rocketman23
<font color = green>Zamp in the Lamp<br><font colo
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2001
I arrived on the Freaky Preview weekend for Howl-O-Scream, not really sure what to expect from this event. The FLCC had planned a meet this day and the majority of the group was at Tias Tex Mex eating dinner while we arrived early. I found two from the club that also decided to get an early start and joined them waiting to get into the Nairobi Gate. The turnstiles opened early, most likely due to the massive crowd that had already gathered. We looked at Demented Dimensions and Escape From Insanity to go in first, but Demented Dimensions was closed off until about 7:30.
So, we got in line for Escape From Insanity, which ended up being a very helpful strategy. It was about a 20-minute wait from when they started letting guests in until we got in the maze. It starts off in the asylum lobby where the nurse greets guests. You then wander into the courtyard where a few inmates beg for help and drums rattle as if guests were inside them. After a brief trip through here, you are ushered into the asylum. Inmates are littered throughout nasty cells, some inside, some outside their cells. Some just cry out, some attack you. The warden walks up and down the halls loudly clanking his stick on the cell cages. These cell scenes are separated with long winding paths in which pictures would suddenly drop from the walls and a spook would pop out. This went on for a very long time, winding through filthy bathrooms, escape scenes, electric rooms, and more. There were some good scares, particularly the electric room one and the ones hidden in the walls, but on the whole, this section had too few actors for the great length the maze was (often wandering path after path with only one or two characters). Once this is over, the maze leads to the outside courtyard again where there are various spooks hidden behind and in broken pipes. After a very long maze, you make your escape from insanity through a large sewer pipe. The map gives it 5 skulls (out of 5), I give it 4. It was a good long maze with above average theming, but as I said before, there were too few actors for the length of this maze ultimately hindering it.
I checked Demented Dimensions, but the line was too long and we had to meet at Kumba by 8. So, we began walking over there. First scare zone we hit was Agony Express. I must say the scare zones here are very well done. The shovel dragging train workers were a nice touch to the very well themed haunted train station. One of my favorite effects here was the body cut in half. It featured one lower half of the body on one part of the bench with the actor top half of the body on the other side, looked very real. I took a few pictures of the happy-to-pose spooks and continued on my way to Kumba.
Next up was the scare zone Cursed. This was my favorite scare zone. The actors here were very energetic and were into chasing the guests. Some of the stuff here was very bizarre and hard to take in due to the constant barrage of attacks. One example was a giant eye, which right in front of the eye was a vat of rubber eyes that someone would periodically pop out of.
We got to Kumba at about 8, but no one was there. After some tomfoolery in the Kumba test seat, we decided they got caught up in parking, so we went to do the Tortured house, which was a walk-on at the time. This house is essentially what it says, it is a dark, aged house that has many people in various tortured positions. It is one of the more gruesome houses: lotsa blood. It had the same pop out of wall scares as Escape did. Many unique scares were also in here. There was someone from above with a duster. Two very cool halls in which were lined with coffins and one bodies with arms sticking out very close to you. Needless to say not all the coffins are filled with dummies nor does the hall with the bodies inches from you on both sides have all dummies. This provided for a very nervous and effective spook. It had some free roamers in the halls that did a very good job. Two bloody points of interest were the dummy with the slit neck that misted you as you walked by and the transparent walls with blood smeared on the other side that would have hands clawing from the other side to get out, nice effect. This was my favorite maze by a hair. It was long and was packed with spooks, never a dull moment! The map gave it 5 skulls, and so do I.
We dropped back by Kumba to see if anyone was there yet, but no one. After about 10 minutes, we gained four more from the club, but they said parking was a nightmare and everyone else would probably be awhile. So, we just decided to do Tortured again, ride Kumba, and then move on. Next in line was Ripper Row.
