This past weekend was my first visit to HOS since before COVID. Because my perspective of the event might be a bit unique since I haven't visited in a few years (and because I had 45 minutes to kill), I thought I'd share my thoughts. I'll preface everything by saying that regardless of the quality of the event, I always have a good time at HOS, including this year.
HOUSES
Overall, I think HOS's haunted house set design has improved since my last visit. On my last HOS visit, the house lineup included (I believe) Dystopia, Demented Dimensions, Lumberhack, Circo Sinistro, The Vault, and Frostbite -- so all of the houses I experienced this weekend were new to me. I was vocally critical of many of those past mazes as cheap (Frostbite), lazy (Vault, Dystopia), disjointed (Dimensions), or worn out (Lumberhack, Circo). I think the new houses across the board show a greater level of cohesion, creativity, and attention to detail. I don't know if BGW has someone new in charge of house design, or if the new houses were able to put more money towards scenic by seeming to reuse many of their predecessors' layouts (not a problem IMO), but whatever the're doing is working. BGW's houses still fall far behind most of KD's in set design, and there's still far too much reliance on empty hallways and dangling cloths, but they're on a clear upward trajectory from the pre-COVID house designs, in my opinion.
Nevermore: 8/10
This is BGW's closest to a KD-level house, I think. Nevermore is full of little details that convey a narrative, and it does a great job of flowing through the different Poe stories while maintaining a cohesive overall tone. Perhaps because the Poe stories automatically give lots of material to work with, the actors seemed to be doing more here than just jumping and grunting. Most tried to be selling their "story" in some way, and many were even reciting lines from their story.
KILLarney Diner: 6/10
The sets here are impressively large, creative, and do a great job of creating an immersive setting. One of my favorite aspects of this maze is the sound design; I love the 40s and 50s songs they play in different rooms of the house, complete with creepy distortions to the music edited in. The set design would be great if there weren't so many long, blank, dead hallways. Sadly, the actors here didn't really seem to be trying -- the cast here was probably the weakest of any house, most of them just standing there, glaring, delivering some generic exclamation like "Get out!" Moreover, the plague theme seemed confusing and detracted from a clear narrative. Why is there a giant bug animatronic at the end? Finally, this house felt
short. When it just ended at the start of the simulator's stone tunnel queue, my group's reaction was "Is that it?"
Witch of the Woods: 7/10
This is such a phenomenal setting for a haunted house, and I hope the rumors of its demise aren't true. (The setting is better than GrimmWoods at KD, IMO, because the dirt path here makes everything feel more real and uncharted, versus GrimmWoods's paved walkway.) I think this is an improvement over Lumberhack, too, as I find the old world theming and witch lore leaves more to the imagination and fits BGW better. The actors seemed to be trying, although I think they have some room to grow as they find their way in their roles. I agree with criticism from past years that the much-foreshadowed Witch seems a bit anticlimactic. I think this one would be great with a stronger finale with a more dramatic final appearance by the Witch.
Death Water Bayou: 5/10
This is the house I'm the most mixed on. It's an improvement over the ageing Circo Sinistro for sure, although I couldn't help but feel it
was Circo Sinistro with a voodoo overlay and some new glow-in-the-dark paint. Similarities to its predecessor aside, this house has a few nice sets and takes advantage of its awesome, meandering layout in Festa Field. My biggest issue was with how it was performing. The actors weren't utilizing the outdoor portions of this maze at
all, which is a real shame because there are tons of dark, quiet walkways with great hiding places where the tension could really build. Unfortunately, not only was this wasted potential, but once you realized that you weren't going to encounter any actors outside, it killed the momentum and the tension as you moved from one building to the next. Hopefully, they'll reconsider how the cast is allocated throughout the maze.
Lost Mines: 8/10
Big fan of this one. It really makes full use of every advantage the Pompeii building provides, and sells the setting with it -- from the claustrophic "cage" setting at the beginning, to the ramps that feel like you're descending down the mine shaft. There's also some good attempts at storytelling through details (like the cages with dead canaries) and some pretty impressive set pieces (like all the faux rock, especially the one rock wall with all the glowing gems). And the cast here seemed to not only be into their roles, but willing to really use the house to their advantage. (One miner at the very start of the house was literally shaking the entire walkway as he banged on the cage walls.)
SCARE ZONES
I'm calling them scare zones, not terror-tories, because as I said the other day, BGW's current path scares don't qualify as terror-tories under their original definition. Frankly, I'm not sure they even really qualify as scare zones either. The path scares at this year's HOS are, to put it bluntly, pathetic. Most of them hardly have any scenery at all, creating no sense of place and leaving the cast nothing to work with. Perhaps as a consequence, most casts seemed totally disinterested in doing anything to create an experience or be scary. BGW's path scares have been on the decline for years, but this year's is by far the worst I've ever seen it. Check out
this video of Wendigo Woods to see how effectively BGW used to handle path scares even within recent memory.
