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I went to Halloween Horror Nights
this year. I managed to visit all of the
houses, the Villains Academy dance show, and pass thru all the scare zones. I also managed to go on “The Mummy” ride and
the Rock-It Roller Coaster (which, while a good coaster, its theme feels like a
parody of what “the youth” thinks is cool).
While I can say that the scare
zones were fine, and the dance show was… Lame, I am sorry, there were cool
things in it, but overall it did not come together… Everyone knows that the
houses are what people are there to see.
So, I am going to review them, as I have done in the past.
I was going to put these in no particular
order, then afterword I tried to shuffle them from lamest to best, here are my
thoughts on each house.
10) Carnival
Graveyard: Rust in Pieces
Rednecks/Carnies hold
up in the rusting ruin of an abandoned carnival, and they are all dressed to
theme… because I guess they are auditioning to be minions for the Joker.
This one
suffered from multiple issues. While in
my mind, scary carnival is easy to pull off (I
wrote a whole novelette with that premise) this one was kind of bland with
the idea. I mean killers in carnival
garb is fine, could have a lot of visual variety… But it mostly just shook out
to the word “trespassers” written in red paint next to a fake dead body with a
pitchfork in it.
The timing
on this one was also off for me, I missed a good chunk of the scares.
9) Slaughter
Sinema
Let’s take the idea of
grindhouse drive in movies and make a series of different spoof films with
horror themes.
The potential for visual variety in
this one was high, and several of the areas were really cool… I wish that they
had managed to scare me more.
The timing
of the scares was COSMICALLY off. There was
a whole area I walked thru with NOTHING moving.
At some points I was literally squinting into the darkness because I
wanted to SEE the thing that was going to jump out at the next person in line.
This could
have been my favorite, but failure of execution kept it from delivering.
8) The Horrors of
Blumhouse
A split house
featuring scenes from “Happy Death Day” (which was a time loop movie with a
masked killer) and “The First Purge” (latest in the surprisingly iconic
franchise).
What an odd
pairing. “Happy Death Day” is a comedy
about… a masked killer which does not make for an interesting visual
experience. I have to admit, they do
something clever with the house, repeating the same bedroom scene multiple
times from different angles to simulate the movie… But it is not scary.
“The Purge”
side of things is better, because the killers all wear a range of diverse and
badass masks… I will have to talk about “The Purge” franchise one of these days…
But, the house doesn’t really work overall.
Two tastes that taste bland together.
7) Seeds of
Extinction
Alien plant life is
spreading out and unleashing humanoid plant monsters on the world.
I like the
concept and the setting was nice… I think I would have liked the monsters a lot
more if I could freaking see them. The
thing was so poorly lit, it was harder to see in this house than the house
where going blind is part of the gimmick.
I feel this
is a bit of a letdown, but not actually bad.
6) Stranger Things
Iconic scenes from one
of the best shows in existence.
It’s
fine. I like the show, as a show. I get a mild mental *ping* from recognizing
something from the show as a room in the house.
I can appreciate the cool monster suit.
This is not particularly scary.
My emotional response was quite mellow.
5) Halloween 4:
The Return of Michael Myers
Michael Myers is out
and swinging his knife wildly at people yet again.
This was the last house we went to
and we almost didn’t bother. Previous
years’ “Halloween” houses have been kind of ‘meh’. This has more to do with my personal
ambivalence toward the series (the first one is good in
the sense of being a classic, but I actually like the strangeness of number 3
more). A masked killer is just not that
impressive to me from a visuals standpoint, and not conducive to an imaginative
house.
That all being said, this one was
pretty good. The timing hit me multiple
times and I think it was just laid out well so that I wasn’t constantly aware
of where the scare was coming from. A well-constructed
house makes up for blah source material.
4) Dead Exposure:
Patient Zero
World War I era zombie
outbreak in France… and you are going blind.
This was a surprise highlight for
the evening. The use of lights coming up
and fading out, odd flashes, mirrors, and holograms they were able to put a
good spin on what could have just been a zombie house with a period setting.
Not everything about it worked, the
speakers going in were too loud; one room was just flashing bulbs; but, it had
one of the best singular rooms when the lights come on with a zombie, and then
go out, only to then return without the zombie.
Cool effect see that is hard to explain the interesting aspects of in
words.
3) Poltergeist
A family is haunted by
a variety of strange occurrences.
“Poltergeist” is one of my favorite
scary movies. It is well paced, has
numerous interesting set pieces and has a likable cast of characters doing
their best.
This house was kind of great. With several HUGE items showing off some of
the scariest images in the movie. I find
the use of that clown toy to be a bit much, a consequence of that remake NO ONE
SAW. But, if you have to grab onto memorable
things… the clown is memorable. My
biggest complaint is that the house starts at the end of the movie, with
coffins and dead bodies erupting out of the ground, like… why?
This might be the best house. Really the top 3 are all pretty even with one
another.
2) Trick ‘r Treat
Based on a movie more
people need to watch. A series of
different horror stories weave in and out of one another on Halloween night.
This was conducive to lots of visual
variety, undead children, vampire, serial killer, werewolves, and Sam, the
creepy sack boy mascot character.
Literally the only issue I had is
that right in the front the path splits, I was unsure which direction to walk
down, and ended up on a dead-end that should have had a staff member to point
me in the right direction. Aside from
that there were plenty of cool images and my friends held it as one of the
highlights of the whole visit.
 |
| Watch this movie. |
1) Scary Tales:
Deadly Ever After
Evil interpretations
of fairy tales.
A series of fairy tales, with the
wicked witch, humpty dumpty, the three pigs, goldilocks, Rapunzel, and others. All of them done as horror monsters. I loved it.
Only one of them did not make any sense to me and that was Humpty
Dumpty, but I don’t know what they could have done… That’s not true I
immediately have an idea just saying it out loud to myself. But, that is fine.
Perhaps the most visually
interesting of all the houses. My personal
favorite.
Conclusion
I liked Halloween Horror Nights
this year more than last. I got to take
in everything, spend plenty of time with most of my friends from grad school,
and really the spending time with friends was the core appeal here… the park
was just an excuse to see people I used to either live with or live a 5-minute
walk from.
I had intended to do this review in
multiple parts, but I was busy mentally gearing up for a big test (probably
write something about that later) and this just slipped down the priorities list
as frivolity is wont to do.
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