On paper, I think this year's lineup looks pretty respectable.
The abandonment of Monster Manor after a single season is admirable. It's not always easy to create something, be massively ridiculed for it, and be willing to say "you know, the public is right, this was bad" and throw it all out. Glad to see BGW was willing to take the criticism.
The early death of Lost Mines is a little unfortunate as I would have much preferred Death Water's replacement, but I think the vampire club theme may work well for the Pompeii house location and, as long as the park is willing to lean into fog, bright lights, and chaos, the vibe could be a great contrast to the other houses at the event.
Theming a house to Wolf's Revenge is a complete no-brainer and I'm thrilled they went through with it. The bones of Monster Manor fucking sucked, but hopefully with a lot of camo netting, fake tree trunks, etc they can pull off something presentable. I have very fond memories of Hunted and though I definitely don't expect current teams and budgets to be able to pull off that level of quality, I like the idea of a spiritual successor to that house quite a bit and I do think that, generally speaking, "dark, spooky forest" is generally not the hardest theme to pull off.
Clown Town certainly wasn't my favorite house last year, but it wasn't anywhere near the disaster that was Monster Manor. I'm glad it gets a second chance and I hope more work is done to improve atmospherics and enable some actual scares this year. People like the theme and there are some good ideas here—but the actual end product was very amateur-ish last year. I hope to see some more sophisticated techniques implemented here this season.
I'm very over Death Water and honestly the tents-connected-by-wooden-fence-paths layout in general. The best houses we've seen here were all many years ago and Death Water is my least favorite yet. I hope its replacement (hopefully next year) reimagines this area significantly.
Killarney Diner is a shadow of its former self and year after year it just gets more depressing to walk through. I understand why this hasn't been a priority for replacement yet (there have been real discussions about design and engineering taking this facility back from entertainment), but I think we're getting to the point where something needs to be done. This house location has always sucked, Diner is in a sad state, and I'd rather see Entertainment abandon this location all together to reinvest in the Woods Maze area next season instead of building something new here.
