With six mazes under our belt, we trucked it back upstairs and it was around 7:15 already. We shot over to
Evil Dead Rise, which definitely felt like I was going through
Hotel again only with the added bonus of having actual context from seeing the
Rise content actually in place, then
Monstruos, which was my second-most anticipated maze of the night and didn't disappoint. When it comes to these sorts of folklore mazes, it always seems like the team pours so much love into them, and this was no exception; fired on all cylinders for me!
By 7:45, we'd accomplished all eight mazes (without Express!). So we hit the 8:00 showing of
Purge -- nice to see a show back at the event, and the blood effects were a welcome (if funny) surprise. Could've done without the cheesy dance thing that concludes with the cast awkwardly stopping and leaving without so much as a "Thanks for coming!" but for a 15-minute diversion, I can't complain. I'm glad to have something like this I'm willing to see over skipping Jabbawockeez yet again.
By 8:30ish, we were on the
Terror Tram -- I absolutely adored the theme and loved the vibe, but it's still fundamentally the same thing it is every year, where I'm more than happy to do it for a 5-minute wait, but wouldn't be thrilled if the wait was pushing an hour.
At 9:00 o'clock, we'd officially done everything (minus the Blumhouse show), so we went back down to the lower lot, shared pizza fries at the upstairs lounge (which, like the Isla Nu-Bar experience, took forever despite the various lines being short), rode Jurassic World and the Mummy, and then by 10:30 called it a night (with a stop at Voodoo on the way to the car).
I'm of two minds now: One, I'm so so SO glad that the Express situation that was driving me insane the last two years seems to have been worked out. It felt much, much fairer towards the general lines this year than before -- maybe it isn't later in the evening or any other day, but at least last night, I never once was gritting my teeth. Early entry actually felt like it used to years ago where things
could actually get done, and the fact we had six of eight mazes done before the event even started proper felt awesome. It was nice to not feel in a state of perpetual stress simply because some of us can't (and won't) fork over hundreds more, and
The Last of Us,
Chucky, and
Monstruos owned the night for me in ways that remind me of why I love this event year in and year out even amidst "lesser" years or operational frustrations and so on.
On the other hand, after 14 years of going, I feel like something fundamentally needs to evolve about the event as a whole. Something like the
Purge show is a step in the direction (and saying that about the
Purge isn't something I ever thought I'd be saying a few years ago), but especially after going to Orlando's event last year, it's starting to feel... stale. I miss the days when the whole park was essentially one big scare zone, and even though I understand why the Metro sets haven't been used again, even something like that went a long way towards the event feeling like it could breathe. I'm regretting buying my usual Frequent Fear Pass for the first time, too, because even though I'm going again next weekend, I don't feel like this year really has me itching to go again for a
third time when over half the lineup is same old, same old (
Holidays,
Rise, the
Terror Tram), letdowns (
Unmasked and
ST4), or hollow (
Exorcist).
I got a kick out of seeing the Grabber out behind Jupiter's Claim, but then realizing only a small portion of people were even able to go out there to see him just served as a reminder that it's all about the upcharge now, like with early entry, which, when coupled with the fact the event is really resting on its laurels in other aspects, like the Tram, just bums me out. I'd rather see that money go towards taking new swings rather than giving us old things with new coats of paint on it.
That said, the event still means a lot to me, and I'm still looking forward to going again this weekend, but I'm really hoping the success of things like
The Last of Us and
Chucky are taken to heart going forward -- that is, people love them because the passion poured into them from every angle is unbelievably palpable in a way that something like the
Exorcist is not. Either way, the fact we were able to do everything between 5:30 and 9:00 before rides was a miracle I never thought I'd see again, and I still had a great time as always. I love seeing people's faces coming out of maze exits having had a blast even in mazes I personally may have found disappointing, because
that's really what it's all about -- people having fun. And I hope every one of you who has gone already or has yet to go has had or will have a blast!
(And also another big thank you to both
@saint.piss and
@Freak for DM'ing me about Early Entry being up for sale again. You guys rock for doing that for me when you didn't have to, and because of that, all of this breezy evening I've described was possible!)