Kings Dominion Halloween Haunt 2024
- Thread starter horsesboy
- Start date
If some of y’all are still skeptical even after this post, this video at KSF also shows that the lanterns literally affect nothing within the maze itself (besides the lantern itself changing colors). Video
How can I report the posts that are okay with the lanterns to the admins? Coming in here with your logic and calm reasoning. How dare you not respect our God-given right to severely overreact and jump to conclusions over something that really doesn't matter in the slightest? I'm sorry, I thought this was the Internet. Good day, SIR (or MA'AM)
Jokes aside, forums tend to have a reputation for being one of the more toxic sides of the internet, and unfortunately this one isn’t much of an exception. I’ve noticed that threads for haunt events specifically, like HHN, HOS, and Halloween Haunt tend to be the most toxic out of them all.
They aren’t toxic.
Anyways, this year, neither of Virginias big haunt events are all that great. TBH I’m a bit of a Kings Dominion Stan, and am a bit upset about this years event. Why was one of the best mazes every year replaced by one of the most mid mazes ever. Monster Con is short and non-memorable, the opposite of the house that was here last year.
The whole event is about equal to BGW this year. Something I thought I would never say. Because BGW Howl O Scream is garbage this year. Halloween Haunt isn’t that much better. Somehow we got worse. Live entertainment and mazes = eh
KD still reigns supreme in the scare zone category. All the zones are great. The houses just don’t feel fresh.
Anyways, this year, neither of Virginias big haunt events are all that great. TBH I’m a bit of a Kings Dominion Stan, and am a bit upset about this years event. Why was one of the best mazes every year replaced by one of the most mid mazes ever. Monster Con is short and non-memorable, the opposite of the house that was here last year.
The whole event is about equal to BGW this year. Something I thought I would never say. Because BGW Howl O Scream is garbage this year. Halloween Haunt isn’t that much better. Somehow we got worse. Live entertainment and mazes = eh
KD still reigns supreme in the scare zone category. All the zones are great. The houses just don’t feel fresh.
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Sucks to hear. KD really needs all new houses. The newer ones do not work and the old ones are just old. Really wish they never got rid of zombiehigh and doll factory.
Atleast I can stomach the $44 day ticket at KD vs the 70+ at BGW, and I get to stop at sheetz along the way lol
Haunt was fine tonight. But just fine. There are seasons where it feels like KD just “gets it” and the park feels alive with Halloween energy. This isn’t one of those seasons — at least it didn’t feel that way tonight.
It’s hard for me to put my finger on why it felt that way, especially when many things were actually surprisingly good, especially for an opening night. The mazes generally felt well staffed. Blood on the Bayou has an awesome new themed facade and seemed to have some minor set changes. FEAR, while still terrible, had a few small improvements to its set and lighting. GrimmWoods performed great for my group, in sharp contrast to KDFans’ experience tonight.
Maybe it’s that Monster Con was a letdown? It wasn’t awful, to be sure. I went through a second time around 10:30 and heard much more narrative and backstory being conveyed by the scare actors. A few spots, like the vampire lady who stays still in one of the larger prop rooms, are great. But I had wondered over the last couple of weeks how KD would work their magic to make a house themed to a convention not feel cheap and temporary. The answer? Nothing. It does kind of feel that way.
Monster Con would be totally fine if it replaced FEAR. In fact, it probably should have replaced FEAR. I would’ve been totally happy if they did that — it is objectively better than FEAR and a million times better than 21 was. They should not have replaced Condemned, arguably their most detailed maze ever, if they couldn’t succeed it with something equally worthy. Sadly, I fear Monster Con’s theme can’t possibly lend itself to anything nearly as detailed as Condemned, even if they try plussing it up over the years. I think a convention theme is inherently doomed to look somewhat tacky and disjointed.
I also just felt like the park atmosphere wasn’t as dark and sinister as it sometimes feels. Decorations are sparse outside of the scare zones (which look great as ever, to be fair). The park overuses the same “action movie trailer music” soundtrack in like half the park now. Planet Snoopy is playing techno dance pop for some reason. The Cleaver Brothers shows are more obtrusive than ever. And even though it’s been years since they’ve had roaming characters out and about in the park beyond the scare zones, for some reason I felt their absence more this year.
