My (Insert Witty Review Title Here) Review

[Oysterhead00]

This is the spoiler free 15min review.  I'll write a longer spoiler filled one later.

Houses

• American Werewolf in London - 7/10
  I didn't go to HHN23 so this was my first time through this maze.  At first it didn't live up to my expectations about hearing how amazing it was the past two years, but it grew on me and I really enjoyed it.  In some of the weaker years, this would have easily been my favorite.
• Asylum in Wonderland 3D - 8/10
  What can I say?  I LOVE the 3D houses.  It seemed a little like "just throw stuff at the house and see what sticks" due to the lack of a backstory fleshed out through an interactive webpage, but when it was explained on the UTH tour, it made it even better for me.
• Body Collectors - 9/10
  Gorgeous house, great sight gags, and really good scares.
• Freddy vs Jason - 9/10
  DAMN those Jason's were huge!  The casting call was for people 6'7" and taller.  The shortest Jason was 6'3".  That's from the tour.  The Jason part was better for scares, but the Freddy "iconic kills" section was amazing.  Loved this house!  If the FvJ part was done better and I didn't miss the "winner" at the end a few times, I might have given it a 10.
• Insidious - 8/10
  Didn't watch any of the movies and haunting movies aren't my thing (though I'm curious now after it was explained to us what the movie was about).  Had some great scares and some truely creepy rooms.  If I was a fan of the movies, I probably would have rated it higher.
• Jack:  25 Years - 10/10
  Can't say anything that hasn't been said before.  HUGE house, tons of scares, and just amazing sets.  The "Best of" aspect wasn't as jarring as I thought about going from room to room.  Just amazing.
• Purge - 5/10
  It was loud and I loved the costumes that were already used in the Scare Zones...but it was just weak as would be expected given the last second nature of the switch.  Was more interesting to look for all the scream scenes than to go through the house.  Loud...but not in a good way.  Though the bed scene was probably the most brutal thing I've ever seen at HHN (and bumps up my grad a full point)
• Run - 6/10
  Much like Purge, just nothing memorable.  Forgot the house the second I left it and really can't think of much to elaborate on it in my forthcoming longer review.
• The Walking Dead - 5/10
  I LOVE the show and have been a defender of past houses...but this was just weak as hell.  The facade was non-existant, but the first "kill" in the house was awesome and brutal.  The zombies in the water was laughably bad...and the truck gag was a recycled craptactular job.

Shows

• Jack - 10/10
  I LOVED IT.  It was really only the second Icon show I ever saw (Terra Queen was the first) and the stage was huge, the pyro was great, music was great, violent as hell, some cursing, it was just awesome.
• Bill & Ted - 5/10
  Giving the performers a 5/5 for the singing, dancing, and energy...they were great.  Giving the show content a 0/5 because it was weak.  Maybe it's because I'm in my 40s and I just don't get most of the references, but it just seemed so lazy and not coherent.  Like they just went from gag to gag with no plot.  I know, that sounds really stupid to say.  But it's like how Scary Movie 3 is stupid but hilarious and the dime a dozen imitations from the same time sucked even though they were lampooning the same thing.  You need SOMETHING to tie it together and it just didn't happen for me.  Felt like it had ADD this year.

Zones - 6/10.  Nothing really stood out to me.  Just seemed like they were all recycled from past years, with maybe a little twist.  I enjoyed them, but not nearly as much in many of the past years.  Lumping them all in together.  Central Park had great ambiance as usual, but seemed like even fewer scares than usual.  The Icons zone had some cool sets, but even taking a bunch of pictures and exposing myself to be scared pretty easily I think I only got one decent scare in there.