F.E.A.R.
- Thread starter Nicole
- Start date
I don't even know where to begin with F.E.A.R. What an absolute disaster of a house. In a lot of ways I honestly believe it is worse than 21.
21 was a lame, tired, generic, different-theme-per-room house concept that was executed poorly due at least in part to what was clearly a rushed, unfinished house.
F.E.A.R. tries to put some sort of dystopian overlay onto the generic lineup of fears format which deserves a slight bit of respect I suppose—there was an attempt to give the house some bit of connective tissue. The issue is that the execution—making all but two actors in the house the same character dressed in a dark cloak and a mask—clashes completely with the "lineup of phobias" theme. Take this example: You walk into a room with a bunch of snakes tacked to the wall. It's a fear of snakes room. It sucks, the scenic is embarrassing, but you get the idea. Problem? There's no snake or snake handler to scare you. The only actor is the guy in the black cloak and light mask on the other side of the room that you can clearly see. Suddenly it's not a phobia of snakes room, it's a "oh look at the guy standing completely unshielded in the corner of this open room with snakes stuck to the wall" room. Same with the bug room. Same with the storms room. It's a deeply flawed, irredeemable concept. The method used to attempt to justify the incoherent house makes each room incoherent.
Then you have the new effect rooms.
First, the preshow. Last year, the preshow was sorta stupid and cheesy but with a charming, engaging, entertaining actor it could be sorta fun and the elevator floor effect was a nice surprise for people I suspect. This year, the live actor and the moving floor have been removed and replaced with a screen on the wall that tries to intro who I can only assume is F.E.A.R. or the person putting us in F.E.A.R.? I don't really know. My point is that it's a downgrade from last year and last year wasn't good.
Second, there's a fear of heights room a la BGW's Thirteen—except the walkway is like—no joke—6 feet wide—with little infinity mirror pits on either side. It's not convincing, you don't have to walk on a narrow area, and there's no scare here at all. Both of my walkthroughs had a random actor standing in a corner of the room with absolutely nothing to work with. It was sad.
Then, third, they built a mirror maze. Mirror mazes in houses can be great. Horror Nights has built some great ones. Six Flags Great Adventure actually did a really impressive one. You know who didn't build a good one? Kings Dominion. There are no scares. No effects. No fog. No shifting walls. No two-way mirrors. It's just a bog-standard, well-lit mirror maze in the middle of the house that you follow the person in front of you through without hesitation. A truly incredible degree of wasted potential.
After that there's two rooms filled with mannequins all dressed like the F.E.A.R. guy. They're just large, open, black rooms with hanging mannequins. One or two of them are real people. It's fine I guess—probably the best part of the house—but that's grading on a severe curve. Anywhere else it would just look sloppy, cheap, and lazily executed.
Finally, there's like two rooms that attempt to bring back Blackout. Totally black, empty rooms with fur on the walls and things. Problem? The rest of the house has lighting so the light bleed makes these rooms totally, easily visible. Blackout was trash, but F.E.A.R. can't even get that right.
Aside from that, F.E.A.R. is literally exactly 21. Awful, awful, awful.
I'm sorry, but F.E.A.R. really makes me seriously question the capabilities of the current Haunt team to produce an even minimum-viable-product-level house. It's unacceptably, embarrassingly, depressingly bad. I could excuse 21 for being a disaster due to the chaos surrounding its construction and debut but it has now been a full year since everyone (rightly) panned 21 and to see this be the result of a year's time is, frankly, disturbing.
21 was a lame, tired, generic, different-theme-per-room house concept that was executed poorly due at least in part to what was clearly a rushed, unfinished house.
F.E.A.R. tries to put some sort of dystopian overlay onto the generic lineup of fears format which deserves a slight bit of respect I suppose—there was an attempt to give the house some bit of connective tissue. The issue is that the execution—making all but two actors in the house the same character dressed in a dark cloak and a mask—clashes completely with the "lineup of phobias" theme. Take this example: You walk into a room with a bunch of snakes tacked to the wall. It's a fear of snakes room. It sucks, the scenic is embarrassing, but you get the idea. Problem? There's no snake or snake handler to scare you. The only actor is the guy in the black cloak and light mask on the other side of the room that you can clearly see. Suddenly it's not a phobia of snakes room, it's a "oh look at the guy standing completely unshielded in the corner of this open room with snakes stuck to the wall" room. Same with the bug room. Same with the storms room. It's a deeply flawed, irredeemable concept. The method used to attempt to justify the incoherent house makes each room incoherent.
Then you have the new effect rooms.
First, the preshow. Last year, the preshow was sorta stupid and cheesy but with a charming, engaging, entertaining actor it could be sorta fun and the elevator floor effect was a nice surprise for people I suspect. This year, the live actor and the moving floor have been removed and replaced with a screen on the wall that tries to intro who I can only assume is F.E.A.R. or the person putting us in F.E.A.R.? I don't really know. My point is that it's a downgrade from last year and last year wasn't good.
