itsabee Posted September 7, 2019 Share Posted September 7, 2019 Typed this all in notes and I don’t know how to change the font color on mobile, please help ! [9/9 Zombieman: Changed font to white] Anarchade: 5/10 for setpieces Someone said here that this zone was most likely to be a disappointment, and boy, were they right. It was the first zone I went through on my way to Zombieland, and I first noticed the bright game machines. Those were gorgeous, but ultimately photo spots. I couldn’t help but notice that there were about six scareactors in the zone, all looking the same except one that, get this, looks the same, but with a cape this time. I thought to myself, “well, it’s the beginning of the night, more scareactors should come out later!” Wrong. By about 11, some of the clones did go away, only to be replaced by stilt-walking women with nunchucks and hot pants, if they weren’t just bikini-sized, actually. The zone just didn’t roll with that theme as well as it could have. The music is cool, but the zone isn’t scary and isn’t fun. Oof. Zombieland: Double Tap: 9/10 Now this is what I’m talking about! This definitely makes up for Anarchade as a first impression of the night. Let me start by saying that this zone feels very, very derivative of Vamp ‘85, but maybe that’s just me. Big stage in the front that hosts a show, even one of the Trisha Whites from Vamp (Steph) is back as a pretty girl in a bad situation. Shoot to Thrill is even part of the soundtrack, and maybe it’s supposed to promote Zombieland 2, but I was still shook. Let me just praise the zombies. The sound effects that are part of the soundtrack are much more impressive than the little hisses that went with Vamp. I believe these sounds come from separate speakers, as they do legitimately feel close to the ground and as if the zombies are making those noises. The acting is also spot on, with high intensity kept up from the zombies as well as the survivors all night long. Cute concepts, like a man who must have turned while wearing a track suit is still just an old man that likes to jog, add a good little sense of Zombieland humor, but other zombies can be very aggressive and scary. ...Note that I was commenting on the zombies and survivors. The protagonists of the film.......oh wow. At first, I was so excited to see Tallahassee show up. I was hanging around the Waylon’s Pacific Treasures stand, checking out the gun and other props as well as show effects inside, when he just walked right in, slung his banjo off his shoulder, and began to play. Of course, all of the bloggers were all over this, and they flocked over to the stand with me to film him. On paper, the show sounds awesome. It goes like this: the character within the booth (more than one show up, each at different points in the night) begins to blare an airhorn, calling in the zombies, before leading them all to the central stage. The character has a short little monologue before a zombie approaches; for Tallahassee, it happened to be the clown from the movie, while it looked like Wichita got a standard zombie, possibly a reserve? They use a baseball bat and then a strongman’s hammer to smash the zombie with pretty impressive stunt choreography, before asking us whether that deserves Kill of the Week and ending the show. Sounds great, except that a) the voice acting for both isn’t even close to what either sounds like from the film (Tallahassee sounded more like Ellis from Left 4 Dead, which is a distinctly different voice from Woody Harrelson’s, even with it being a country accent), and b) the choreography is exactly the same. There is not a diverse KotW, only a different killer with different dialogue. Not even completely different, though, as they both say, verbatim, “What do you think? Zombie Kill of the Week?” I’ll have to look at my videos again to see if there any more overlaps. Also, little nitpicks: the audio is split into multiple tracks as opposed to one long track, and I know this because someone messed up and played the exact same line twice in a row for Wichita. Breaks immersion a lot, even with rough voice acting. In addition: okay, so Tallahassee is the one that established calling people by the place they’re going instead of their name, and Wichita never calls Little Rock “Little Rock” in the film, right? They’re sisters, they know each other’s names, right? Multiple occurrences of her calling out to find Little Rock. Just felt weird. Sets are so cool, with real, banged-up cars being used as props on the street. Good zone. No sign of Columbus, though, so there’s that. I think...? Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly Deluxe: ?/10 No comment. I’m not the right audience for this zone. Not much diversity in weapons that I could see, skeleton set pieces, and sexualized women. Alternatively: axes, bones, and tiddies. Vikings Undead: 8/10 You guys commenting about there being no gore and no dark themes kind of have a new thing coming. Was pleasantly surprised by the look of this zone! I don’t have much to say about it, but I’m going to put in some pictures of those corpses once I get the chance. Vanity Ball: 10/10 Oh yeah!! I’m going again tonight and I’ve decided I’m dedicating a chunk of my night to just watching this zone do its thing. A fashion show hosted by a killer queen, prosthetics that bring the term “sharp cheekbones” to a whole new level, and interesting translucent clothing on almost everyone. I’ve never been a fan of sexy nurses or generally women in lingerie that are supposed to be scary, but they were actually charming. Will include a cute picture: my boyfriend was doing a little shoot for me in front of the VB sign, a nurse saw and approached me, noticed him, and chose to pose for pictures with me model-style with different poses. Before leaving, she said, “You don’t need surgery. You’re perfect.” Very cute and wholesome. If you enjoyed the big costuming of Vamp’s celebrities, you’ll love this. Many corsets, and actually not on women! Amazing makeup! Oh wow!! House of a Thousand Corspes: 9/10 I was excited, yet nervous about how this house was going to