[Continued 2]
THE FIRST PURGE
Advertised Wait: 85 minutes
Time in Line: 6:45
Time in Maze: 7:27
Actual Wait: 42 minutes
I really dug the facade, a bit small, but it reminded me of The Walking Dead prison years with the bodies out front and stuff. Entered the maze and the first portion is pretty decent. And then it all… goes down… hill. Black walls everywhere, no effort to do any set design, and then it ends prematurely. This was clearly either last minute, a huge budget cut, or nobody cared to do this right. Why this couldn’t be all the Purge films combined or part of Blumhouse is beyond me. Scareactors weren’t scary nor aggressive. The best parts of the maze were random tidbits, like the mannequins. I can’t think of much else to say because there isn’t much maze. It’s bare, boring, and bland. Think Fright Fest quality, not even Knotts quality.
It’s one of the worst mazes we’ve ever had. I read a review where someone said to skip it and at first I thought, well I don’t know, every maze has it’s qualities and one person might find something to enjoy about it. No, just garbage. Stranger Things was bad, but this is an abomination. I’m fine being disappointed by not being fully designed to its potential (ST/Polt), but literally not having a design is worse. If the cast performance jumps to a 10, which will than boost the scares, this could at least be a decent fun time, but it’d still be a bad maze.
FACADE - 6. You know there’s a problem where just your facade is the best part, but only by a little.
SET DESIGN - 4. There hardly is a set. The little set there is, is barren and ugly to look at. Doesn’t look like or represent a real city at all. Silent Hill did this way better back when, even in a cramped space.
SOUND DESIGN - 3. I remember nothing about it.
SCAREACTOR DESIGN - 4. Nobody was scary. Skelator looked stupid with that mask.
CAST PERFORMANCE - 4. Lazy. Sorry, nobody tried. The mannequins were great though.
ATMOSPHERE/TONE/IMMERSION - 4. Walked through it without feeling much other than disappointment after halfway into the maze.
LENGTH - 4. Ends so quick. No finale. No climactic scene.
SCARES - 2. Mannequins got me, that’s it.
STORY - 5. Chaos, I guess? This should’ve just been a compilation if they weren’t going to try.
PERSONAL BIAS POINTS - 3. I can’t believe I anticipated this maze at all, giving it a chance or thinking it could do well. What a let down, waste of space, and purposeless maze.
39 out of 100. ‘F’
HOLIDAYZ IN HELL
I might have found my new favorite scare zone. This gauntlet has everything! So many details, it was remarkable. I’m gonna have to go through this a few more times to catch everything. I’m going to try and take this in a bit more so I can give this a full review like I would a maze, because honestly, if they slapped a tent over this, put some triggers, this would’ve been maybe the second or third best maze of the night. There were so many ideas and creativity, I was pretty impressed. Unfortunately, there are people stopping at every little vignette to take pictures. This holds up the experience, backs up the line, and makes it a really slow walk through. Not a lot of scare actors when I went through, but I see the potential. I really wish they did this as a maze instead of First Purge. This is just sad it didn’t happen.
A+
DINNER
Surprised the Jurassic Cafe was open! NOTE ABOUT THE SOUVENIR CUPS: it says unlimited refills but that’s the biggest lie. The refill machines will limit you by the hour, saying to come back in different intervals. First it says “free refills for the next 6 hours!” Then you’ll go back and says “your next refill is valid in 3 hours.” I went to get a refund but they told me just to ask the counter service people about a refill instead of going to the machines. Seems like they’re aware of the issue already, but this is just a stupid system to begin with. I hate them for this, as I’m sure many people will not even try to ask about it. And all those people are being ripped off.
TRICK ‘R TREAT
Advertised Wait: 60 minutes
Time in Line: 8:50
Time in Maze: 9:50
Actual Wait: 60 minutes on the dot
(although, the line was stopped/moving slow for about 20 minutes and I suspect the maze shut down or something for a bit because people weren’t leaving the exit and I saw a few people leaving out an emergency exit, and once it started moving again, it was going fast)
At this point in the night, my friends and I were bummed. Were the mazes really going to be this lackluster? Was Blumhouse really going to be the best?! Are all the rest of the mazes mediocre?! Well, low and behold, from the moment we went in, this was instantly my favorite maze of 2018, and stayed that way when it was all said and done.
