1. Universal Monsters: Unmasked - Two of my favorites, Phantom and The Invisible Man, make this a must-see!
2. The Darkest Deal - A really ambitious concept to adapt into a house, but one rooted very close to my heart in it's blues music inspiration.
3. Chucky: UKC - Big fan of the IP, particularly Mancini's more recent refreshment of the franchise with Curse, Cult, and the show. This is such a fun, conceptual story too, I think that lends itself really well to Chucky's unique tone compared to other horror icons. Curious to see if this location can be improved on from last year as well.
4. Stranger Things 4 - The 4th season was possibly my favorite of the series yet (though I'm one of the few whose favorite was S2 before that), I really hope having a more adaptable antagonist and settings can bring this house back to the quality of Season 1's haunt.
5. Dr. Oddfellow's Twisted Origins - Funnily enough, this is the first year I'll be hosting a haunt for my workplace and the concept is that an early 1900s curiosities exhibit featuring "cursed" artifacts has gone awry in our building. This feels like it's going more the sideshow carnival oddities route, but I'm still excited to find out if HHN also has a demented take on the fiji mermaid like we will.
6. The Exorcist: Believer - Not only did I start going to the event after the OG Exorcist house, I'm also intrigued enough by the premise of the movie in relation to haunt design that I can see this being a really fun time even if the film itself disappoints.
7. Dueling Dragons - This is only so low for me because A: I never had a connection to the coaster and B: I'm not all that into fantasy as a genre in the first place. But I do think for those who do love that form of fiction, this will likely be an absolute blast.
8. The Last of Us - The games and show are not particularly engrossing to me, but I do like the shroom-bois designs as creatures and I hope the environments capture that post-apocalyptic scenic beauty. I feel like Seeds and Descendants did such a good job at an "off-brand" version of this that it's going to be hard to live up to the bar they set.
9. Yeti: Campground Kills - Now, I ADORED the previous Yeti house. But I think location and setpieces were majorly responsible for that. The yetis themselves can be intense with the right casts and timing. But a campground setting runs the risk of feeling too generic and repetitive. There's a lot of potential for this to rise though. The possibility of there being a more open floor plan like Dead Man's Pier gives me a little hope.
10. Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings - I hope this won't be the case, but I fear the cast will feel too one-note and have everyone playing "menacing Puritans" with this one. I worry it winds up a cross between Roanoke and last year's Spirits of the Coven, both of which suffered similar problems. Maybe some genuinely supernatural consequences to the colonists failing their offering could spice this up a little bit?