I have to be honest, I thought Fiends was terrible this year. The worst show I have seen at Howl-O-Scream in quite a while... and Fiends used to be my favorite show. It was just so bad. I think I'm going through what Applesauce went through last year.
Where do I even begin? Everything except the basic backbone of this show was wrong; it's lost all its charm for me now. I want to point out that I was not overly upset by the changes made to the show last year. I disliked the constant pop culture references and bad fourth wall puns, but the show still had a lot of good in it. I actually liked last year's Freakenstein and Vampire, although most people disagreed with me there. Some of the jokes they added last year were actually kind of funny. It wasn't as great as 2012, but it was tolerable.
I'm afraid I can't say that for this year's Fiends. I want to clarify now that my assessment of this show is based on a single in-person showing, as well as videos on Youtube. When I went, the swing Pierre was our Dr. Freakenstein for the evening, but he was the least of the show's troubles. In fact, even though he seemed to forget/mess up a few of his lines, I liked how he put his own spin on the character.
Not having the expertise to appreciate the change in wig suppliers, I saw virtually no improvement to this show from last year. As I said, last year's production was tolerable, but it was a far cry from the show's full potential. This year, I was sad to see that none of the 2013 additions which I disliked were removed. Instead, the bits of Fiends' former glory that remained in 2013 were axed in favor of more crappy dialogue and horrendous puns. I'm convinced that one of Scott's minions reads these boards, and he adjusts his shows with the sole intent of pissing us off. Everything that I still liked about Fiends 2013 is gone, and what I disliked remained.
I rarely criticize the performers, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say something here. Igor and the Swamp Thing are simply dreadful. I'm sorry. It's not the performers themselves, as I'm sure they would be great in other productions, but the casting was all wrong here. Neither performer belongs with the part they were given. They both delivered their lines horribly. There was no comedic timing whatsoever between the two of them. Both of them delivered a plethora of lines after which they were clearly expecting laughs, but they hardly received more than a chuckle or two. They both delivered their lines so awkwardly and in ways that simply did not fit their characters or the show itself. Swampy lacked the adorable charm he used to have, and Igor was just plain creepy. These performers could be great if they had a role tailored to their own skills, but the characters they had in this show certainly weren't for them.
One more nitpick: The werewolf now just looks like a guy who really needs to shave. A lot of people expressed their disliking of the fur suit, but I thought that gave him a "wolf-y" vibe. Now he's just a hairy dude who liked to hump the air. Last year, one of my least favorite changes was that the nurses flocked over the wolf man, instead of cowering away from him as they did in 2012, which humanized them a bit. Now they just fawn all over a hairy guy? It's more... disturbing than anything.
There were a few small positives here: I'm glad Jeff is back. It's cool seeing how each performer has their own take on Freakenstein's character (Jeff makes him "weird," 2013's Freakenstein was more "arrogant" and "mad," and Pierre's was just kind of crazy), and I probably like Jeff's the best. I didn't get to see his in person, but I did like the swing's approach. He did mess up or forget his lines a few times, but since he's a swing I won't fault him for that. He did a good job putting a different spin on the doctor. Also, just before the experiment that "works" goes off, the big mural of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man has been replaced with a mural depicting the plans for Freakenstein's ideal "monster." It explains the use of the various monsters who visit, and made a bit more sense in providing context of the show. It was a nice little touch. Also, the nurses seemed a bit more covered up this year. Considering my age, I don't exactly go to Fiends for the "sexy" appeal and making their outfits less revealing made the show less awkward for those of us not interested in experiencing the theme park version of a strip club.
In conclusion, Fiends is a shell of its former self. I used to love it, I even loved it last year, but this year it was the worst Halloween show I saw at both parks. The entertainment team continues to tear to shreds everything that made this show charming. I don't think I can agree with Nicole's statement that this show is just a strip club (the nurses have been covered up a bit), but now it's just a bizarre mish-mosh of Halloween musical numbers. There's no charm to be found here. The humor is gone. The fourth wall jokes are just as prevalent (when I'm at a park specifically designed to take me to another place, I don't need to be reminded that I'm just at an amusement park!). Everything that was bad, is worse. I would say everything that was good, is gone, but you know what they say... "you don't know what you've got till it's gone."
It's sad to see one of my all-time favorite Halloween shows wither away like it has. Fiends 2014 is just another prime example of the entertainment department's continued trend of bringing their shows down to a once unthinkably low level of quality. Such a shame. A complete, utter shame.
