duh1011's Unpopular Opinions Review

[duh1011]

Sorry for the really long review, but I felt like posting a more in-depth one and there's nothing I would take out of it. I might organize it better when I'm not on my phone at work, and I left a tl;dr at the bottom

 

 

Well you read the title, as I describe my night there will be some VERY unpopular opinions. Not only that but there will be spoilers so that I can give as good of a review as possible, and I'm not gonna give anything a numerical rating. Im just gonna say how I felt about the event.

 

Went thursday the 29th, and it wasn't too crowded. No weather issues, and the crowd didn't seem too rowdy this time around. We got to the hotel entrance a little before 6 and they were already letting people in! So we skipped over scarezones that had only a few actors (cuz it was early) to run right to:

 

Halloween 2: Hell Comes to Haddonfield

Two years ago the halloween house frightened me. The Michaels were all over and they were intense as hell. This time? Started off with the end of the first movie which I loved, and all the sets inside the hospital were fantastic! I really liked all of the iconic kills from this movie, and that finale. Holy mother of Hades was that an explosive finale! If this house was sets and costumes only it would be fantastic, but alas, I have to talk about the scareactors. When entering the hospital the first few scenes had some of the laziest actors I've witnessed, with one of them even just casually stepping out and waving a hammer by his face. The scares did get better, but it still killed a lot of the immersion for me. Overall, I still liked it for the sets and costumes, and for a Halloween house they managed to have just enough variety for me costume-wise too!

 

After this we were right by Tomb of the Ancients, so one giant flat tire and a longer-than-it-shouldve-been wait, we went into that one. I had to do this house a second time around, so I'll reserve most judgement for that time. I only got one scare by that really tall guy when I rounded the corner, and I missed half the house bc I forgot to bring shades and my eyes didn't adjust well

 

This house spat us right outside of TCM which was an advertised 20 minute wait but was actually 7. Wow. I've never seen the movie before, except the first five minutes, but this house was still fantastic. The smell was gross, the people were terrifying, and the camera rooms. This house scared me the most due largely to the camera flashes, since the scareactors would come out during the flash so I didn't see it coming. This worked way better than a plain old strobe. Speaking of unexpected, I did not know there would be not one, but TWO leatherfaces at the end! The second one got me so good! In short, despite having never seen this movie, I loved the house and it scared the daylights out of me

 

Which was perfect timing since when we arrived at Lunatic's, the sun was setting. Posted wait was 15 minutes but it was actually 4, and this is another house I repeated so I'll give a more detailed review further down. 

 

Dead Man's Wharf was next, and I'm going to talk about it now since it almost never got better. Loved the atmosphere and the sets, the costumes were out of this world, but scare-wise? Were they supposed to scare people? With the exception of this one actor who did a FANTASTIC job scaring people left and right on my last walk through this zone, I saw maybe three scares total. I stayed here for a while and went through multiple times, but not unlike Halloween 2, the actors were just kinda there. They shambled around, they moaned here and there, but I almost never saw them go for people. SCARE-zone my ass. 

 

Next up was the Apocalypse: Survive or Die SZ, which had some great parts and not-so-great parts. My only real complaint with this zone is that it is WAY too large for its own good. Half of it is only used as a track for the car to go around (which was a badass car don't get me wrong), and by the monster cafe fhey set up those tunnels that were deserted too. More than half of this scarezone overall was empty. What wasn't empty was really great however! The sets were neat and I love seeing the fire and collapsing buildings, and the platforms for the various clans were awesome. The barkers on each one were so full of energy, and never ran out of things to say... especially when smack-talking the other clans. The actors had great presence, and acted differently depending on which side they were on too. I especially liked this one girl that I had a loooong chat with about joining her side, so now I answer to Mother

 

Next house was Ghost Town which I did three times this night, so more about it later "40" minute wait was 25 minutes in actuality. 

 

Went to the Exorcist, and here comes my first unpopular opinion: I did not like the Exorcist (movie) at all. It honestly bored me the whole time. However, even with that prior experience I like this house quite a bit, although there were a couple things in particular that held it back from being fantastic. For one thing, they had not one but TWO hallways that were all black and only had this wall that moved in both. No actors or anything. Along with that, I got tired of seeing Reagan near the end of the house, since she is most of all the scares. Those were pretty big letdowns, but there's a pretty big list of things that made up for it. The first room with the fake walls was genius. The barf room was disgusting and with the wet mattresses in your face and getting barfed on by reagan it felt just horrifically gross (in the best way possible). The levitating reagan scene. The finale with the hand-grates and that one demon guy. The demon guy actually saying bitch (:000000). The reagans did do a great of scaring too, even if it got old before the house ended. Overall this house could have been spectacular if only a couple things didn't hold it back. 