In some parts, it almost just felt like normal KD at night — something I’ve criticized HOS for over the past few years at BGW. In the past, it felt like every inch of the park transformed, at least in spirit, as Haunt descended over the park. I do think part of the issue is the relative monotony of the park’s tone. As I said, there’s this generic “action movie” music that now plays in what feels like half the park. Haunt used to have a variety of “vibes” in different areas — spooky, dramatic, quiet, sad, zany, funny, edgy — conveyed by music and things to look at (remember the old electric chair prop?), and I feel like that variety isn’t quite there anymore.
Let me be clear that Haunt 2024 is NOT a bad event. And it’s opening night. Decorations will be added, casts will grow into their roles, things will change. The park also was not crowded tonight, which may have impacted the perceived energy of the event. But it notably does not feel like the golden years of Haunt, which I’d say really weren’t more than a couple of years ago.
It’s hard for me to put my finger on why it felt that way, especially when many things were actually surprisingly good, especially for an opening night. The mazes generally felt well staffed. Blood on the Bayou has an awesome new themed facade and seemed to have some minor set changes. FEAR, while still terrible, had a few small improvements to its set and lighting. GrimmWoods performed great for my group, in sharp contrast to KDFans’ experience tonight.
Maybe it’s that Monster Con was a letdown? It wasn’t awful, to be sure. I went through a second time around 10:30 and heard much more narrative and backstory being conveyed by the scare actors. A few spots, like the vampire lady who stays still in one of the larger prop rooms, are great. But I had wondered over the last couple of weeks how KD would work their magic to make a house themed to a convention not feel cheap and temporary. The answer? Nothing. It does kind of feel that way.
Monster Con would be totally fine if it replaced FEAR. In fact, it probably should have replaced FEAR. I would’ve been totally happy if they did that — it is objectively better than FEAR and a million times better than 21 was. They should not have replaced Condemned, arguably their most detailed maze ever, if they couldn’t succeed it with something equally worthy. Sadly, I fear Monster Con’s theme can’t possibly lend itself to anything nearly as detailed as Condemned, even if they try plussing it up over the years. I think a convention theme is inherently doomed to look somewhat tacky and disjointed.
I also just felt like the park atmosphere wasn’t as dark and sinister as it sometimes feels. Decorations are sparse outside of the scare zones (which look great as ever, to be fair). The park overuses the same “action movie trailer music” soundtrack in like half the park now. Planet Snoopy is playing techno dance pop for some reason. The Cleaver Brothers shows are more obtrusive than ever. And even though it’s been years since they’ve had roaming characters out and about in the park beyond the scare zones, for some reason I felt their absence more this year.
In some parts, it almost just felt like normal KD at night — something I’ve criticized HOS for over the past few years at BGW. In the past, it felt like every inch of the park transformed, at least in spirit, as Haunt descended over the park. I do think part of the issue is the relative monotony of the park’s tone. As I said, there’s this generic “action movie” music that now plays in what feels like half the park. Haunt used to have a variety of “vibes” in different areas — spooky, dramatic, quiet, sad, zany, funny, edgy — conveyed by music and things to look at (remember the old electric chair prop?), and I feel like that variety isn’t quite there anymore.
Let me be clear that Haunt 2024 is NOT a bad event. And it’s opening night. Decorations will be added, casts will grow into their roles, things will change. The park also was not crowded tonight, which may have impacted the perceived energy of the event. But it notably does not feel like the golden years of Haunt, which I’d say really weren’t more than a couple of years ago.
Great review. How was the "annoying" or bad kids tonight? No fights or line cutting? Big groups of people being crazy?
Crowd I saw tonight seemed pretty chill. Definitely lots of teens, but I didn't see anything crazy. Lines were short and it wasn't particularly crowded which definitely helped. Really hope Kings Dominion continues to open Haunt on Fridays moving forward. Those many years of opening Haunt on Saturdays royally sucked. This was far superior.
Was a good night. I don’t want my previous post to distract from that. I would go to KD over BGW for haunt probably the rest of the year.
As @Mushroom stated, something just felt off. The mazes were fine. Just didn’t feel fresh. The event feels aged this year. The live show at the bandstand kind of stinks, FEAR is still the worse house (improved from last year) and the scare zones were all great from what I saw.
