Can't win all the years I guess. Still, I'm happy the Shining finally made it and at least got the most iconic scenes in, even if it had to fill it up with black walls to pad it out / provide opportunities for scares.
I wonder if the team should be expanded next year? Still have Murdy and Chris but bring on two or three new people, make it a team like Orlando. As it stands, writing something like 700 pages for treatments + designing each element of each maze every year has got to be exhausting. A budget increase would be nice too, I suppose. Get some of that new-fangled projection mapping, possibly for that rumoured Twin Peaks maze.
But that's for next year. Overall, after seeing Arsic's videos (which are more "full" than the instagram videos) and seeing the reaction on Twitter, I think this year will be pretty ok overall. Not 2016 good, maybe, but a good year and a leap above some of the crappier years like 2013 or even 2015. ToT looks legitimately great and an improvement on some of last year's mazes, Blumhouse has apparently improved a lot since the preview and Saw and Ash are mixed-bags that some people like and some people hate. Roanoke and Insidious are supposed to be good as well.