HOOOBOY
I was there tonight and let me tell you what a wild ride this night was. I'm going in order of attractions that we did tonight.
Night Beats was first, a showing at 5:30 was perfect since the houses didn't open until 6. So we sat fairly close to the stage. Not super close, I had a good view of pretty much the whole thing, but the audio. The Audio was SUPER MUFFLED. Despite being how close we were to the stage it sounded like it was a concert like a mile away. The show isn't very good to begin with, but I would have actually have liked to have understood and hear the singing because the ones singing are very talented when I could make them out. Nerdy Human Male was a delight to watch he was so cute, but why did they make him lose the glasses and try to be a cool vampire. Like if they had stuck with the nerd guy motif it would have worked. also why did he have mutton chops after he became a vampire.
After Night Beats we went and knocked out Frostbite. Apparently they added a bunch of things to the maze, however it's not worth it. It's really not. It's still a ton of dead space. There is one slider in there... however it was in one of the rooms that was completely pitch black. Honestly the maze felt like it was trying to be Blackout at KD. And Blackout isn't a good house.
Next was Demented Dimensions, so alright, there were a shit ton of kids there tonight. Despite there being nothing for them to do besides houses. We were going through and we reached the Alice in Wonderland room and a mom with her two young daughters (prolly about 10 and like 7) were being escorted backwards because the older of the two was freaking out and actively saying she didn't want to be in the house. That was just one (1) of the incidents I saw tonight. Also one of the actresses in the house kinda got snippy and told me to close the gap between me and the people in front?????? When we entered the house there wasn't anybody in front of us. We were slowly catching up to them as we made our way through the house anyways. But like it's not like we were lagging behind??? We were just actually catching up. Idk it wasn't very cool of her tbh, cause like the houses were empty for the most part. But ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
After DD we headed towards Dystopia, we took a pit stop at the Control Lab just to see if anybody was doing it, but I also wanted to see which way the house was flowing for Frostbite to see if the camera was aimed at the guests or at their backs. (Its towards them for the record, although I still have no idea where the scare is in the house.) however I looked at the Dystopia screen and saw that there were two people on a ladder. We headed to Dystopia anyways just to see if they knew anything about the house but the cast member up front knew nothing. (A common theme) So we decided to hit Monster Stomp instead.
At Monster Stomp, The show is pretty solid, I'm not a huge fan of the song changes, however it doesn't break the show for me either. Although the Ripper's mic didn't work for his opening song, and he had to lip sync it. Luckily after they got his mic fixed and he did the rest of the show perfectly fine.
After that we tried Dystopia again. Dystopia has a ton of potential. There wasn't a lot of the obvious like big brother or being watched stuff. But the actors were genuinely trying, and most were fairly active. It was a pretty alright house.
Then we hit up Circo Sinistro. About the same as it's always been. Missing the swinging girl at the beginning. But also a lot of dead space with nothing going on.
Next we caught Fiends. My summary is: It needed to be gayer and Igor's K9 joke got a giggle from me. Which honestly like I haven't had a giggle at Fiends in a long time. so thanks. But also who the hell is Kiki? Should I know who that is? Because I don't.
Finally we headed back to Oktoberfest to finish the last three mazes and to hopefully do DD again.
We did Vault XX and the vast majority of the staff was missing. This was at like 10, breaks should have been over by then. But no Rapunzel, No clown, a whole lot of empty rooms. And a lot of the actors in the rooms just stood there. Doing nothing. That being said, how come Bitten continues to be consistent with its scares. It was like the one good startle I had, and it came from Bitten's tiny throne room. And I knew they were there. I know I gave Bitten shit in the past for being old, and like it needed to go. But man do I miss it's consistency.