 

Something to note, AHS and TWD throughout almost the whole night was 60 minutes +.

 

We were gonna try one of those around now, but meh. Too long. Went instead through A Chance in Hell-this scarezone had a fantastic cast and an okay cast. One of the casts did a side-splittingly hilarious and oftentimes scary job, whereas the other one was just kinda standard. However, props to the one guy who brushed past me holding up his costume saying "sorryyy~ prINCESS COMING THROUGH!" And then the girl scareactors around him all yelling at me and getting in my face to bow down to him. That intimidated me and made me laugh a ton, so I gave him a damn good bow. The stages were super detailed here, and each Chance was very, very fun. This scarezone was pretty good, which is surprising since the ones located there have been flops lately.

 

After going through here we arrived at Krampus, my most anticipated house. Loved the movie, and I can tell Creative does too. The gingerbread man room especially was so much fun to go through, and the attic scene was pretty great. BUT there are things I have to complain about. The house was mostly elves, which was sad since they could have done so much more. There was almost no Krampus in areas that would have been amazing to have Krampus in. The snowmen were underwhelming, as was the jack-in-the-box. Hollywood's Krampus house made the perfect Krampus house, but I gotta say I still enjoyed this one a bit. When they did do more than just "room with elves" it was great, and the smells were fantastic. 

 

Vamp '55. This scarezone. I might need a whole separate review just for this one scarezone. I spent a good amount of time here, came around multiple times, and I had a TON of fun each and every single time. I won't ramble here about some of my specific experiences since that would take too much time (I'll post it in the thread for that later), but to put it simply, this was my favorite thing in the whole event. The scareactors had chemistry, they sometimes got people from multiple angles for some great scares, and the stuff they improvised for either comedic or horrific effect was always a riot. I loved both casts just as much as the other, and I am so glad the actors went as all-out as they did. The music was great, the floats were neat, but the acting was some of the best, if not the best, I've seen out of this event.

 

Now to (sadly) move on to Lair of the Banshees.  This was a scarezone? Just like in Dead Man's Wharf, I saw almost no scares. The boo holes were almost never used, although at the end of the event one actress was using the curtain on the closed gift shop to surprise people. Some costumes were cool, like the stilt ghoul and that one that was just teeth. But still, ??? ? It wasnt scary, there was no ambiance, and it mostly just served to clutter the street with big, unused props and a stupid-looking string puppet. I hope next year we get a new zone at this location, since theyve all seemed to be almost the same the past few years. 

 

Here I split up with my party so they could see BnT, and I did Ghost Town twice. First time said 15, was almost a walk on. Second time said 25 and wtf it actually was right about that? This house, if I had to pick favorites, would be my favorite. The outdoor effects for each outdoor scene blew me away (get it?). The sets were beautiful, and some of the actors got me really good. They were snappy and intense. Their costumes were great, and they reflected how their corpse died too, which was an AWESOME touch. Really did a ton for the immersion. I have nothing bad to say except the mirrors for the cave scene need to be cleaned if I'm to look down and be amazed, all i saw were dirty mirrors. Also, best line of the night was "THATS MAH GOLD!!" Great house, great scares, great sets, great everything. 

 

Then we redid Tomb cuz I missed half of it the first time around and this house was also really good. It starts genuinely eerie as you go through some of the tombs, and once you hit the room with the mummies and spider webs it got a bit creepy. The tall guy halfway through always gets me around the corner, and then everything gets chaotic in that house. The human dossection was great, the room with the lit-up runes on the walls jad SO MANY ACTORS IT WAS TERRIFYING, and the lion-croc at the end was so great. Also, pulled on the GAT both times but nothing happened This house was close to Ghost Town for being my favorite, but so was TCM and the next and final house I'm gonna talk about, but first some notes

 

A. Another unpopular opinion-I don't like AHS. I tried multiple times and multiple seasons to get into the show, but it never did anything for me. It wasnt scary and it bored me a lot. So because of this, we skipped over this house that had the longest wait the whole time. 

B. Didnt do twd since its twd and I've done it three times already. 

C. The "roaming" "hordes" had one-to-three actors each, and they did the best with what they had, which wasnt much. Can't really say anything too bad about what is essentially an extra thing, and the chainsaw cheerleaders actually did a very good job.

