Halloween Haunt 2015

[buckler89]

Is it just me, or is the new voice over pretty weak? The dialogue itself is fine and I think it was long overdue for a change since it'd been the same speech for a long time, but the delivery is terrible. Kind of hoping that it isn't the final version.

Otherwise, how was the first night of Haunt?

 

[Nicole]

I heard the No Boo lanyards were being used for toddlers, which honestly worries me. I will wait to see for myself, however.

 

[sgmz28]

Sorry for the double post but here's a video of the Overlord's Scaremony, or should I say Overlord's Ressurection with new dialogue and a new voice over and no set.

That's the video I took last night.    Here's the other part with the flash mob dancing ghost people.  I apologize for the lack of a good view, but the security checkpoint took a long time and I wasn't able to get closer than what you see in the video.  I'll post below what I posted on FB about the opening night.  I expect next week's opening ceremony to be better, hopefully with new dialogue.

We went and had fun. We did a couple mazes (Zombie High and Slaughterhouse). I usually don't do mazes because that kind of stuff gets nary reaction from me, not even a flinch (maybe I've seen some crap in my day lol) The mazes seemed fun, though, and I'll go through them again with my gf or other friends that go with me.

Walking on the rides was nice! Walk on to the front rows of I-305 and Dominator towards the end of the night... yes please.

I also hit the branches of the trees surrounding Fly Eagles, much to the amazement of some of the riders. The Eagles are my second favorite ride in the park just because they are so much fun when snapping them.

The Overlord sounds more... uh, civilized? I was expecting a more robust, dominating voice like in the past, one more befitting of someone called an overlord, not one like he's telling a ghost story around a campfire while roasting marshmallows. But that could just be me, and would be the only minor thing I'd change.

Glad to see the ghost dancing flash mob (I have no clue what they are really called) back. This year's song they dance to is "Carousel" by Melanie Martinez, which I enjoyed enough to listen to all the way home.  The song fits the vibe of Haunt and would be cool if they performed it near the carousel or Cleaver Brothers Carnival at some point during the night.

No photos from last night, but the plan is to bring the good camera on the next trip and take photos, so stay tuned for those in the next week or so.  Next week's plan is Busch Gardens, and the camera is coming with me.

---

Here's a shot from last year's opening ceremony that I took.  Hopefully next week is closer to this, set-wise.

 

[Caleb]

Man why is tollway of terror even advertised as a maze. It is utterly atrocious. No live actors, barely any props and none of them moved. I wanted to cry. But lockdown was great, very detailed, had some great talent and awesome sets. MoM was better than last year. Cleaver brothers was AWESOME, must have spent an hour in there hanging out with the clowns and chucky. They had awesome makeup and prostetics. And I noticed way more sliders, it may be just me but I feel like there are more sliders. Interesting they had the skeletons key rooms in the zones, cleaver bros was smack middle in the pathway and feary tales was off to the side. Did anyone do them? How are they? Everything else was pretty much the same. Overall the talent was giving me 100% effort every time even at 11:45, haunt is way better than last years. What did everyone else think of opening night?

 

[WasabiDragon]

I'm in the park today and it is so nice. The rain cleared up around 11. I took some pictures of the outside of Cornstalkers and now I'm considering getting a funnel cake.

 

[Jrbgwfan06]

Halloween Haunt has begun, and here are the latest in-park updates from Busch Dominion and KDFans!

Joe got pictures of the new skeleton key rooms in each participating Scare Zone:

[instagram=https://instagram.com/p/8GpY8uEQOR/]

Feary Tales' new props can be seen out in the Scarezone today:

[instagram=https://instagram.com/p/8G4w38EQGd/]

Lockdown props can be seen outside of Flight of Fear:

[instagram=https://instagram.com/p/8HBRLtEQKK/]

Initial thoughts on No Vancancy:

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647907178351869952]

And getting to other matters:

[instagram=https://instagram.com/p/8HJcg1Bi85/]

Large Crowd blocking the path right in front of Kings Dominion Theatre for Unstrung. Just what we worried would happen. Totally ruins the Atmosphere around Necropolis. Not happy.

[instagram=https://instagram.com/p/8HKIRJhi-F/]

Speaking of ruining atmosphere, check out The Annex. Who thought it was a good idea to give the DJ a mic?

And on again to a happier note. Thoughts on Zombie High:

[instagram=https://instagram.com/p/8HLQ0XBiwF/]

Second house of the night, Zombie High. Like No Vancancy, the cast was huge and incredible already. Bravo!

Be sure to follow KDFans and Busch Dominion on social media to keep up with Haunt tonight!

 

[Mushroom]

All of the houses are performing brilliantly so far. Very impressed.

That said, both Unstrung and The Annex are killing the atmosphere of their respective areas. I'm livid.

 

[buckler89]

Kind of expected that from Annex and Unstrung. Wasn't wild about those additions. How they didn't think those would be an issue is beyond me. That being said, it's nice to see a positive reaction overall so far for opening weekend. Love the props outside of Lockdown. They guard tower is great.