Still better than Busches, but a step back from what @Mushroom described as the golden years of KD haunt. It was fine tonight. I was a really big fan of No Vancany: maybe that’s why I had a hard time? Monster Con was fine, just felt like a drastic downgrade from what was once there.
As @Mushroom stated, something just felt off. The mazes were fine. Just didn’t feel fresh. The event feels aged this year. The live show at the bandstand kind of stinks, FEAR is still the worse house (improved from last year) and the scare zones were all great from what I saw.
Still better than Busches, but a step back from what @Mushroom described as the golden years of KD haunt. It was fine tonight. I was a really big fan of No Vancany: maybe that’s why I had a hard time? Monster Con was fine, just felt like a drastic downgrade from what was once there.
For the record, I think I get how you're feeling @RollyCoaster and @Mushroom. It feels worse to me when a "great" event slips to "pretty good" than when an "okay" event slips to "disappointing."
For an opening night especially, I think Haunt was pretty good—but that definitely does not mean that the slippage we've been witnessing for years now hasn't continued. MonsterCon is good enough in my opinion, but it's not great and I'd argue that, in any year when you're only debuting one single new attraction, that one single new attraction better be great. Meanwhile, the stagnation elsewhere continues to drag so much of the event down further and further by the year.
My first reaction to Bayou's new facade was that it looks excellent. It didn't take long for that "Wow, that looks great!" impression to shift to "Wait, why was money spent on that...?" Surely that time, effort, money, and thought would have been better invested inside one of these aging houses, right? Or maybe spend those resources on making Con better? Plus, Bayou is one of the oldest houses at the event now—how much longer is KD planning to keep it around now that it has this fancy new facade...?
I don't want to look down on plussing a house's facade like this, but when so much of the event feels downright antique, the bright spots lose some of their luster.
I also kept having a similar scarezone vibe problem to what you two are describing. The casts were doing an EXCELLENT job, but the atmospherics just weren't there tonight. Music, fog, and lighting felt notably degraded in many of them vs. previous years.
For an opening night especially, I think Haunt was pretty good—but that definitely does not mean that the slippage we've been witnessing for years now hasn't continued. MonsterCon is good enough in my opinion, but it's not great and I'd argue that, in any year when you're only debuting one single new attraction, that one single new attraction better be great. Meanwhile, the stagnation elsewhere continues to drag so much of the event down further and further by the year.
My first reaction to Bayou's new facade was that it looks excellent. It didn't take long for that "Wow, that looks great!" impression to shift to "Wait, why was money spent on that...?" Surely that time, effort, money, and thought would have been better invested inside one of these aging houses, right? Or maybe spend those resources on making Con better? Plus, Bayou is one of the oldest houses at the event now—how much longer is KD planning to keep it around now that it has this fancy new facade...?
I don't want to look down on plussing a house's facade like this, but when so much of the event feels downright antique, the bright spots lose some of their luster.
I also kept having a similar scarezone vibe problem to what you two are describing. The casts were doing an EXCELLENT job, but the atmospherics just weren't there tonight. Music, fog, and lighting felt notably degraded in many of them vs. previous years.
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To put things in perspective, there are teenagers attending Haunt now who were not alive when two attractions (CornStalkers and Cleaver Brothers) debuted. Let that sink in.
@Mushroom woke up and chose violence this morning. Christ, that hit hard.
I mean some of the people I saw at Haunt last night didn't look like they were alive when FEAR debuted.
Well Haunt only made it to night two before seeing it's first fight. Don't know what happened but something happened in Cleaver Brothers tonight with security rushing to the seen and at least one person walking around with a bloody nose. As I was leaving security and police were standing by the exit lanes and had tablets out and appeared to be comparing either a picture or description to exiting guests presumably looking for a person or persons involved in the incident.
Jeez nothing new though.
Also I been looking at vlogs from yesterday and was also watching old 2010ish haunt and couldn't help but think "what the hell happpened to using fog machines" theres like no fog in any of these vlogs
Also I been looking at vlogs from yesterday and was also watching old 2010ish haunt and couldn't help but think "what the hell happpened to using fog machines" theres like no fog in any of these vlogs
They have a few small fog machines but I am honestly wondering if maybe they have made a decision to use less to avoid making it easier for people misbehaving to hide and get away with their actions. It Also appears that path ways are more bright this year.