kiwisoup's review

[Guest kiwisoup]

I flew in from Minnesota and attended this past Fri and Sat the 6th and 7th on a very rainy weekend. I went through each house twice and didn't wait more than 20 minutes for each house which was nice!

Houses:

The Forsaken: First time I went through was daylight, so I had a bit of trouble with my eyes adjusting. Liked the use of mannequins to make the house look more populated and actual scares were more effective because your attention was all over the place trying to figure out which ones were real and which weren't. It was really overwhelming stepping into the courtyard because of this. 2nd time through wasn't much different although for some reason the line kept coming to a complete stop. Didn't seem to catch the bungee guy either time. After the courtyard scene there seemed to be a lot of empty space and not many scares.

Scares: 6/10

Sets: 8/10

Overall: 7/10

The In-between: Another house I went through in daylight. Bad idea. The combination of the vortex, the 3D and my eyes not adjusting, made me really disoriented and as I went through the next doorway there was a big demon head right in my face and I almost fell over and literally stood there not knowing where to go or what the heck was going on. The 3D effect wasn't that great and I have to say this was probably my least favorite house. Scareactors didn't seem to be very aggressive. Went through a second time at night and I was able to see more detail, but my opinion didn't really change.

Scares: 4/10

Sets: 6/10

Overall: 5/10

Nevermore - The Madness of Poe: I really liked the set design of this one. The Scareactor from The Tell-Tale Heart sounded like the same sound effect used in Dead Exposure. The female Scaractors in this house were really great and aggressively went after scares. Both times through, one of the dancing Mannequins didn't have a Scareactor partner. It did have kind of a rushed feel, I really wanted to take in details but wasn't able to as much as I wanted before being swept into the next scene.

Scares: 7/10

Sets: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

Saws & Steam - Into the Machine: This house wasn't the best, but I thought it was the most unique. My first time through a Scareactor seemed to drop out of character shouting across us "Hey Kevin...where ya going?!". We both were kinda confused and looked where he was yelling only to have the corpse the Scareactor was tending to jump up and scare us. Liked the water type effects. Scareactors were a bit generic for my taste, but overall it wasn't bad.

Scares: 6/10

Sets: 6.5/10

Overall: 6/10

H.R. Bloodengutz - Holidays of Horror: Got the same cast both times. This one was fun but a bit predictable. Scareactor on left, Scareactor on right, TV room, repeat. The Indian girl got me good both times. The different smells were fun and the Easter bunny was freaky.

Scares: 6/10

Sets: 7/10

Overall: 6/10

The Thing: This was my second favorite house. Seems like it was getting mixed reviews, but I thought it was great. The sets were varied, sound effects and strobes were great as was the facade. Good mixture of animatronics and Scareactors. Very aggressive on the scare side. Only complain I can think of is that weird mask that looks like an cancerous elephant trunk...what is that? Weird. The girl with the gun shot THROUGH me both times! Second time through was during a cast change, but it didn't effect too much.

Scares: 9/10

Sets: 8/10

Overall: 9/10

Nightingales - Blood Prey: This was my top house. Everything about it was great: sets, Scareactors, spray effects, bungees, etc. I knew there was a banshee in the first room up top, yet she still scared the crap out of me the second I glanced upward! The scares were relentless and the Scareactors were great. I'm always a fan of female Scareactors because they don't always go after the squealing girls like I feel happens in some other houses.

Scares: 9/10

Sets: 8/10

Overall: 10/10

Winter's Night - Haunting of Hawthorn Cemetery: Was really let down by this one. The scares really weren't there. Was great to look around and take in the scenery, but that was about it. Scareactors were lethargic, most of them stayed in their boo holes the entire time I was in the room which I HATE. From the time I enter a room to the time I exit it...SOMEONE should be scared in front of me or behind me. I saw on the YouTube video for this house that the grim reaper type characters were supposed to have black fabric in front of their faces and had an air gun to make it raise up to show their actual mask. All of the Scareactors had the fabric up and were just shooting air at people. All of the masks had blue LED lights on top of them, but they just looked like LED lights...don't think they served their intended purpose. I did like the dragging torso a lot and the snow effects.

Scares: 3/10

Sets: 9/10

Overall: 5/10

General observations:

-I like the use of mannequins which I haven't seen before. Makes a house seem more populated and causes distraction for more potential scares.

-Liked the cold effects, however I was soaking wet from the weather...brrrrrr!

-I've only been to the event twice now (last time being HHN 19) and I really didn't feel like I was missing scares like I did for that year. Other than Winter's Night, I pretty much saw every Scareactor or effect.

-Despite the fact that there weren't roofs on most sets, I really didn't notice and it didn't take me out of the experience at all.

I'll probably add scarezones later, but due to the rain, they were empty all of Saturday.

Edited October 10, 2011 by kiwisoup