 

[Jrbgwfan06]

Here are the final thoughts on Halloween Haunt from tonight:

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647917301006790656]

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647923359385284609]

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647934796665122816]

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647943036702429184]

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647953577332338688]

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647960577080332288]

[tweet=https://twitter.com/kdfansonline/status/647965568096694272]

An interesting finish for Haunt tonight....

 

[Zachary]

It wasn't a good finish. At all. Haunt has a long road ahead of it this year... And I we haven't even mentioned the park atmosphere...

Long road.

 

[Mushroom]

I'm so disappointed right now. Halloween Haunt 2015 was, in my opinion, a massive step backwards from past years.

I'll post a full review later, but I have no idea what the hell happened. It's so upsetting.

 

[buckler89]

Eh, opening weekend. Gotta see how things go as they move along. I'll be going in a few weeks, so hopefully some of these concerns have been addressed by then.

 

[Nicole]

My biggest concern today was park ambiance. The actors were great, brilliant in some cases. There were some staffing problems, but not a ton.

What really hurt the event for me tonight was that the entire park was brightly lit and incredibly loud. I'll honestly be surprised if that changes this season.

That said, the Skeleton Key was vastly improved over last year.

 

[wombat96]

Can somebody spoil the skeleton key rooms? I'm thinking about doing it Saturday but I'm not sure if $50 is worth it. I mean, I could do the V.I.P meal at that point and still have money left over for other stuff. Also, did anybody try Cleaver Brothers Sideshow Buffet? It's sad to hear that Haunt isn't doing so well, last year I enjoyed it. Hopefully it will be get better as the season progresses.

 

[Mushroom]

I'll write a full post later, and I won't say exactly what happened in the Skeleton Key rooms, but I will say this: don't let Skeleton Key influence your decision. Skeleton Key on its own is not worth the money. The only real reason to purchase it is for the front-of-the-line-privileges, and perhaps the cool metal key you're given as a souvenir.

 

[wombat96]

...I won't say exactly what happened in the Skeleton Key rooms...

I hear Tollway Terror is bad, really bad, like Blue Ridge Blood Bath was better bad. Can someone elaborate?

 

[Mushroom]

Oh my God. Do not get me started. Tollway Terror is far and away the worst haunted attraction I have seen in my entire life. It was absolute garbage.

It was basically nothing except maybe 5 random "animatronics" placed sporadically around the track. These animatronics consisted of random, cheap-looking witches, werewolves, or giants with no logical relationship to each other. And those "animatronics" did little more than vibrate, wobble, or move their head. They truly looked like shitty lawn decorations the park picked up on sale at Party City. There were basically zero decorations outside of the animatronics either. Throw in some colored lights from Starlight Spectacular, modern country music, a statue of Gandalf the White, and you've got Tollway Terror.

It was complete shit. The fact that KD considers it a maze is not just insulting to guests, but it is also blatant false advertising. There was clearly zero effort put into this attraction and it is frankly appalling that Kings Dominion would stoop so low.

 

[John]

Can someone elaborate "the park was light very brightly" I feel like a Haunt can't be properly executed without dim lighting.

Any examples?

I'm really considering for-going haunt this year (as if my schedule isn't jam packed enough) if these negative reviews keep pouring in through the next few weekends...

 

[CastleOSullivan]

I'm not going until later in the season, but I think this whole lighting issue sounds interesting. They have never really done much in terms of lighting, except for literally leaving most lights off. It wasn't exactly high class theatrical lighting, but it was far from bad.

Maybe they are beginning to experiment with more professional theatrical lighting. If this is the case, I think it may take a while, but I am excited nonetheless. Lighting is what makes everything look good or bad in a haunt.

 

[buckler89]

Oh my God. Do not get me started. Tollway Terror is far and away the worst haunted attraction I have seen in my entire life. It was absolute garbage.

It was basically nothing except maybe 5 random "animatronics" placed sporadically around the track. These animatronics consisted of random, cheap-looking witches, werewolves, or giants with no logical relationship to each other. And those "animatronics" did little more than vibrate, wobble, or move their head. They truly looked like shitty lawn decorations the park picked up on sale at Party City. There were basically zero decorations outside of the animatronics either. Throw in some colored lights from Starlight Spectacular, modern country music, a statue of Gandalf the White, and you've got Tollway Terror.

It was complete shit. The fact that KD considers it a maze is not just insulting to guests, but it is also blatant false advertising. There was clearly zero effort put into this attraction and it is frankly appalling that Kings Dominion would stoop so low.

So what you're saying is you're not a fan?

It's a shame it was done so poorly, but there was no way they could get any scares with no live actors. Good animatronics are great, but they have to be mixed with live actors. You can't make a whole haunted attraction out of animatronics, especially if they're cheap.

They should just advertise it as something for kids so they can still ride the cars and have somewhat of a Halloween theme. Counting it as a maze at all is pretty lame. I had planned on skipping Tollway anyway, but considering I've never seen Joe react so heatedly on this forum to a Haunt topic, it must be just god awful.

I can't say anything about the lighting until I go in a few weeks, but it truly can make or ruin the atmosphere. Don't they tend to tweak the lighting as they go through the month? Or maybe I made that up.