Scary Tale Road: 4/10
I'll give some of the actors points for having fun with their roles - especially one who seemed committed to his German accent. But, I'm sorry. The set pieces here are tiny and far and few between, and don't do anything to sell the setting. Several actors were literally just having conversations with each other -- not in character; just random small talk as my group walked by. The one thing I love about this scare zone is the display of Snow White's corpse in the gazebo by the Wilkommenhaus. It's well designed and funny - a glimpse back to the charming and sly sense of humor that old-school HOS used to have.
Ripper Row: 5/10
This perennial favorite is a distant shadow of its former self, with essentially no sets or decorations to speak of. It's saved by a fairly large cast that seemed energetic and into their roles, and it still has its intriguing cast of characters (police, prostitutes, aliases of the Ripper). Too bad the poor actors have literally nothing to work with.
Gorgon Gardens: 0/10
Note to BGW: a few strings of burlap and a single set piece that sits out of the way on top of a fountain (and isn't even lit up at night) is not a terror-tory. Or a scare zone. It's hardly even a decorated area. No wonder it seemed like the small cast didn't care to do anything except stand around. Total and complete fail.
Meat Market: 2/10
Ugh. This one just feels so phoned in. There's a few displays with gory body parts, sure, but there's absolutely no attempt to create a tense environment or anything here. Not to mention that, despite actors being sparsely located throughout all of New France, the decorations only seem to span from the start of the bridge over Le Scoot to Acadia Traders. Worst of all, a few of the actors were literally standing at the edge of New France, dancing to the DJ music in Aquitaine (which is so loud that, even if Meat Market
did attempt to create a spooky atmosphere, the DJ music would ruin it).
Fest-Evil: 1/10
Like Gorgon Gardens, this "scare zone" has literally
nothing except a small display of an elephant in a tophat placed all the way up against Tempesto's photo booth. Even worse than Gorgon Gardens, the soundtrack here is a ridiculous playlist of upbeat Mardi Gras party songs and EDM remixes. I get that the theme is a street festival, but it's impossible to feel like there's any darkness or danger when the music sounds recycled from BGW's Mardi Gras event. (The previous carnival themed scare zone, by contrast, managed to play music that fit the festive theme but had dark, sinister undertones.) I'll give a point for the poor cast who seemed to sort of be trying despite having literally nothing to work with. I felt bad for them.
SHOWS
I only saw Phantoms of the Festhaus and Jack Is Back. Jack Is Back is the same show it always was, but it drew quite the crowd even on a fairly empty day. Props to BGW for at least sort of trying to come up with a crowd control method for the show, routing passers-through past the show via the Abbeystone lobby. And while I thought Phantoms of the Festhaus had a cheesy premise and dislike the overuse of modern pop songs, I thought the cast was absolutely
phenomenal -- some of the singers, notably the Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa characters, were some of the best I've ever heard at a theme park. I'll admit that the show itself had me a little nostalgic for Night Beats, though.
OVERALL PARK ATMOSPHERE
Oh boy. This is just so sad. I remember the days when it used to feel like Halloween had
descended on BGW -- the days when
every inch of the park was decorated and filled with clever little details. And I remember the more recent days when, even though the park wasn't dressed up head to toe like it used to be, when night struck the park still felt like it came to life with a Halloween aura that spread through the park. Now, it basically feels like normal BGW with different music and the occasional HOS thing going on. I don't have much to say about this, because it's hard to have a lot to say about things that
aren't there. But I can't understate how dramatic, sad, and impactful the lack of Halloween atmosphere is for HOS. I could deal with cheap mazes and lazy casts if HOS still made BGW come to life with that Halloween feeling. But I can only think of two words that totally capture how the park atmosphere felt this year: phoned in. Such a shame.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS
I wish that whatever person or attitude that's driving the improved haunted house quality would be extended to the rest of the event. Sadly, beyond the house sets, for an event that for years has generally seemed to be in decline, HOS seems to have hit its lowest year yet. In the short term, I'd love to see more consistent performances from the casts. It's shocking to me that casts that were into their role like those of Ripper Row and Nevermore are even in the same park as the ones who barely tried like in Gorgon Gardens and KILLarney Diner. In the long term, if BGW doesn't reverse HOS's trajectory, I'll continue to weep for
how amazing HOS used to be while doing what I'll probably do for the rest of this season: stick with Haunt.
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