turn out. All of the talk on this forum assuming that the MiB house is guaranteed to be bad and/or low-budget really did set my expectations low. However, I was SO quickly proven wrong, as not only is the facade beautiful, but you get quite a sight just at the entrance. The animatronic clown from outside Captain Spaulding’s stands out in the open greeting guests with a robotic wave, only occasionally hitting his trigger to laugh. The rest of the house doesn’t let up, with rooms feeling so very close to the film, especially the interior of Spaulding’s itself. My only complaint with that is that Spaulding himself only appears once, in his shop, and the actor, at least the one in that cast, took quite a bit of time between scares. Normally, that would be fine, because of the fact that an unexpected entry point and an unheard dialogue line can really make the scare so much stronger, but the gas station felt empty without him. We only saw him just as we were rounding the corner into the next room. All in all, this house was impressive. They played with some things like the bizarre opening of the film with all of the smashed-together low-quality cam videos, which was pretty neat! The length of the house was also noteworthy in the best of ways: after we saw Doctor Satan, I thought the end had to be just around the corner. Nope: about another third of the house left to go. Enormous. Beautiful. A few more interesting notes and highlights: -Otis is absolutely everywhere. I really should count how many times he appears. Baby does have a scare in her performing outfit, which is cute. -We hardly see any of the victims of HoTC as anything other than mannequins. Fishboy, though, is a very beautiful sculpture that I was so looking forward to see, but he wasn’t lit very well, possibly going unnoticed to those not searching him out. I have the six-house UtH tour in October; hopefully this house is included. Depths of Fear: 10/10 WOW. So to avoid real spoilers about the BEST effect in the house, I think I’m just going to say this: if you like mixed media houses, this is your thing. Many more elements than sets, costumes, actors, and scares make up this house. God, I want to talk about it, but it was such a cool surprise for me and I want it to be for you too. To settle, I’ll talk about this one: I can’t pull out an example, but there’s a great effect of the alien coming down a foreshortened hallway while on STILTS so it goes from pretty far-away to right up in your face and giant. Incredibly immersive and impressive. This house makes good use of space, both feeling tight like a real close-quarters vessel but also showing you multiple levels as a catwalk rises above you at one point. The aliens/creatures/what have you do look a little silly but not as bad as you’d think. I absolutely lost my mind at how much I loved this house by the time I got out of it. God. Universal Classic Monsters: 8/10 To be honest, this one was actually pretty frightening at times! Nearly every monster’s area had a scare that genuinely made me jump. I went in looking for one of my friends from last year, so I admittedly was looking for the Phantom section my whole way through so I didn’t miss him. Most noteworthy is the fact that these actors WILL get close to you. Very close. My boyfriend noted that the Wolfman’s claw slashes were inches from him, and on two separate occasions in the same walkthrough, the mummies reached their hand out to me as part of their scare and were, no joke, about two inches from my eyes. That being said, this house does a good job playing with depth. You may be further away from the monster (Phantom), it may be above you (Dracula), it may be about a foot away on your left as you turn a corner (Frankenstein’s Monster), and so on. The sets can get impressively tall, as this is the parade building, but I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t able to do Us, but this house does include many mirror elements. I believed I saw a figure on my right and tried to approach before my boyfriend pulled me to the left, so that was startling and cool. As people are saying, though, for whatever reason, I didn’t find that it captured the overall mood of Classic Monsters. Most things felt like they could be current, or didn’t have much of a period feel at all, other than the Mummy. Get ready for some very interesting voice-acted triggers, specifically from Dracula and the Phantom; they feel a little exaggerated for the character and not exactly fitting. The scares were great and it looked stunning, so I did like it, though. Ghostbusters - 8/10 (will likely change if I do it again) Again, all I have to say is WOW. The effects are so very cool, with ghosts being presented digitally in a three-dimensional background a la the spirits from the Tower of Terror. Stay Puft is a biiiiig boy. Gozer is everything you could hope for, he is glittery, he is tall, he is on a high platform, he has a whole show scene with one of the Busters (forgive me, I don’t know which one). “Are you a god?” If you like Hot Boy Gozer, you’ll get Hot Boy Gozer. Slimer has many puppet forms, one of which distinctly smells like the rubber of a balloon when he scares. My problem with the house kind of ties in with just a personal complaint. This house has a huge potential to have so many noticeable holes, as it isn’t dark. Personally, I saw several empty boo holes snd even wide-open spaces where someone was clearly meant to be stationed. On opening night, this is pretty bad; not only do people normally never call out for the first night, but there are always reserves there to fill in gaps if they do. In my experience, my roommate, a stilt-walking, top hat-wearing blue ghost that you’re supposed to see in the alley after you see Winston, was getting an ill-fitting costume repaired for a good part of the night, so his area would be completely empty during his set. I think there was an overall problem with making sure that roles got filled, as they actually do characterize the houses more than they think they do. Stranger Things: 7/10 for props honestly Alright, look. I’m not a