Opening Night First Impressions (Without Early Access):
First off, as expected, it was absolutely boiling out there tonight, and I think that affected the night in a number of ways, first of which being I think a good 1/3rd to 1/2 of a lot of house casts were out tonight, likely because of the heat risk or heat sickness, so I'm not going to consider missing scares as a valid criticism tonight.
In more positive news, I think it also scared away a ton of the crowds, this was easily the least busy opening night I've ever been to, and nothing was *listed* as over an hour at any point in the night. (I will note why I specify listed in a moment.) They also started letting guests into the full event at 6:38 instead of 7, so that was nice too.
To Make things simple, I'll just do a quirky little ranking of what I liked the most to what I didn't like as much, theres nothing this year that I've experienced that I outright disliked.
Prior disclosure, everyone in my group had minor heat sickness by 11 pm so we opted to go to the last Purge show to sit down, causing us to miss out on Quiet place and Monstruos 2.
1.) The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy - I am 100% biased because I love the Weeknd, but me and my group had a fantastic time here, plentiful scares, a really unique vibe I cant quite explain, and a lot of variety that doesn't just copy paste the mold from the previous iteration. It's early to say but I think I might like this better than the original.
2.) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Legacy of Leatherface - Double edged sword here, because I feel I must specify that this like is the absolute worst. It might get better over the coming days, but due to media constantly butting into the line, the General Admission queue was a complete snails pace, and what was listed as a 25 minute wait was closer to an hour and 5 minutes, and when youre packed into that tight of a space with that many people when its still 98 degrees out, you feel every second. That said, I really really liked the maze itself, it doesn't just copypaste everything we've seen before, and it's oddly nostalgic to see all these versions of leatherface together. It is definitely smelly as heck though.
3.) Terror Tram: Enter the Blumhouse - Never saw this coming, I totally loved Terror Tram this year. As far as character and aesthetics go, Exterminatorz still has my heart and it probably always will, but this was my favorite format of the tram in years, having a lot of little vignettes really enhanced it and made it feel a lot longer and more lively despite the tragic loss of the Nope sets, I'm still not ready to forgive that. Also for some reason the Wolf Man section was blocked off, so I cant speak to how that was.
4.) Dead Exposure: Death Valley - This one definitely suffered from a missing cast, but like I said I'm judging on what's here, not what wasn't, and what's here is a really solid old style laboratory haunt that honestly does manage to pull off an unnerving tone with all its clinical cloth hallways and crackling geiger counters, I honestly cant wait to see this running at full power.
5.) Insidious: The Further - I was a little bummed here, because being real, this is an enhanced version of the 2017 maze. Theres a good number of scares and even room layouts that are 1 to 1 with the 2017 version and that was pretty disappointing to me. That said, the new stuff is good and there's some solid creepy imagery in the Lipstick Demon's lair I wasn't expecting, that and the cast were killing it, lots of creepy atmosphere building. My warning is if you come when its still hot out, even though they have mister fans in the parking lot section of the queue, those only help for about 2 minutes and then become an instant Florida simulator, bring a non-misting fan of your own to survive.
6.) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire - I had a similar self-imposed issue to Insidious here, but in this case it was the fact that I felt that I had kind of spoiled myself by watching the Orlando POVs, as these are very similar to each other, so I was fairly disappointed, but that's my own fault. There were some effects visibly not working but the cast were giving it all, and I really love the little prop dog on the top shelf of Ray's shop. I will hold it in my heart forever.
7.) Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines - I liked what this maze was doing as a story and a theatrical experience, it tells its story in a really clean and clear way, moreso than Orlando's imo, but this definitely is in the vein of Unmasked last year design wise, and on top of that there really were barely any scares, not that there were missing stations as far as I could tell, it just seemed like it wasn't designed with them really in mind. I'm in favor of not bombarding the audience immediately and constantly, but I have to admit by the time we got to the She-Wolf scene I was just kinda wondering "where are the scares?". That said, that isn't the casts fault at all, from the scares that are actually there, the performers got me repeatedly, and that was nice. I probably would've been more disappointed if I waited long, but I only waited like 15 minutes so I really cant complain.
Noteworthy Mention:
The Purge: Dangerous Waters - Really really liked it this year, feels like they tightened the pacing up and really upped the violence, just a really good tight stunt show, I'd say definitely an improvement on last year, which I also really liked.
