Visiting on a super dead Friday night yesterday, I was shocked at how enjoyable Haunt was. The event still doesn’t have that pre-pandemic magic it used to have, but it actually feels like they really tried this year. Atmospherics in the mazes and out in the park felt the strongest they have in years, and that’s everything for Haunt.
Although it’s a shame there are no new mazes this year, they clearly spent real money on improving the existing mazes. I want a new mazes as much as the next person, but improving what they already have is at least a really good thing in and of itself. It seemed like every maze except Blood on the Bayou had clearly noticeable improvements.
GrimmWoods has a new atmospheric soundtrack and new speakers that are closer to the path, providing sound effects (like wolves howling and snarling all around you in the Little Red Riding Hood section) that definitely amp up the immersion. Trick or Treat also has a new soundtrack, cool new “living paintings” in the first room, and new lighting. MonsterCon’s first half has been almost totally redone and that maze feels much more complete than it did last year — it still lacks the incredible detail of No Vacancy, but it feels like a legit Haunt house now. And FEAR has a handful of new props, disorienting new reflective flaps in the mirror maze section, and sound/light effects (like realistic projections of bugs crawling on the walls of the final room); it still suffers from one of the worst initial builds in Haunt’s history, but this maze improves a little every year, and I increasingly love the unique “every monster is the same” gimmick.
Scare zones were good as ever, though a little understaffed last night. One of the main speakers in Old Virginia (the one on top of Dogwood’s) has been out all season and I think it really hurts Pumpkin Eater’s atmosphere because it’s too quiet; I can’t believe they haven’t fixed that yet. I get what they were going for with moving Site X to that little patio by Backlot — I’m sure they wanted an isolated, self-contained feeling sort of like the old days of scare zones being in that little forest made by Volcano — but the space is just too small and removed from the park to be effective.
The new scare zone, Catacombs, is weird. I think it’s a super clever concept and I applaud the park for the creativity. Essentially, what they tried to do is make it feel like there’s a secret night club in the heart of the French Catacombs, which you can only get to by descending through the haunted depths of the actual catacombs. They tried to accomplish this by having both ends of the scare zone being dark and spooky (with the same ghostly moan soundtrack they’ve used in Necropolis and Uprising for 10+ years), with bright party lights, club music, and actors dressed as dead club-goers around the “DJ booth” centerpiece in the middle of the zone. Unfortunately, I think the idea is too clever for the park’s own good, because I worry most guests won’t understand how the narrative is supposed to unfold, and it’ll come across as super disjointed. The actors also seemed almost completely concentrated to the club scene in the middle, maybe due to staffing issues, but it made the “spooky” outer sections of the zone dull. Sadly, I think this zone would benefit from simplifying the creative storyline, and just making the whole zone feel loud and chaotic with dark, sinister club music and lighting throughout it next year. That said, it looks really cool with its walls of red-eyed skeletons and tons of huge new props.
Atmospherics around the park seem stronger than they’ve been lately too. It feels darker and like there’s more fog. And there’s less pop and rock music playing, and more of a variety of dark music playing in different areas of the park. International Street looks great with the lights on the fountain and Eiffel Tower from the 50th celebration synced to the dark music playing in the area. I still miss the mysterious, almost mournful cemetery atmosphere I-Street had in the old days, but this is solid too.
Lastly, the wristbands. I hate paying $10 for essentially the same thing I got for free last year (albeit with a few improvements). But shoot, it really improves the maze experience. Almost no lines, the guests seemed calmer and more respectful (maybe something about paying to enter the mazes makes people feel more like they have a stake in them), and it was a much more intimate performance from the actors. My group literally walked through Trick or Treat all by ourselves, and there were a few parts that were legitimately unnerving. $10 might not be worth it for the mazes themselves, but I’d say it is worth it as what’s essentially a skip-the-line pass and a ticket to a vastly superior performance inside the mazes. For $1.67 per maze (assuming you do each maze once), that’s not bad.
Six Flags blundered horribly by announcing the maze upcharge the way they did. They may actually be a legitimate improvement to the guest experience. But they fucked over passholders by not waiting until next season and letting people know about it before they bought their pass, and they treat the maze pass as a fine-print disclaimer instead of being loud and proud about it and its benefits. So it still comes across as a spineless money grab instead of an actual attempt to improve the experience, which is a huge miss, because I think they really did have grounds to truthfully frame it as an improvement. It will be amazing if terrible marketing ends up being what sinks the upcharge.
Oh, finally, can we talk about how cool it is that they’re running the carousel backwards now?! They even have a little banner dubbing it the “Cleaver Brothers Scarousel”, they put a creepy clown into the historic ticket booth on display by the ride, and there’s creepy circus music playing on the ride too. I have no idea how they pulled it off, but it’s such a cool little add to the event, and it really feels like one of those old-school Haunt/HOS things where they did something fun and different not to market it and sell more stuff, but just because it’s cool. My guess is it was someone’s personal pet project, so if that’s the case, hats off to them for making it happen.
All in all, solid year for Haunt. I wouldn’t make a trip across the country for it, but if you live in the area, it’s worth at least one visit. At least, for all the shit that’s been (rightfully) given to the event this year for the upcharge debacle and Six Flags’ never-ending cost-cutting crusade, the event is performing well and probably the best it has in years.
