to perfect for setting up the concept of the house and it's direction as a twisted story. I was expecting a façade of the manor, so the actual façade was not only a huge surprise but it blew me away. Yes, it's not the biggest façade, but you don't need to be the biggest to be one of the best. The facades I love are the ones that set the mood/tone. Be it Carnival Graveyards "You shouldn't be here" vibe, to Yeti: Terror of the Yukon's eerily still and frozen calm before the chaos. Revenge of the Tooth Fairy is a twisted tale come to life, and that façade nails it.
I really liked the direction of the narration and the text on the walls, and the house had a playfully grim/bleak tone throughout. An when it came to scares, this house was really consistent for me. It may not have the clever tricks that BoFL has, but it was very akin to last years Nightingales where I could always count on it on getting me multiple times each time. To the point where I was dreading certain rooms, the biggest one for me was...
The laundry/sheet room, especially when that room was pumped full of fog. I freaked out in my first run through, and following run throughs got better with more fairies in the room.
This house really worked for me, and it legit creeps me out. I was seriously unnerved walking through my first time and that's never really happened before in a HHN house.
Now for the elephant in the room, yes Knott's Berry Farm did a Tooth Fairy house years ago. They did do a nice and disturbing job with it, though I'm not gonna' pull the "HHN copied Knott's card!" for multiple reasons. One, the stories are different enough. Knott's went with the direction of the Tooth Fairy being a creature you should never see with your own eyes, otherwise she'll take you to her lair, extract all your teeth for quarters and either kill you or turn you into a minion. The focus of the house was her lair. While Revenge of the Tooth Fairy runs with the twisted tale direction, and the fairies straight-up murdering almost everyone in a manor because a kid won't give them his tooth and turning him into a monster afterwards. It's more grounded in it's approach.
Also, the far more important reason. In the haunt industry, if a theme, character, idea is not copyrighted/trademarked etc...you can bet that every and any haunt is going to use it at some point and time. How many places have done an Asylum house? A Clown house? A twisted fairy tales house? A Slaughterhouse? The list goes on and on, and more often that not, places will put their own spin on it. Unless a place actually owns it, who cares if another place does it? I'm not gonna' complain if multiple places pull off a theme I like!
So all in all, I definitely enjoyed both houses. Personally I give the edge to Tooth Fairy since I adore twisted fairy tales etc, and that house pushed all the right buttons for me (An in many way, better than Scary Tales: Deadly Ever After.). Also, it was more consistent for me with scares, which is something I always take into account when I'm doing multiple run throughs of houses. I really look forward to seeing these two houses in full HHN mode next year, since both already have the potential to really shine.