Howl-O-Scream Williamsburg 2022

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Official Website​

Howl-O-Scream: Virginia Halloween Event | Busch Gardens Williamsburg

The spirit of Halloween is unleashed at Howl-O-Scream! Find haunted houses, escape rooms, scare zones, live shows & roller coasters if you dare.
buschgardens.com buschgardens.com

Attraction Lineup​

Haunted Houses​

  1. Inferno [New] - Location: Pompeii (?)
  2. Death Water Bayou [New] - Location: Festa Field
  3. Nevermore Chapter 2 [New] (Updated & Relocated) - Location: Drachen Fire Station Building (?)
  4. Witch of the Woods [Returning] - Location: Oktoberfest Woods Maze
  5. KILLarney Diner [Returning] - Location: Ireland Simulator

Terror-Tories™​

  1. Dead A-head [New] - Location: France
  2. Gorgon Gardens [New] - Location: Italy Gardens
  3. Scary Tale Road [New] - Location: Rhinefield
  4. Meat Market [Returning] - Location: New France
  5. Ripper Row [Returning] - Location: England
+ Roaming Hack Pack [Returning] - Location: Where you least expect it​

Shows​

  1. Jack is Back [Returning] - Location: Ireland
  2. Phantoms of the Festhaus [Returning] - Location: Festhaus
  3. Skeletones [Returning] - Location: San Marco
  4. Monster Stomp® on Ripper Row [Returning] - Location: Globe Theatre
+ ZomBeats [Returning] - Location: France?​

Party Zones​

  1. DJ Marie Antoinette Party Zone [New] - Location: France
  2. DJ Masquerade Party Zone [New] - Location: Festa Italia
(These are listed as new, but seem to be in the same areas as the party zones in 2021)

BOOze Bars​

  1. Stone-Cold Spirits [New] - Location: Italy Gardens
  2. Pete's Provisions [New] - Location: New France
  3. Back Alley Bar - Location: England
  4. Jack's Nightcap - Location: Ireland
  5. Frost Bar - Location: Oktoberfest
  6. BarKastle Spirits - Location: Oktoberfest
 
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Based on my experiences last night, here's how I have the houses ranked:
  1. Nevermore Chapter 2 (Good)
  2. Killarney Diner (Good)
  3. Death Water Bayou (Meh)
  4. Inferno (Meh)
  5. Witch of the Woods (Bad)
If I'm being totally honest, I found my first night of HOS this year to be pretty uninspiring. There were clear high points for sure—house staffing looked REMARKABLY healthy for this time of year, Nevermore is DRAMATICALLY improved in its new location, structurally, I like Witch's reversal, and Scary Tale Road is actually a fantastic new scarezone.

That said, there was a lot to dislike. Park decorations are sparcer than I've EVER seen before at HOS. Similarly, park atmospherics are an absolute disaster—the event is damn near fog-free, lighting is flat, boring, and sloppy, the new scarezones (sans Scary Tale) lack definition, props, atmospherics—anything. Perhaps most disheartening, the new houses all feel very rudimentary. Anything BGW learned from Killarney Diner last year seems to have been thrown out the window with Death Water Bayou and Inferno. These houses feel like they have no narrative, no depth, and very little thought put into how they should actually scare. They don't look bad—I think they're both clear improvements over the houses they're replacing—but the houses they're replacing are honestly two of the worst Howl-O-Scream houses I've ever experienced so that really isn't a difficult hill to climb.

Ultimately, I came away with one primary criticism: Atmospherics—the park lacks them, the scarezones lack them, the houses lack them. Aside from my top two houses, I struggled to feel immersed into anything, anywhere at Howl-O-Scream last night. Bad lighting, poor sound design, and a lack of decorations, fog, and/or other means to conceal the wires holding everything together just ripped me out of the moment time and time again. BGW has been pretty bad at scaring for a while, but oftentimes the event has been able to fall back on environmentals, storytelling, placemaking, etc—as they did last year with Killarney Diner. Those aspects seemed to be really suffering on opening night this year.
 
