I'm sad. Had fun, but ST2 will be back next year.

[Ueeediot]

I am certain we will see ST2 next year.  With the amount of focus on that house, watching the Finnegan's pen open at 5:45 pm on Wednesday night and watching the hundreds of people flow out of pen 1 with almost ALL of them making the left turn to head to ST, and then pen 2 opening a few minutes later and hundreds more doing the same thing....  I haven't seen that much focus on a single property, before.  That and with all of the merch for ST flying off the shelves like it did, I can't see them not doing part two next year.

I was amazed with the design of Poltergeist, the monsters, the flying witch in Scary Tales, it was so much fun.

The real letdown was the scare zones.  Chucky zone was not scary and was silly and a (semi weak) heckling show, Killer Klownz - for all its wonderful aesthetics - was fun for all of 5 minutes, once you saw Vamp 85 sing Thriller once, it was pretty much enough.  The Harvest was my second favorite, those stilt walkers were really cool, but Twisted Traditions was the only one I found to be of HHN quality. 

The other major letdown was AoV.  Fun story, Good music selection, good light show, fun energetic dancers, laser fingers - excellent, slack line dancers - really cool,  but that crowd engagement tho.  Do the wave?  Do the robot?  Go in slow motion?  We just felt no energy in the crowd.  Maybe because we are all seated?  

But, whatever I do, I will never again assume that something is a prop and not a scareactor.  We were going through Halloween 4 and I thought Mike was real and the Jamie standing next to him was fake and (for whatever alcohol induced moronic impulse control problem) I was going to touch her red nose and she jumped out at me.  I quickly and profusely apologized and she gave me a nod realizing I thought she was a prop.  Don't touch the actors folks.

Earlier in the event run was there something on the rail at the end of Scary Tales that ran towards you that was removed?   In each of my passes there was not a prop in that area.

[OrangeRyan]

4 hours ago, Ueeediot said:

Earlier in the event run was there something on the rail at the end of Scary Tales that ran towards you that was removed?   In each of my passes there was not a prop in that area.

 

The Witch that FLIES at you in the end on the railing is still there. But you just have to make sure you are there at the right moment! That scare is so easy to miss!

[Ueeediot]

28 minutes ago, OrangeRyan said:

 

The Witch that FLIES at you in the end on the railing is still there. But you just have to make sure you are there at the right moment! That scare is so easy to miss!

There was nothing on the rail this past week.  It was clearly empty and not missed.  I could see the other end of the rail.

 

[OhHaiInternet95]

They moved her. Like I said I would be disappointed but since I didn't expect that angle it was a great scare.

[zombieman]

On 10/29/2018 at 2:00 PM, Ueeediot said:

The real letdown was the scare zones.  Chucky zone was not scary and was silly and a (semi weak) heckling show, Killer Klownz - for all its wonderful aesthetics - was fun for all of 5 minutes, once you saw Vamp 85 sing Thriller once, it was pretty much enough.  The Harvest was my second favorite, those stilt walkers were really cool, but Twisted Traditions was the only one I found to be of HHN quality. 

 

Out of curiosity, what past scarezone has HHN done that was actually scary?  The only way they "get me" anymore is when I'm paying so much attention to some highly detailed set and don't notice the scaractor coming up beside me.  ...or when I'm walking through it checking wait times on my phone.  Scarezones have never been scary to me.  Just cool things to look at.  My favorite zones are ones that have mini-shows, like Vamp this year.  

 

The coolest thing I saw this year in a scarezone was totally impromptu and may sound stupid.  It was in Chucky.  One of the monkeys jumped out and scared a girl who was holding a plastic water cup.  She got startled and dropped it.  Half a dozen scaractors came running over, crying in agony for the poor plastic cup that broke.  A couple lay on the ground and wailed.  The monkey covered its face and wept, looked over to the cup, and threw his arms in the air, screaming at the sky.  They all gathered around the cup looking at each other, wondering what to do.  The monkey then knelt down and hooked the empty cup at the end of its twisted hand.  He money-walked over to the trash can and proceeded to bury the cup.  The actors knelt around the can and looked solemn, and then thrashed about the trash can.  When a customer walked over to the can to throw away their trash, they wouldn't let him.  It was the funniest thing I've seen in many years.

 

Someone else posted pictures of the Klownz doing something similar when the balloon animal popped one day.

 

 

On 10/29/2018 at 2:00 PM, Ueeediot said:

The other major letdown was AoV.  Fun story, Good music selection, good light show, fun energetic dancers, laser fingers - excellent, slack line dancers - really cool,  but that crowd engagement tho.  Do the wave?  Do the robot?  Go in slow motion?  We just felt no energy in the crowd.  Maybe because we are all seated?  

 

Today I rewatched the 2016 AoV show, House of Fear.  I loved it just as much now as then.  So my disdain for Cyberpunk is not a dislike of AoV or longing for B&T.  This show just did nothing for me, and the crowd engagement was insulting.  When House of Fear got to that shadow puppet sequence, I was hooked, and it never let go.  I've said it before - if all AoV did was the House of Fear show this year on the FF stage, I'd have seen the show every night.

 

Putting it another way:

AoV 2016 show was Poltergeist

AoV 2018 show was Blumhouse...