My Final Review
Will be there Halloween night, probably this weekend, but I don’t see opinions changing much at this point. Look, I’ll say it again—average year at best. Four houses were direct sequels that failed to live up to the original—I’d argue Sinema was a spiritual sequel to the far superior H.R. Bloodengutz as well. Two of the originals didn’t work for me, either—which is a shame, I can see they were taking creative risks, but just didn’t stick the landing for me. That said, a strong year for Zones, where I think the experimentation did pay off.
Overall, the event felt understaffed, even as houses for the most part feel a satisfying length. The lack of Bill & Teds hurt the event, but I’d argue turning Finns into a walk-up window has hurt it equally if not more. More and more about hitting the houses commando style rather than being the world’s biggest Halloween party.
HOUSES
This year, 1 to 3 pretty set, 4 to 8 largely interchangeable, 9 and 10 solidly in their positions.
1) Poltergeist—when it worked, it worked very well. Clever ideas to expand maybe four rooms of movie scenes into a house of a very satisfying length. Solid cast. Perfect use of sound clips.
Best Parts: Façade and its dirt smell. That frigid bedroom. The droppy clown.
Room for Improvement: I thought the “inside the TV” tunnel went on too long. Ops was great some days, horrible and in-the-way others. Needed more consistency in effects.
2) Trick r Treat—about as faithful an adaptation as you could ask for. Took everything good from the zone and added things you can only do in a house. Strong initial cast, tho faded over the event, which is why it’s not #1.
Best Parts: The jack-o-lantern filled façade. Krieger wrestling Sam. The wolf. The school buses. Unobtrusive ops.
Room for Improvement: Been discussed but needed to maintain its cast better, felt sparse by the end of the event. Could’ve used a costume store scene.
3) Scary Tales—liked it fine, but very repetitive with a lot of things we’ve seen before in previous ST houses and Scarecrow last year. Felt perpetually understaffed. Still, amazing sets, amazing character designs, and a lot of what cast there was seemed to be having fun scaring.
Best Parts: The façade (including the opening hallway banners). The gingerbread house. The Miss Muffet scene.
Room for Improvement: Needed a lot more actors. Could’ve repaired the mirror door that was wrecked on Preview Night rather than abandoning the boo hole. Humpty Dumpty could have upped the rotten egg smell. It’s odd, but what have been a good length house 5 years ago now feels a bit on the short side. As mentioned before, why the fan service of ending on HHN Bear if he’s not going to dance?
4) Stranger Things—works well as a re-creation of the sets very well, somewhat less well as a haunted house.
Best Parts: Beyers’ living room/Wil’s bedroom. The school hallway with the disappearing scrim. The demigorgon design.
Room for Improvement: The 11 mannequin. Relies heavily on “victim” actors.
5) Slaughter Sinema—wanted to like this more than I did. Not outrageous enough to be funny (contrast with HR Bloodengutz), but never serious enough to be truly scary.
Best Parts: The queue video (easily the best part of the house). The Swamp Ape. Devil Dogs. Both probably strong enough to support a full house (or maybe split between a double feature house).
Room for Improvement: Schitty’s Kids and evil Tribbles fell flat for me. Cult of the Beast Baby and Amazon Women from Planet Hell had potential, but neither room’s cast felt all that into their roles.
6) Dead Exposure: Patient Zero—solid cast but strobe lights couldn’t hide the fact this is a mostly flat 2-D sets.
Best Parts: Subway scene (that mirror effect always works on me). Monkey lab was a good way of establishing fear without having to rely on actors.
Room for Improvement: I needed a better storyline and better sets.
7) Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers—great cast, Michaels just superb. But everything else about this house tired. Seen variations on these sets a dozen times this decade, twice in other, better Halloween houses.
Best Parts: The Michaels. As always, the iconic Halloween theme.
Room for Improvement: Should’ve sit this one out this year, used this year’s film as a basis for a Halloween house next year.
8) Carnival Graveyard—not the worst house ever but loses a point for being such a disappointment. I believe Jungle Skip said it, I want my carnival graveyard to have carnival rides. Until the end, this was primarily a junk yard with carnival performers scattered throughout.
Best Parts: Falling clown. Tunnel of Love and Hall of Mirrors. Credit where it’s due, this felt like a double length house—can’t accuse it of being too short.
Room for Improvement: Implicitly promised rusting hulks of carnival rides, needed to deliver that. Could have used more of a storyline and build to a climax, as well.
9) Seeds of Extinction—just did not work for me. Sets looked like an Old Time Pottery vomited. Fake plants look fake, can’t get around that. Felt like only three monster designs throughout the house, just repeated over and over. And the ridiculous walk out to the house then back again did it no favors. Bottom 20 of all time for me. Possibly bottom 15.
Best Parts: Feeling the sweet overhead fans of E.T. when you finally make it back to Kid Zone.
Room for Improvement: Variation in monsters would've helped. Maybe a better queue video. But not convinced anything could save this cheesy concept.
10) Horrors of Blumhouse II—over The Purge. Happy Death Day felt cheap—one off-the-shelf mask, repeated again and again. Cast seemed to know they ended up in a dog of a house this year, responded by giving up. Bottom 10 of all time.
Best Parts: Can’t think of one.
Room for Improvement: Purge The Purge going forward. Stick to the more supernatural/spooky Blumhouse movies.
Scare-Zones
1) Chucky—at least a dozen different character designs. Three mini-stages with fun shows in their own right that also serve as distractions for on-the-street scare-actors. Cast that relished every scare they got, literally chasing guests down. Put against the houses, this would be #2 this year.
2) Twisted Traditions—cleverly designed costumes that manage to make pumpkins creepy. Perfect sets that fit the season. Solid cast who seamlessly shift between posing for photos and scaring.
3) Springfield Chainsaw Team—once again, the one cast that seems to really, really enjoy getting a scare. Contagious enthusiasm. Sadly felt understaffed this year, but most fun I had entire event was sitting with a Dufftoberfest and watching them do their thing,
4) Killer Klownz from Outer Space—should’ve been a house. But a crowd-pleaser as a not-so-scary selfie zone, and no question the costumes are impressive. One thought: maybe move selfie zone to F&F courtyard next year, leave that street for actual scares?
5) Harvest—recycled costumes, too crowded for legit scares most of the time, but probably as good as we get on Production Blvd ever again. Need to have something here …
6) Vamp 85—as others have said, listless cast. Storyline not clear, either—are those actual celebrity vampires? What concert would feature Prince, Boy George, Run DMC and the Dead Kennedys on the same bill? Also sparsely populated—one of the few streets that can handle a crowd and still allow scares, should take advantage of that. Nice 1984 playlist, tho.
7) F&F Chainsaw Team—no make-up. Too crowded. Again, use the courtyard for selfies, leave this street empty.
Honorable Mention: The tombstone donut at VooDoo Donuts. Damn that thing is tasty.