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Zachary said:
BGW has been pretty bad at scaring for a while, but oftentimes the event has been able to fall back on environmentals, storytelling, placemaking, etc—as they did last year with Killarney Diner. Those aspects seemed to be really suffering on opening night this year.
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You know....I've got a theory on some of this:

On the scare part - I think between people being more hyperaware of their surroundings along with more disengagement from reality thanks to social media mixed with a (what feels like) massive uptake in horror movies/tv shows, we've become harder to scare overall. Add in the increase in lawsuits of someone going to a haunt, getting scared, then suing because it was too scary has really hurt this. Especially when actors that are roaming can get seemingly in trouble for so much these days.

As far as the environments - it can't be easy to set this all up while being open. Not saying it excuses bad work. But maybe they should look at certain things (lighting elements, fog machines) being permanent installations so wires and stuff can be permanently installed and hidden. Maybe they should explore a shutdown week to get set put up in the scaritories.
 
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This is the same policy as last year.

There is an interesting twist this year, however. We were not allowed to bring a BGW paper shopping bag with stuff we had just bought through Death Water Bayou on Friday night. I’m not sure if was a result of incidents that had recently occurred in other houses, or if this will be a consistent policy.

So, last year’s strategy of getting a bag inside the park may not work. It is worth tracking to see what happens going forward.
 
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Nicole said:
There is an interesting twist this year, however. We were not allowed to bring a BGW paper shopping bag with stuff we had just bought through Death Water Bayou Friday night. I’m not sure if was a result of incidents that had recently occurred in other houses, or if this will be a consistent policy.
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This is insane. Houses don't have lockers. Why the hell would you punish guests for spending money at your event by turning them away at the houses?!
 
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That is just....wow. I hate to be this kind of cynical with it but someone much had tried to hit a scare actor with a bag. Is it still easy to do the pickup thing for the end of your day? I know that's not the "makes it ok" answer but it can help with some of that.
 
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warfelg said:
I hate to be this kind of cynical with it but someone much had tried to hit a scare actor with a bag.
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Counterpoint: Having guests' hands occupied by holding stuff they paid for probably makes them less likely to punch and grope the actors, break the house, etc.

Plus, they don't have a bag ban in houses in general—they were allowing basically all bags—they just objected specifically to the paper bag the park gives for merch.
 
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Zachary said:
Counterpoint: Having guests' hands occupied by holding stuff they paid for probably makes them less likely to punch and grope the actors, break the house, etc.

Plus, they don't have a bag ban in houses in general—they were allowing basically all bags—they just objected specifically to the paper bags the park gives for merch.
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True didn't even think of that. Which makes that much more mystifying. If you check people on their way in, anything that could be in that bag you let them in the door with or you bought in the park.
 
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For clarity, I was told that my backpack style ParkPurse was fine, but the small shopping bag that my brother was carrying had to be left outside the maze. So, my hands were free to cause mayhem and his would actually have been encumbered.

And to address @warfelg’s question, while I’m not sure about the current status of package pickup, it wouldn’t have helped regardless. The bag had a bottle of water, some snacks, and the Viking horn that his ribs came in.
 
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Anyone on here planning going today/this evening??? Or does it look like bad thunderstorms in Williamsburg??? I held off going on Friday (appreciate all the insight people gave me on days worth going) and was planning going today but now I’m worried to drive all the way from Richmond to get rained out!!! Might be my only day I’m able to go until a Sat next month…. and by my experience last year, I wanna avoid ever going on a sat in October!!!! Not sure if I should go today :(
 
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Witch and DWB have closed for the evening, and many of those actors placed inside Nevermore and Inferno(? In line for Nevermore and they closed to place actors).

I'll point out the obvious pro and con of this... Double the performers, losing some cohesive storytelling. I should have a review of both later.
 
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You know how Ripper Row has its own stage show? I wish that Dead Ahead and Scary Tale Road had something similar. Maybe Dead Ahead has a dance party while Scary Tale Road has the Grimm storybook characters fighting each other in a dramatic battle?
 
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BGW did away with the actual show aspects of Terrortories very early on. With the state of entertainment right now, there's basically no way they'd come back.

(This is why we no longer actually have Terrortories at BGW, we have scarezones by a different name. RIP)
 
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