Okay, up front,
I LOVE PHANTASM!
For an obscure cult oddity,
Phantasm is a phantastically realistic choice! USH has a trend of reviving ‘70s & ‘80s horror gems, from
The Exorcist to
The Shining to
An American Werewolf in London to
Poltergeist, and
Phantasm fits perfectly with that crowd. It’s the 40th anniversary, Angus Scrimm recently passed,
Ravager was recently released, J.J. Abrams restored the original, Joe Bob Briggs hosted a Christmas marathon …You know, I'll give even odds this’ll be a
REAL 2019 maze. (Another wholly serious prediction:
Killer Klowns from Outer Space.)
Both teams experienced similar setbacks. Only 50% of players know horror at all, and only one person knew any given IP. On Team Warriors, PM and wordsmith extraordinaire
@James G. was our “phan” – that’s the actual term for
Phantasm phanatics. He faced his spheres (heh!) and spearheaded this endeavor, handling the entire maze walkthrough and quite honestly nearly everything else.
That walkthrough is faultless. (“You come to us” – wonderful
Phantasm II nod!) It grasps how HHN mazes operate, effectively phitting
Phantasm to that phormat. Pulsing “mourners” is a smart touch, especially with the secret “scaractors.” That helps to juice the scares. This is crucial since
Phantasm’s bizarre imagery – Jawa monks, silver spheres, giant tuning forks – is more abstract than overtly horrific. It would be a unique tone for HHN, but still very much in their wheelhouse.
I wonder how this comes across for
Phantasm novices (probably my cohosts). Me? I know these flicks! I love them! I understand the maze. Some stuff I miss: alien bugs, spine monsters, chainsaw-wielding Gravers, zombie policemen, the Hemicuda, the hearse… But the basics are there! The progression ever deeper into the Tall Man’s mortuary fits the maze phormat perfectly.
The presentation falls very flat unfortunately.
You discussed stuff which you didn’t add. There is no music – and
Phantasm’s score is one of horror’s best. The Google Doc feels unfinished, raw, bare. A simple elegant forum post would’ve worked, something in the style of your exceptional Exposition Downs. The ice cream is a welcome addition (yay Reggie!), the logo is good, but this could’ve used plenty more custom touches.
I’m saddened. Done right, a
Phantasm maze would have been – for me –an automatic winner. There’s squandered potential.
@James G. did his damnedest, and it’s a shame his passion wasn’t more infectious.
TEAM PRINCES
BENDY AND THE INK MACHINE
Compared to
Phantasm, I am only vaguely familiar with Bendy. This gives Team Princes a different challenge, to win me over with a largely unknown property.
HHN hasn’t delved into video games very much yet, and Bendy is not the obvious choice. (Both teams debated Five Nights at Freddie’s early on.) Artistically speaking, though, it is a strong IP choice. The visuals would be wholly unlike anything previously seen at HHN, yet still doable if their bizarre 3D mazes are anything to go by. The vintage animation studio setting would let Universal take the out of Disney (something you only acknowledge very indirectly, but it’s baked into the premise). In typical Princes fashion Bendy is a risky choice, and in typical Princes fashion it’s a choice which has paid off handsomely.
Your maze walkthrough is pretty much on-par with Warriors’. Both teams grasped the scare maze concept and did a good job of “painting with words.” This would be a technical marvel, particularly with the fusion of puppetry and projections.
While I could go on praising the walkthrough, I’d rather highlight the many, many other areas where the Princes of Presentation once again took the crown!
Let’s get the negatives out of the way. There are minor formatting issues. Also I downloaded your PDF, which was awkward, though I gather that issue was immediately resolved.
Onto the good stuff: The video! You set that spooky Bendy tone instantly, you tied it into Universal…it feels real.
The park map! All the other alternate universe mazes are hysterical. This is absolutely, utterly, entirely believable…except…a
Leprechaun scare zone?!?!?!! Ha HA!!!
Leprechaun is silly! (And hey, there’s that
Killer Klowns maze we’re all predicting.)
The maze map! Yeah, you guys
GET mazes. Details like the grey walls for jump scares, that’s wonderful attention to detail.
With your use of color and font and proper Universal logos, this feels like a genuine HHN proposal. It’s more than the sum of its parts, and it’s an impressively coherent feat considering how few Princes knew Bendy early on. This presentation was made with one voice, showing Team Princes at the top of your game.
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