Cody

Yeah the actual show is 100% different except for slight makeup similarities.

I think the hay bale outfits were a stopgap due to not having the intended costumes finished in time. A friend of mine is in the zone and every one of them got a costume upgrade.

Actually thinking back to audition emails, it would make sense for Chucky to be a live puppet here. The audition emails they put out for puppeteers were saying you could perform a song with your own puppet as part of the audition, which is something you'd do for a performance role rather than a scareactor role. Previous house puppets like the AWIL werewolves and the AvE Xenomorphs were run by regular scareactors without any specialized skills or experience (myself included). An audition for skilled puppeteers would imply a more complex role.

But will we get real skeletons like the movie did?

Have Chucky costumes been confirmed? If they wanted him to be accurate size, they could do him as a live actor controlling a puppet to insult the guests.

"80s cyberpunk AoV in a full stadium" is probably the best show ever put at HHN.

You don't have to worry about the sprung tents lacking in space or detail. While the early houses in them were a bit hashed together (especially People Under the Stairs: Under Construction), they've figured out how to use the space much better in the last few years. Scarecrow and Texas Chain Saw Massacre were some of the most detailed houses of their years despite being in tents, only differentiated from soundstage houses by the lack of jaw-droppingly huge rooms or elaborate indoor facades.

Despite the reveal of Bill & Ted 3, I'm not so sure they're going to bring the show back that fast, at least not in its original form. There's good reason it was finally discontinued.

Very, very few scarezones got as big of a fan reaction as Vamp '55. There's art, cosplay, some people even did a little work on a comic. If the actors can be as good as their predecessors, we're in for a good time.

I wonder if moving to the Fear Factor stage would let them bring more dancers. Their troupe is far larger than the gang that comes to Universal.

At least the rights issue with Marvel just means they probably won't be able to do a horror version of Marvel like 2002 again. Nothing stopped them from putting differently themed scarezones there before, like Blood Thunder Alley in 2005. But the ring design and narrow pathways are crippling, and having one or two lands completely devoid of horror content with Seuss and Hogsmede means people will have no choice but to get funneled through or even stuck in unthemed areas as they traverse the park.

Budget houses aren't necessarily a bad thing if the gimmick is done right. The In Between was an awesome house because they used 3D and blacklights (ordinarily a cheap fair gimmick) and used them for immersion. The original Dead Exposure got some good scares out of people with minimal money spent on sets and costumes.

Giving Academy the old arena (assuming it's still standing and not used for a house) sounds like a good bet. Their two years have been extremely strong and their popularity has rivaled or even exceeded Bill & Ted (especially when you remove the nostalgia filter from B&T fans and go by show quality). I have no doubts that they'd consistently fill up the arena for the year and be able to do even more extreme stunts and artistic expression with the whole huge stage at their disposal.