My thoughts from 10/19...
1.
The Thing: Assimilation - Holy crap, what a freakin' awesome house. This was possibly the best themed house of all time... loved the animatronics and everything. Good scares too.
2.
Jack's Funhouse in Clown-O-Vision - The tent houses were definitely the best this year after disappointing last year with Psycho Path and PUTS. This was really cool and the 3D was great. The scares were the best of the night in here.
3.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dreamwalkers - I loved how they came up with the whole 'Sleepwell' medication story, that was really cool. The theming was great and there were also a lot of great scares.
4.
Psychoscareapy: Home for the Holidays - They should do Christmas-themed houses more often - this was really cool. Again, loved the theming and more good scares were had here.
5.
Dead Silence: The Curse of Mary Shaw - How did they do that bridge effect? More great theming and scares in here too.
6.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Flesh Wounds - A good house with some good scares. Gotta love them chainsaws.
7.
Friday the 13th: Camp Blood - It was decent, but disappointing after reading that it was one of the best.
8.
Vampyr: Blood Bath - I felt sorry for the folks waiting in the 100 min. line for this. It wasn't like Terror Mines or Horror in Wax bad, but it was way too short and there weren't many scares at all. I liked the idea, but it just wasn't executed well.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure -
B-
So yeah, I was extremely disappointed with this. There's so much more that could've been done and they really missed out on it. With that said, there was still some good stuff, but I think this may be the worst B&T show I've seen. I will say that it was freakin' awesome to see the DeLorean in action though.
Freak Show -
B+
The magician Brian Brushwood was the act for the night and he was great. The last thing he did with the video and cell phone pictures was crazy, I couldn't believe it. :lol:
Jack's Carnival of Carnage -
B+
Very cool show. All of the kills were great and Jack is the man.
Express was awesome as always... bypassed 120 min. waits which was great. We had all 8 houses, the 6:30 Jack's Carnival of Carnage, the 7:30 B&T, the 9:00 Freak Show, and three rides (Neutron, Jaws & E.T.) done by 11:30. I usually go on Thursdays but couldn't this year, so this was my first time going on a Friday. It was PACKED... don't think I've ever seen USF with that many people inside. :lol: I think at some points every house had a 100+ min. wait. The Express lines were longer than usual too - waited nearly a 1/2 hour in the TCM line, but at least it wasn't the 2 hour wait the stand-by line had.
Overall Thoughts: While the lack of scarezones sucked, I really enjoyed this year. It was easily the best since XIV. I think the thing that just really made the event for me was the theming... absolutely phenomenal. They did some amazing work. I went to a horror event two weeks ago called "Fright Nights" in West Palm Beach and their houses were HORRIBLE. :lol: Another thing that stood out was that unlike other years there wasn't really a house that was just flat-out terrible. This year also had some great scares which have been lacking over the past few years. I'd say this is probably my second favorite year of all time (behind XI).
A
