Blizz's Review(s)

[Blizzrock13]

Opening Night

I'll stop short of forming real opinions at this point, as rain completely crippled Universal's ability to fill the streets. I only saw one horde (Warriors) and they seemed pretty successful in getting scares. Now, I'm not sure if the intense fog in NY was intended or just product of the moist weather forcing it all to hang around the ground, but I LOVE IT. I'm all for cool lighting, but I also love the feeling of walking down a street and feeling as though one of my five senses has been taken away. At one point, I looked ahead and a wall of "warriors" burst out of the fog en masse: the effect is roughly 10x more intimidating BECAUSE the fog is so thick. All I can say is, I hope that doesn't change as the event goes on.

HOUSES

Universal's House of Horrors -- My first house of the night. I can definitely see how a lot of people described the sets as "looking unfinished". They're unquestionably the least impressive of the event, and at times, truly uncreative. Two scenes were taken DIRECTLY out of previous houses (Wolfman, Dracula). However, I will say that the set design was very good (design here being independent of the appearance of the environment, meaning only the way the set is used to create scares). I did like the tunnel, as well as a lot of the later scenes. The house really puts actors in your space very well. I didn't get a lot of scares, but the potential for them in this one is very high. In a year of long houses, this one is perhaps the longest.

Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare -- I had a bad feeling about this house from the moment I stepped through the facade. I mean, we're walking through Alice's mouth, with Alice Cooper songs playing in the background. Right off the bat, I felt rather disengaged. The sets are well themed, but uninteresting. They do allow the actors to get nice and close, so I expect a decent amount of scares to come out of here. But there's no coherence between any of these sets. It's just a jumble of Alice songs that I don't much care about. Any time Alice music comes on, I feel the tension of the moment slip away. This doesn't at all feel like an Orlando house.

Silent Hill -- I had really high hopes for this one after playing the second game quite a bit over the past few days. The sets are a good mix of variety and consistency, and the costumes here are very well done. The problem is that the sets don't seem to put the actors in your space as much as I would like. As a result, I never really felt on edge in here, and for a game that prides itself on being unnerving, I expected better.

Gothic -- A wonderful house. The sets are beautiful to look at, but it doesn't fall into the typical soundstage trap where the designers focus purely on making the house look pretty, and not scary. The grandiosity of the house never diminishes, but the environment gets a little more claustrophobic and unnerving. There are a number of creative scenes here that I won't spoil, but I can say with certainty that this will be a house to watch in the coming month.

Dead End-- My favorite house of the night, surprisingly. I didn't expect much, but this house was everything it needed to be to succeed. Creepy costumes, AMAZING effects, and wonderful length. Legendary Truth was more spooky than scary, and naturally I was afraid that that was what this would turn out to be. Rest assured, this house delivers the scares and the fun.

Walking Dead -- I got in this after the park was technically closed, but apparently no one told the actors. They were far and away the best in this house. Their energy was over the top, and with all the eye candy for TWD fans to look at, they're sure to get some easy targets. My second favorite after Dead End.

Never saw P&T. Here are my early rankings:

1. Dead End

2. The Walking Dead

3. Gothic

4. House of Horrors

5. Silent Hill

6. Alice Cooper