Stranger Things hater. Season three was actually pretty good. However, we all know that the first house wasn’t scary, but this one might have even stepped down a notch from that, even for me. Several demodogs popping out of the walls in an extended upside-down sequence, oooo, spooky! ...And it’s only highlighted by the fact that you get to see three completely static and shiny demodogs standing over...someone later. You guys know. What breaks my heart is that it seemed like there would have been an extremely cool and scary effect when you’re inside the bus, as I could see a dark, still demodog on the ceiling having broken through the top hatch and leaning over. If that alone was the scare, yikes, but I assumed that someone was meant to puppet that thing and just wasn’t. Actors are very, very off this year. I understand that they can’t get perfect casting, but at least Nancy, Max, and two of the Hoppers were unrecognizable without the context of where they were, or their name being shouted as part of a trigger. However, Jesus, the last Hopper in that set was a spot-on match, and it took me a second to process that. In general, the triggers were either activated much too quickly or much too sparsely. I got to hear “Nancy, shoot it!” many, MANY times, followed by her constantly blasting and reloading her shotgun. There are two Steves, and we saw neither of them in the long times we were in the rooms because the actor waited quite a bit to go out; we only knew he was there because we could hear his trigger go off behind us. Let me praise Billy for a second. We aren’t shoved with too much Billy right in our faces, at least figuratively, but we are LITERALLY. His actor in his central scene was so very passionate and active that I had to figure out whether the trigger was making that noise or if he was actually screaming in anguish. Great actor, great energy from him. But let me address the elephant in the room: alright, I understand that Eleven is sort of a liability, because if the Elevens call out, not many reserves are going to have shaved their heads for this role. However, I got exactly what I didn’t want: an identical Eleven from last year, down to the costume and even the pose. That was recycled to hell, and it’s the only Eleven we get. There is no Starcourt. We get one room in Starcourt, but the emphasis is on the Mind Flayer, so we don’t get that aesthetic. But let’s talk about that Mind Flayer, actually. The room people theorized would get included with the MF busting into Hopper’s cabin is there, but static. No movement from any of those limbs that I could see. There is one massive, INCREDIBLE puppet at the end, though, and I’ve heard from this forum that it takes three to puppet that. I am definitely not surprised. Many degrees of movement, opens it’s mouth, roars, a beautiful show of craftsmanship. It’s a shame that it’s the only creature I found stood out. If the line weren’t so crazy and bad, I would almost consider doing ST again just to see that thing. In the end, bad house. Good compared to other haunts’ standards, and pretty in some places, but never scary. OH. And they play the ST cover of Neverending Story in the area between soundstages, so you get to hear it going in! Absolutely ruined the mood! Great. Killer Klowns from Outer Space: 5/10 I’m sorry Alright, I think this is a love it or hate it house for sure. Ringwraith praised it, but I was so glad when I saw the exit, honestly. I hate this house. I’m talking I did Blumhouse more than once last year because of no line, but I don’t think I want to touch KK again, even with 26 more event nights to go. I waited ten minutes, thank god, and I’m glad I didn’t let KK eat up more of my night. Let’s talk about the issues. I’m glad I didn’t waste my time watching this film in advance as I tried to do with the other IPs, because this house is the most uncohesive thing I’ve ever seen. I mean, I guess it’s at least consistent in that, as it retains the bright visuals throughout. As people have said, the clowns are big, so they aren’t super scary. What scared me were the neon sets all over that just don’t quit, paired with the clusterfuck of sound effects that made up the “scares.” That might be someone’s cup of tea, but it isn’t mine. Maybe it would be fun if you were already high. It’s not dizzying in a fun way, it’s not scary, it’s just annoying and honestly it kind of hurt. Every trigger seems like either a) a random circus noise, like a bike horn, or b) MANY random circus sounds, like a bike horn AND a drumroll! You feel me? There were two human characters, I believe, one of which we already saw in the zone. The sets are colorful and expressive, sure, but I wasn’t impressed by anything here. I don’t know what I was expecting with large props, but that wasn’t what I got. Jojo is big, yeah, but he serves as an entryway for yet another bright, irritating hallway of klowns. There are doors that drop down for a surprise attack in one hallway, and the natural bang of the drop hurt my boyfriend’s ears, while I felt my sense of balance get knocked off as the floor shook uncomfortably. This is all while being surrounded with bright fluorescent lights and aggressively loud “silly” sounds. I hated this. Nothing makes me want to go back. I think the most impressive part were the klowns themselves, but we already got to see all of those costumes in the zone. Rating it 5 because it was inventive and some people did find this aesthetic to be great for them, but it was absolutely the worst for me. Not scary, not funny, not even pretty. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadath Posted September 16, 2019 Share Posted September 16, 2019 There's definitely more than just that first Eleven in the ST house, there's actually 3 scare-actors who portray her in the house. First Room (Class Room), Second Room (Upside Down school Hallway before the Arcade), and in the Cabin with everyone else. It's possible you went through during a cast change or missed their triggers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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