A Return to Former Glories - 2017 review

[YourPallbearer]

Was lucky to get the RUSH OF FEAR pass to experience three nights of the event instead of my usual one, because night number one was the power outage. I hope everybody had a happy ending with that frustrating experience. 

 

Just a quick disclaimer: haven't read anybody else's thoughts on this year's event so excuse any overlap.

 

THE WALKING DEAD'S reign of terror is finally over------------------------

 

THE SHINING: I was surprised they made a more than tolerable house with the material given; which doesn't exactly leave much room for what one thinks would work in a haunted attraction. Kudos to UNI for making it happen. My only real gripe is its sense of scale, by that I mean, its lack of it. Wish the halls and rooms (particularly the "gold room") were much bigger. But this is minor.

7/10

 

THE FALLEN: Great, grand scale piece of work. A lot harkened to GOTHIC a few years back (what with all the flying scarectors) also reminded me of HADES, but this is a very different version of hell, closer to that of HELLRAISER.

8/10

 

DEAD WATERS: The belle of the ball. That facade, wow! Love the seamless transition between the sunken steamboat, the swamp and the village. Really feels like you are traveling to these places on foot. Usually houses jump from one scene to the other without any coherency (THE SHINING this year had a tendency to do that), this dream-like aesthetic doesn't bother me but it is refreshing to see something that closely resembles reality. Over heard somebody complain that the Voodoo Queen is barely seen, I personally didn't care. I am looking at overall atmosphere for these and this has it in spades. Beautiful house. 

9/10

 

ASH VERSUS EVIL DEAD: Ran through this once during a cast change. Not a great experience because of its emptiness but I saw enough to know I wouldn't have liked it any better a second or third time so the fiance and I scratched it off our "re-do list".

4/10

 

THE HIVE: Towards the end of the night (and plenty before that) this was constantly empty, so that went a long way towards my sympathy. Pretty standard "jump and boo" fare but the makeup was excellent and you can't beat that minimal wait time. Went on this a lot! Also, nice seeing stilt walkers in what is usually considered a small venue; the tent houses. One could say there were two Stephen King houses this year as THE HIVE resembled SALEM'S LOT (Count Barlow is based on Orlock, I know, I know).

The last room, with the beady eyes, was eerie the first time. On repeat walk throughs one wishes there was a last good scare.

7/10

 

SCARECROW, THE REAPENING: Tight, dark and intense. Hands down the jewel of the crown this year as far as "scary" goes. It was best going in half blind, as I was my initial time in, due to my eyes not adjusting to the dim interiors after stepping out of the bright sun. Lost a lot when going in again with my sight but there was nice details to catch. The crow filled poop silo was a nice touch, as was the fluttering feathers room that followed. And the finale was disorienting and really cool; think the finale of UNIVERSAL'S HOUSE OF HORROR maze from 2012 and you'll get the idea.

This gets my rare 10/10  rating because it not only fully realized the subject matter (killer scarecrows) but surpassed it.

 

SAW: Deliberately didn't go on this. We're not fans of the series so we didn't want to waste our time.

NO RATING

 

AMERICAN HORROR STORY VOLUME 2: Meh. If you liked last year's you'll like this one. Just a series of stuff spanning three seasons. I really liked the intro room of COVEN with the floating hooded figures, otherwise I didn't care for this much. Was hoping for the Roanoke segment to be more like the house from 2014 but the AHS Roanoke didn't have the scale that had.

4/10

 

BLUMHOUSE: Wasn't expecting too much from this (considering that, outside of the first INSIDIOUS, Blumhouse just doesn't have good enough material; does anybody really like SINISTER?) but was pleasantly surprised. As expected, The INSIDIOUS scenes are good. Everything else leaves a lot to be desired but they tried with PURGE (foyer/hanging scene was nice), SINISTER was the total after thought. Just had Bejeweled, or whatever, pop out randomly . What was the electric chair victim from? I don't remember that from any of these movies.

6/10

 

SCARE ZONES:

 

TRICK R TREAT: Nice change of pace for central park; a section usually regulated for dark, vine stricken scare zones. This year was brightly lit and nicely decorated. Would have been nice to have the option of going trick or treating yourself.

9/10

 

THE PURGE: Another dystopian theme for the NYC area. Don't care about the series, so I didn't care about this. The best I can say is a lot of effort was put into it and it seems to fully realize the subject matter. 

5/10

 

FESTIVAL OF THE DEADLIEST: Strippers and human sacrifices ...yeah, sure, why not? 

6/10

 

INVASION: Wasn't allowed to be all that consuming of an experience. Too small a venue (which has always been a problem in the San Fran area) and the staff were hastily huddling guests out as quickly as they possible could (they were more visibly aggressive than they had been in the past all over the park for some reason). And speaking of aggression, did the taller aliens get more violent as the night went on? Early in the evening they are just sort've observing. Later on their clothes were smattered in blood and they were lunging at us.

6/10

 

ALTARS OF HORROR: Not good. Hardly any attempt at immersion. Just costumed actors and a few totems advertising the houses. Clearly a money saver.

Was nice to hear Alice Cooper's "Be My Lover".

2/10

 

SHOWS

 

BILL AND TED FAREWELL: Never watched the show before now. We rested our blistered feet to watch a Saturday 11:15 showing.

Glad I never wasted my time before.

3/10

 

OVERVIEW:

The scare zones were the weakest link this year. Outside of TRICK R TREAT they were all a far cry from the high water mark of 2008 and none had the risk factor of 2011.

Overall the event was a success, one that greatly benefitted from having more original houses than what has usually been permitted in recent years (4 original houses! instead of the usual 2 or 3) and, lo and behold, they were all good! Three of them being Really good! And one of those three arguably being the best thing the event has ever produced for as long as I've been coming (12 years total, 10, of which, have been consecutive). The absence of the obligatory 3-D house was also a major plus. I always just consider 3-D houses a loss of space.

Along with Bill and Ted, this will probably be my last year for some time. It's nice to report that the recently hobbling Horror Nights made a pretty good stab at returning to its former glory. And I'm happy to say it took out a big meaty chunk.

 

8.7/10 -maybe even higher.

Edited September 26, 2017 by YourPallbearer