D. Skipped BnT since it was complete crap last year, and while I couldn't see myself sitting down through a whole dance routine what I did see of Academy of Villains was spectacular. They were together, they were wild, and they were so so full of energy. The choreography was stunning, so kudos to them and if they come back next year maybe I'll give their full show a shot. 

 

Now, onto the final house and probably the most unpopular opinion in this review (although the other two aren't gonna be liked either)

Lunatics Playground: 3D (if thats what its called idk) I thought was a really great house. I enjoyed the hell out of it. The vortex room was actually trippy as hell this year. While some costumes were dumb, others were great and some ingenous like the guy that blended into the wall (if that even was a real guy). All the police corpses were fun to see, and a couple had neat effects. And the Chances. They were actually pretty interactive, they made jokes about you along with executing their scenes. They had such a prescense that it made the rooms with her really stand out. Every chance, both in the house and on the streets, was fantastic and really sold their role as our crazy mascot this year. Now I understand this house wasn't terribly scary, and I bet if I went through the In-Between (I think that's what it's called) I would think differently, but for me 3d houses are fun houses. They made a great break from everything else, and always entertained me. The only big gripe I had was one key stuck out near the end and, me being a tall dude, hit mt head on the thing. I wish that in a trippy house like that they didn't habe something stick out so close to you when you enter a room. But still, I enjoyed this house both times I did it, and the other two in my party thought it was their favorite thing at the event. Oh, it helped that both times we never waited 15 minutes or more for this one, since the queue video had clips that ranged from kinda good to obnoxiously bad. Rest in piece, queue videos.

 

Then we did Krampus again and we were the last ones in the house, but it was the same experience the second time through.

 

Overall, this year was spectacular. All the houses were great, and while not every scarezone lived up to their full potentials, Vamp '55 managed to be my all-time favorite bar none. Also, the music in the park was your standard horror fare so they certainly changed it after opening weekend. I wish I could have seen AHS since I hear that house was pretty great, but what I did experience was still awesome. 

 

 

Also sorry for the long review, here's a tl;dr

Halloween 2: Great sets, some bad acting tho

Tomb: Great everything, some really unnerving areas

TCM: SUPER scary, and some clever scare set-ups

Lunatic's: Fun house, loved all the Chances

Ghost Town: Favorite house, amazing effects, sets, and scares, ntm "THATS MAH GOLD!!"

Exorcist: Great but also has its big flaws

Krampus: Same opinion as Exorcist

 

Dead Man's Wharf: Some truly mind-blowing costumes and atmosphere, terribly lazy acting

Apocalypse: Fun in areas with actors but too big for its own good

Chance in Hell: One great cast, one okay cast, all Chances are fantastic and the stages were creepily realistic

Vamp '55: My favorite thing tonight, so much fun and the actors have fantastic synergy

Lair of the Banshees: ??????

[criticalanalysis]

On 10/1/2016 at 5:33 PM, duh1011 said:

Vamp '55. This scarezone. I might need a whole separate review just for this one scarezone. I spent a good amount of time here, came around multiple times, and I had a TON of fun each and every single time. I won't ramble here about some of my specific experiences since that would take too much time (I'll post it in the thread for that later), but to put it simply, this was my favorite thing in the whole event. The scareactors had chemistry, they sometimes got people from multiple angles for some great scares, and the stuff they improvised for either comedic or horrific effect was always a riot. I loved both casts just as much as the other, and I am so glad the actors went as all-out as they did. The music was great, the floats were neat, but the acting was some of the best, if not the best, I've seen out of this event.

 

 

Entirely agree. It's been years since I've liked a scare zone this much. What was lacking in quantity of sets it made up with by nailing the characters and actors.

[chris0matic]

This is going to be a pretty funny explanation. When I went through chance on my last night, I was looking for GAT's and thought the key would do something special. Although it was originally tucked into the wall I managed to (accidentally) pull it out like 8 inches or so, and immediately skipped ahead when I realized that it wasn't intended to do that. Sorry about that...

 

Great review though

[Oysterhead00]

 

On 10/1/2016 at 5:33 PM, duh1011 said:

Ghost Town: Favorite house, amazing effects, sets, and scares, ntm "THATS MAH GOLD!!"

 

3 out of the 4 times we went through whoever had the trigger for the "That's My Gold!" was waaaaay too trigger happy.  He tried to trigger it and swipe at every single person in the Conga Line.  It was a bit ridiculous and we all took note of it.  The other pass, I'm assuming was the other cast, and it wasn't as crazy where you'd hear it 1.5 rooms before and 1.5 after.