Second, there's a fear of heights room a la BGW's Thirteen—except the walkway is like—no joke—6 feet wide—with little infinity mirror pits on either side. It's not convincing, you don't have to walk on a narrow area, and there's no scare here at all. Both of my walkthroughs had a random actor standing in a corner of the room with absolutely nothing to work with. It was sad.
Then, third, they built a mirror maze. Mirror mazes in houses can be great. Horror Nights has built some great ones. Six Flags Great Adventure actually did a really impressive one. You know who didn't build a good one? Kings Dominion. There are no scares. No effects. No fog. No shifting walls. No two-way mirrors. It's just a bog-standard, well-lit mirror maze in the middle of the house that you follow the person in front of you through without hesitation. A truly incredible degree of wasted potential.
After that there's two rooms filled with mannequins all dressed like the F.E.A.R. guy. They're just large, open, black rooms with hanging mannequins. One or two of them are real people. It's fine I guess—probably the best part of the house—but that's grading on a severe curve. Anywhere else it would just look sloppy, cheap, and lazily executed.
Finally, there's like two rooms that attempt to bring back Blackout. Totally black, empty rooms with fur on the walls and things. Problem? The rest of the house has lighting so the light bleed makes these rooms totally, easily visible. Blackout was trash, but F.E.A.R. can't even get that right.
Aside from that, F.E.A.R. is literally exactly 21. Awful, awful, awful.
I'm sorry, but F.E.A.R. really makes me seriously question the capabilities of the current Haunt team to produce an even minimum-viable-product-level house. It's unacceptably, embarrassingly, depressingly bad. I could excuse 21 for being a disaster due to the chaos surrounding its construction and debut but it has now been a full year since everyone (rightly) panned 21 and to see this be the result of a year's time is, frankly, disturbing.
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I walked out of FEAR five minutes ago and the above description is accurate
I will be honest. I think I can see the vision of what they wanted. Does that make it good? Absolutely not. This felt like KD was attempting some kind of 1984 vibe. At least that’s what I got with the dystopian and phobia combo. I applaud an attempt to add connective tissue to a series of disjointed rooms, but the house isn’t good enough (in any fashion) to tell its disjointed story between the phobias and potential dystopian storyline. I think had they leaned away from phobias and into an overbearing dystopian regime that forced guests through a series of challenges to prove themselves worthy (which could maybe have a slight phobia angle to it) this would have saved the house a little bit. Not much. But a little.
There are real, notable scenic and atmospheric improvements in F.E.A.R. tonight. I still think the house is very weak, but it's notably improved from opening weekend—most notably in the heights room. It's possible that I even sorta kinda see bits of the vibe they were going for with the theme at this point too. Biggest gripe tonight was probably the staffing level. The cast that was present was doing a great, but it felt BRUTALLY understaffed overall.
This house is bad.. however, it was my favorite house of the night. The actors had a ton of fun and were interacting with me in very interesting ways, using the rooms to as much of their advantage as they can. I like the idea of having one specific character to be the overal villain of the house. This is the only house that, in my eyes, didn’t feel like a copy and paste experience that you can get anywhere else. While it was a little short, I had a ton of fun here.
It was nearing the end of the night, I was at the back and got a little separated from my friends because I was struggling to walk. Once of the actors started chatting with me and said I looked cool and to have a good night and I can't even be bothered by them breaking character because it was so sweet.
Went through last night and was once again throughly disappointed. All the improvements done to the house were wiped but the choie to forgo the pre-show which makes at least a token attempt to create a linked story to the random fears inside. On top of that they had just thrown the door open and were letting guests just file through one right after the other with no spacing. This created an endless Congo line that left the cast member largely just stuck in a place or two unable to really move and freely interact with people.
I hate conga lines on any haunted house - I get that properly batching people means the lines get longer and slower, but you'd think with introducing Haunt as an upcharge event may help in reducing the overall guests in the park this potentially enhancing the waiting experience
To be fair the line for it was out past the family center building and still growing at 9 last night. It was honestly some of the worst Haunt crowd levels I have ever seen and I heard that at one point the park was less the 500 guests from capacity. So I get why it happened but the design of the house left actors pretty much backed into corners and un able to preform in general.
Walking through tonight really crystalized my thinking on this maze. I love the Watchers and the music. The actors are making a real effort. All of those things combined create a surprisingly creepy and tense experience.
That said, the physical house, itself, feels incidental at best. At worst it is a distraction that materially detracts from the effectiveness of the maze. I would love to see them apply the Watchers and atmospherics to a different physical set.
That said, the physical house, itself, feels incidental at best. At worst it is a distraction that materially detracts from the effectiveness of the maze. I would love to see them apply the Watchers and atmospherics to a different physical set.