Here for opening night! Interested to see how tonight goes. Currently, I'm really not crazy hyped about anything in particular, but hopefully those low expectations lead to a pleasant surprise with each new attraction.
Skipping over the Scaremonies for today. Hanging out in the NY S&S, and planning on hitting Major Sweets as my first house. Pretty curious on how they portray a Wonka-esque factory setting in the more cramped F&F location, and about how the new tent changes the experience from Blumhouse & Chucky.
Looks like a little bit of drizzle is forming. Here's hoping that doesn't grow into anything worse.
I have so far done every house except Slaughter 2 and Triplets, and spent a little bit of time in every zone including Death Eaters. I didn't watch NF and didn't get to see the Tribute Store; didn't feel like waiting in line for something I'll be able to walk right into in about a week. There are specific threads for each of these, so I won't go too specific here. Just general thoughts and impressions.
IMO the event is, regrettably, mid. Nothing is downright bad. There are no Chucky's or CryptTV's this year where I walk out baffled. Everything I've experienced so far has some positive qualities to it, but at the same time, nothing has completely floored me or wowed me in the way other years have.
My favorite houses of the night were Insidious and A Quiet Place. Those feel like they have the level of production value and scope that I usually expect from an HHN haunt. Insidious consistently dished out scares, while A Quiet Place had some moments that were pretty unique to itself. These are great HHN attractions and hit the bar I hope every house can reach.
The remaining houses I went in were unfortunately just okay. There are certain scenes, effects, or performances that stuck out in my head above others, but not enough of them to lift the lineup higher than most other years I've been going. Museum definitely feels like the weakest I've seen so far, and I feel like it's going to end up being unfortunately forgettable in hindsight. Nothing screams "This is clearly really bad/cheap/not scary", but it just kinda doesn't execute on it's ideas very well and lands with a whimper.
A few deadzones this year. Simpsons is aching for a horde. The walk over to the old Pizza Company is really bare and hidden, I really didn't see that big of lines for Pizza Fries when I saw it.
The zones were surprisingly good. Torture Faire and Demon Queens are surprise favorites for me with the casts honestly doing great work in each, supplemented by pretty great costumes and sets. Duality is very tiny and kinda lame, while Blumhouse fits with Museum as not bad, but purely forgettable. Swamp is solid, but missing an X-Factor to put it over the top personally.
I think the Icons will have to grow on me a bit. I think the costumes are neat, especially Sinister with her Face Crown and Krueger hands, and the performers were clearly giving their all last night. I think they definitely fit the trend that I believe Legacy brought up awhile back of the new Icons being pretty much superhero villains. These definitely feel like Power Rangers bad guys, even up to costuming. I like having a single performer as the character the whole night, being able to walk around the event like Jack back during HHN30. The Icons having their own zone to walk around in between sets at Duality is also a cool idea.
The new Tent locations are wonderfully spacious and very long, and I love that new culdesac area that they built back there. The new F&F setup also worked surprisingly well, if feeling a little cramped at parts. The Ops across the whole event was surprisingly very seamless from what I experienced. I honestly liked the Museum queue a lot with it taking place in Simpsons for a time, where there are legitimate places to sit and lean in line.
Music loop is a little generic and I haven't really gotten a specific vibe from it outside of Heavy Metal.
I'm willing to give the event the benefit of the doubt for now and hope that as the performers get more used to the roles that the houses will elevate themselves in time. For now, I honestly can barely give a ranking at all. I might have to wait until the end of the weekend to really cement my thoughts on everything. I should be returning for at least some of tonight and tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.