After Vault we exited to find the paramedics helping a woman who had fainted (If you didn't go tonight, it was humid the whole night with no breeze. It was very easy to dehydrate) but manage to squeeze past them to go to Lumberhack. Lumberhack is the house that had prolly the most movement out of the actors. It's also the one with the best tension. However, yet again we run into Bad Parenting. We got stopped at the entrance behind like two groups. There was a family of like 5 or so, a group of two girls in front of me and then two guys in quick queue. The family entered first, then the girls then the QQ then us. This is important, because as we began walking through we got to like the second room of the house like right past the room with the very obvious emergency exit, when a child got scared of a chain saw. Which of course the house is full of. The kid is actively saying that he want to leave, we are literally in the room next to the room with the obvious emergency exit. and everyone told him to continue. Here's the thing though by the time he continued HIS WHOLE FAMILY WAS JUST GONE. The two girls had like stopped briefly in the house and we walked right past them, but the two guys in front of us kept on. So we had this kid with missing family that kept getting scared of the chainsaws, which to the actors credit they at least kept going after him instead of like standing there doing nothing. So there was something happening but the kid clearly wanted out. Eventually the kid reached the end of the maze and like ran out of the house to catch his family.
I just. STOP BRINGING YOUR KIDS TO THESE THINGS IF THEY'RE SCARED. STOP FORCING THEM THROUGH HOUSES BECAUSE YOU WANT TO DO IT. IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING BUT YOUR CHILD DOES NOT EITHER HIRE A BABYSITTER, LEAVE THEM AT THE EXIT OF THE HOUSE, OR DON'T GO. THIS IS STUPID AND RIDICULOUS STOP FORCING CHILDREN TO BE TERRIFIED. YOU ARE ADULTS ACT LIKE IT. This is an event to have fun at through being scared. If you're so scared you're not having fun you should not be there. End of Story.
Moving along, finally Cornered. Apparently they added more decorations to this house too. There's a lot of burlap, and hay textures. You know like those fake grass mats for like your door?? it's like those but hay. So it's more of a hay maze than a corn maze. All the story of this house is lost. Also there was like 5 actors in the house and it was like 40 minutes until closing. But as we were exiting we saw a couple being escorted out of the park or to like a security vehicle.
But we decided we were gonna try and go through DD again. We were gonna be good and go all the way around instead of just cutting across from Cornered (which we saw people do.) unfortunately because of that we walked up and the cast member let us in since there was no line, and as we reached the entry way people were exiting and just go "The fire alarm is going off" so we told the cast member who then got somebody. we were gonna wait and see if the house would reopen. but it was like 20 minutes before closing. The house wasn't gonna reopen. From what it sounds like it came from Frostbite's side of the building. So instead we power walked our way to Dystopia for a second run through. Again a lot of potential. We got a different path this time. We got to see the surveillance room. this time, Which added to the Dystopia effect but like very briefly. Also this time the tv in the doctor room was playing eye surgery so that was the worst thing I had to see in that house.
The Terrortories were just breezes. honestly Vampire Point had the most people prolly tied with Lost Souls. I enjoy that one of the Vampires is back, he interacted with me last year and two years in a row has reasoned with me that part of the event aren't good. But we're chalking this one up to being Thursday. Axe Alley had a single axe in somebody's hand. Fool's Court had neat costumes, went through twice second time it was demon chainsaws with one clown and a chainsaw. also walked through Ripper Row only bc of Monster Stomp, and I forgot Ripper Row existed. the Lost Souls was... eh. Its prettyish, could use more decoration. But otherwise I was kinda unimpressed with it. I liked the costumes in Sideshow square. They really didn't do a whole lot, but their costumes were nice at least.
So that was my night. I hope other people had a better night. But this was rough man. Every year I come and I hope it's better than the previous year. But I always end up disappointed. And I really want to enjoy the event again. Like I did have fun tonight, don't get me wrong. But it was more because of all the things that are wrong or bad that I ended up poking fun of it, because otherwise I was in for a bad time. I just want to actually be scared at the park. I want to have fun because the event is providing it in the right ways. I don't want to go back to like 2004 or something. But like I just want to enjoy the park with what it has provided me and its good.