First scare, right off the bat, guy came running out of sheets and did not expect him and probably gave me the best scare of the night. Second follow up scare, I thought for sure the girl with the lollipop in her mouth was a dummy, and wham! The black walls moments telling you the name of the segment were really well done and always accompanied by a scare, so I never minded them once.
The Principal segment with the kid barfing I wish was a little closer and I also wish the barf was a darker color, like in the movie. The little Sam in the window is a neat touch. This is a HUGE room, didn’t know our sets could get that big, especially in the Mummy queue. By this point I was immensely impressed to see one of my favorite films come to life in such grand fashion.
Surprise Party I wish came at the end, like in the movie, but oh well. I love the giant immobile wolf… it almost tricks you with Sam just sitting there, because out comes a full human form wolf from the other side. And then maybe my second best scare of the night, the very well hidden puppet wolf which was so wonderfully placed in the dark and in between shrubs that I even didn’t suspect it was there when I went back to do the maze at the end of the night when it had no line.
The School Bus Massacre is maybe my least favorite part. The pool of water is hard to even notice and I didn’t even realize I was looking at the top half of a bus for a moment. Plus the scare actors have a long distance to travel from their hiding spots before they ever get to you, so they didn’t hit hard here, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
Meet Sam has another beautiful little facade. Second time in, I didn’t know there was a Mr. Kreeg scare next to the stairs and it really got me. My favorite moment is Sam on the ceiling. The whole time you’re looking at him and thinking, “okay, there’s doors on the side, someone is going to pop out.” So you cautiously move forward and keep looking up to see if he moves or anything, then BAM! Squirted in the face by him. This is the only time I’ll ever praise a water squirt because the execution was so clever and actually scared me. I wish the Sam scare in the next room wasn’t from the window, because it’s a little far from the walk way. I love the zombie kids at the end, I was terrified they would move, but they didn’t. And then the pop outs at the end where they all attack you at different times was great, so I left the maze with my heart racing.
I enjoyed this maze so much. It beautifully rendered the movie and it embodied the spirit of Halloween so well. The wait was so worth it. I hope the second movie comes soon so we can have a sequel maze. Thank you Murdy for listening to the fans on this one and taking that leap. Easy favorite of the night.
FACADE - 10. Beautiful, with the music playing too!
SET DESIGN - 10. The black walls were just transitions and used creatively. Huge set pieces and well designed rooms the whole way through.
SOUND DESIGN - 10. I felt like I was in the movie and that’s not something well executed anymore as it used to be, especially this year.
SCAREACTOR DESIGN - 9. My only issue is Kreeg isn’t exact. Everything else is on point and look like they’re straight from the film set.
CAST PERFORMANCE - 10. Everyone was aggressive and on fire the whole night, really trying their hardest and using the space they were given to provide you the best scare they can give you, from the face characters to people operating puppets.
ATMOSPHERE/TONE/IMMERSION - 10. I felt like I was in it, I was scared even more than the actual movie, and it was a dream come true.
LENGTH - 10. I read somewhere someone thought the sets were big and made it short, but I feel the opposite. This maze got all the key scary moments, plus some transitions. And those rooms were big and took an extra moment or so to walk through. It ended appropriately.
SCARES - 10. Two out of the five of my biggest scares of the night were in here.
STORY - 10. I could tell exactly what was going on, but I’ve seen the movie. Could they have done more to convey the story to those uninitiated? Sure, but maybe in the line, as the maze is already jam-packed. Hopefully they find a way to show clips or more soundytes for those way off by the Star Way in line.
PERSONAL BIAS POINTS - 10. One of my all time favorite movies becomes one of my all time favorite mazes. Bravo.
99 out of 100. ‘A’+
TRICK ‘R TREAT SCAREZONE
It’s really small. Just three little photo ops and a bus. No music other than Hell’s Harvest bleeding over. If you wanna take some pix, cool, and there’s a lot of awesome pumpkins that set the Halloween mood, so at least there’s that. But this zone in itself is almost a bit needless. I enjoyed it a tiny bit though.
‘C’
HELL’S HARVEST
Now this is a pretty cool zone and there’s a LOT of props and scenic stuff in the streets. I didn’t get to see the Bonesy Brothers though, just never got to venture that way. Music and flames going, it felt like HHN!
‘B’+