My final thoughts...
Our nights were 10/20, 21, 22, 24, 26, and 27
Houses:
1. Case Files - The most ambitious and simultaneously most comforting/familiar house this year. It was basically my all-timer (Slaughter Sinema) in serial mystery novel form, with each scene having that distinct flavor leading into it. The mannequin section is admittedly hit-or-miss, but has some cool background effects to salvage it anyways. The amount of sheer detail crammed into every single room is what so many other houses this year were lacking. It's not for everyone, and I can see why some newcomers may have been confused. But even if someone didn't know the storyline (like my friend the first time through), the scenes are fun enough to carry it regardless. I mean, I don't really care for the Legendary Truth mythology in the first place, but the setting of this house was unique and the characters were memorable. Credit to the multiple Borises who tipped their hats to me when I cheered their name.
2/3/4 - Puppet Theatre, Wicked Growth, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Hard to decide between these 3. They were all cases of the cast elevating a house dramatically. Wicked Growth has the most scenery to benefit it's ranking, with familiar setpieces that evoke warm feelings in this central New York heart of mine. The bridge illusion scene is extremely cute with the little floating/walking pumpkin drifting by on one side and the waterfall to the other. The Grim Reaper character is metal af. The goblins are a fun touch. And the pumpkin lord himself was a cool character (at first, I felt a little too humanoid to be effective. But he's still a cool dude). Puppet Theatre had the best collection of characters top-to-bottom. It felt like every role had such distinct personality and relished in hamming it up. One of the best uses of mirror scares in years, for both genuine surprise and comedy value too. The theater/balcony box scene is a work of genius for a tent house. And the noises that baby puppet makes can be genuinely unsettling. TCM overwhelmed my low expectations in spades. The premise and setpieces are simple, but the cast were on-point every single run during our time late in the season. The Leatherfaces were all aggressive, Drayton was poppin off with his plate, and man the Chop Tops were just like seeing my boi in the flesh (one of the best pure masks of the event). Even the pig puppeteers were working their hinds off with what they had. The only thing I would have altered is maybe not making the final scene all Leatherfaces, but instead work your way through each Sawyer clan member saving Bubba for last. The smells in here were distinct and added to the mood too. In conclusion: Dog will hunt!
5. Tooth Fairy - Not a popular one for many people, it seems. But I adored this house and have been anticipating it since it's inception. It gets unfair comparisons to Scary Tales, and maybe slightly more fair but still frustrating comparisons to Knott's Tooth Fairy maze. The Victorian storybook aesthetic is part of what sells this for me. It makes the hyper-outrageous level of gore in the house so much more contradictory, and I wind up loving that contrast. I have a genuine soft spot as a librarian for that facade. The actors really do their best to work around the hindrance of plexiglass here, with the most committed ones reaching under or around it whenever possible. However, most of the scene-stealers are definitely the prop bodies, with the butler being a personal highlight. Grandpa and Grandma or the kitchen staff are other honorable mentions. The father actor's soundbite is one of the most disturbing noises the event's used in the time I've been going. I love it. The only thing lacking in the house is a more memorable and distinct ending scene.
6/7 - SCarey, Beetlejuice - The elephant in the room...SCarey and Beetlejuice both started at the bottom of my anticipation/ranking list. I'm as shocked as I could be that really strong runs with great casts elevated these up to 6 and 7. SCarey consistently had great actors that worked the space they had as well as they could. The Cindy actress was particularly strong. SCarey only loses points for a pretty sparse Hellgate scene that could have been better and Bloodengutz's full mask being probably my least favorite character mask I've seen. The guy just loses some appeal without seeing his eyes and mouth. Highlights are the Meaty Meetz actors, Spawning creature redesigns, Hive vampires, and the whole Orfanage scene. I was one of the biggest detractors of the Beetlejuice house, and I still think the middle is incredibly weak. However, the barker role at the beginning, cute use of the vortex tunnel, and sandworm were just so strong. The waiting room could have used 1 more actor, but I still really liked seeing it in person. Biggest problem here were the hallways of doors. I get what they were going for, but it didn't work for me at all. The carnival carousel-hat 'juice prop scene was also an embarrassing flop, imo. Big missed opportunity not having full shrimp monsters in the dinner table room, but I get the limitations there. By the end of the event, the actors in here had infectious positive energy and I think that helped so much. It's amazing how even a non-scary house can be fun to walk through if the cast is having enough fun too. Our early walkthroughs definitely suffered because of the inverse occurring.
8/9/10 - Hill House, Bride, Icons - I know, I know, sacrilege to say anything negative about HoHH's maze or Bride! And I will admit that Hill House's facade is every bit as captivating in person as I expected it to be. What I think bothers me a little about Hill House is that I expected more detail than there wound up being. I'm glad screens and props were used for Nell because I saw Hollywood's way of presenting her and oof...that did not work great. But the basement ghost costumes weren't that good tbh. The pitch black room doesn't work for me as well as it did in Graveyard Games for some reason. And the biggest sin this house commits is not adapting anything from the funeral parlor. It was missing a larger setpiece like that or the house entrance to really capture the scale that the facade does. The actors mostly do a great job, with the Tall Man being a highlight (I love how he progressively gets "taller" with each scare). More little things like the turning doorknob would have been welcome too. I wish the house didn't end so awkwardly. Remove the goofy face-on-a-stick scare and maybe swap the black hallway with a funeral parlor scene and this would have been top-tier for me. Also think that facemasks hurt this one a little, as so many of the family in the show look similar (understandably so, as they're supposed to be family lol) that it confused my friend a bit on who was supposed to be who. Bride could have been an all-timer for me as it is for others, and it's ranking has little to do with the cast or set-design, both of which were great. We just never got that perfect run through it. I missed the flying Drac bride and the Monster coming to life every time. Plus, this house seemed cursed with bad guests ahead of us on each walkthrough, the worst being a dude messing with props (which I have a particular disdain for). Credit to the awesome plain-clothes staff member who listened when I said something about this guest and proceeded to follow him through the rest of the house to make sure he didn't continue being a jerk. My only other minor gripe about this house is that I don't think the full Drac bride masks looked quite as great as the brides in 2019's Monsters house, but there was no getting around that with Covid being a thing. The double-Drac bride scare is still one of the event's best. Icons was...well...super hindered by the plexi. It saddens me thinking about how intense and wild that first room after the facade could have been without it in the way. Director & Lady Luck's scenes are severely hindered by it as well. Usher and Caretaker probably got the best draws here, though it depended on how aggressive the Usher actors were on your walkthroughs. They tried their best with this, it's just hard to fit so many great characters into a house without someone getting the short end of the straw. We got Storyteller on the throne in walkthrough 1 and Jack every other time lol.