I only did the mazes that were new to me (Bloodline 182, The Grimoire, Room 13, Chilling Chambers, and Cinema Slasher) and Mesmer, because I did like it in 2021. Liked it again this time, too.
For the rest, the only one really worth talking about is Cinema Slasher. It’s a smash. Total home run. It has lots of meta elements but also has plenty of originality, too, which isn’t easy to balance. But they pull it off. There’s a scene at the very end (won’t spoil) that’s just phenomenal. 10/10 material.
Second favorite was probably Chilling Chambers. I liked the character (shout out Monte Revolta) but the concept was a bit lost on me. This is one where you just kinda sit back and enjoy the ride.
Room 13 borrows a lot — and I mean A LOT — from HHN’s Weeknd maze. Very derivative. Grimoire was disjointed. Apparently there’s supposed to be a pre-show and then some other narrative interludes, but we didn’t get any of that, so I had no idea what was happening. Bloodline was dull. Steampunk is such a tired aesthetic, and we went full stretches without seeing any actors, which struck me as extremely strange given it was media night and there were cameras out.
Speaking of scare actors, the KSF philosophy is one of the things that turns me off the most here. At HHN, the actors don’t vocalize or engage in conservation with you, but here, they’re screaming, taking pictures with people, etc. The thing is, whenever a monster or ghost or whatever vocalizes in a movie or show, there’s usually something done on the actor’s voice to create an effect that makes it sound otherworldly and, ya know, scary.
But at KSF, it’s just dudes screaming, which isn’t even remotely scary — it’s just annoying. And they try to cover that up by saying spooky things, or growling or something, but it just does not work. I can only take so many bearded clowns following me and screaming stuff like “I wanna eat your brains” in a dorky voice before I’ve had enough. It’s like being trapped in a flash mob.
Ghost Town and the sliders are always cool and there was a guy in The Gauntlet who was crab-walking like a pro. But other than that, the scare zones are mostly dumb.
The crowd was pretty small, which was good. When we did Bloodline, every house in that area was a walk-on, including Bloodline, and it was only 10:30pm. That probably won’t stick, but it was nice. If I had any interest in doing those houses, I would have been stoked.
All in all a very mid evening that I’m glad I got to experience for free.