This isn’t much of a speculative post, but the rumor of the Death Eaters show kind of brought this to mind. It has been talked about before and the general consensus seemed to be that it would show that HHN had officially gone “soft” and not scary anymore. This belief seems to be heavily used this season, with the addition of stuff like Ghostbusters and Us.
On one hand, yeah, some scares land and some don’t. With the ever-increasing attendance, it’s difficult to *really* get an unexpected scare. All of this being said, the world is far more different than it was when the event started. National tragedies were not as prevalent as they are now. Changing the event used to be as simple as simply changing the blood to slime (HHN 11) or replacing one icon with another (HHN 12), but it’s not anymore. Considering Florida is the home to two of the deadliest (including one in the city where HHN takes place), I don’t blame the team one bit for making ideas that perhaps weren’t as extreme as they used to be.
Of course, there are also factors like franchise popularity to take into account for HHN’s shift. I just think this is something that should be thought about more during these discussions on whether or not HHN is for “kids” anymore.