Ripper Row was placed back in the picnic areas next to Python, and although there was a fairly large crowd in the area, the house was a walk-on. In the queue, there were town criers warning about Jack no, not the clown, the Ripper. We then enter the streets of England littered with kill scenes, some very bizarre. Two particular scenes that stood out to me: one was a room we walked into that we heard a moo. Hmm a plastic cow! We then turn to corner to find someone eating a dead cow with blood all over their face. I gave a thumbs up to the cow eater as I passed, didnt know quite how to react. The second scene was a playground, which was a fairly large area with the merry-go-round going around silently with an abandoned doll on it. It was a pretty effective scene for a creepy and menacing mood. This was one of the shorter mazes and didnt have many pop out scares. You saw almost every spook before you came to them, and was often just a blood scare, relying more on gore than on the traditional boo! scare. This maze didnt really work for me, but the effort wasnt half-bad. They gave it 4 skulls, I give it 3.
As we exited, we could tell the crowd were getting quite thick, and with 3 houses to go we better pick up the pace. We started in the direction of Bloody Bayou, which was situated by the birds with two scare zones between us and the house. The first of these scare zones was Grisly Gardens, positioned parallel to the Stanley Flume drop down. This was a very well done scare zone. It had a narrow path, wide enough for one person only. The path was lined with relatively thick bushes with perfectly disguised haunts in the bushes. Often you couldnt tell if that was a real limb brushing you or a spook. At the end of the path were white statue actors that would be believably still and then would suddenly break out of their stance and attack you. This was a very close second for my favorite scare zone.
The path towards the Tidal Wave was roped off and you were forced around the long way to get to Xecutioners. On the way, we past a very lonely DJ station (as were they all) and the theatre that housed Fiends, which happened to be running a show. As we neared Xecutioners I had no idea what this zone was about, but I quickly learned. Extreme sports goons were skating all around us, and they even had ramps set up for them to do tricks on. This was a very inventive scare zone. One of the best features were actors that had metal plates on theyre knees. They would run and skid along the paths emitting sparks from these plates. Very chaotic, things coming from all directions, and wide paths. Check off the scare zones, we had completed all 4!
We now exited into Land of the Dragons, which was populated by about 5 dragon creatures. A nice addition here, as I wasnt expecting much in the way of spooks outside of the scare zones. We got in line for Bloody Bayou, which stretched, to the dragon cages. There was a dragon crouching in the grass across from us, so I went ahead a got my picture with it (once again very posable actors, I liked that).
As we were waiting in line, some of the actors ventured out and were talking to the folks in line. They acted like genuine southern rednecks and had quite unsightly appearances. One of them we called Cousin Itchy agreed to a group photo with the group. This helped the line move a little faster, and before we knew it we were being ushered into Bloody Bayou. This was not a traditional maze I could tell right off the bat. The house had wide pathways and scenes with only one or two spooks more often than not in plain view of the guests. It wasnt very scary at all. The flow stopped at one point and I noticed a character that looked like Freddie. So, I started yelling at him that they stole that from Universal he beckoned me toward him, so I walked up to him asking what he wanted, but apparently he wanted nothing he couldve at least lunged at me. The best part was the end with a bunch of clotheslines and strobes followed by a chainsaw man attack. All in all this was a bad maze, we all agreed. It was short and most certainly not scary. They gave it 4 skulls, I bump it down to 2, and thats being generous.
Somewhat disappointed we moved on. We got in line for Gwazi, but quickly realizing that the line stretched out of the station and was running under one train operation, we exited. There was a mass of people in front of the DJ station there, so we assumed it was the Mortuary line and got in it. This moved relatively fast and wasnt that bad of a wait, 30 minutes at the most. We entered The Mortuary with weird little creatures with white hoods chasing us in. Once we entered, I could tell right away this would have some great theming. It was a red curtain hall leading straight into the coffin showcase room. A ghoulish figure offered for me to try one out, so I started to act like I was going to get in. He said it was only for the dead, so I said well have to do something about that. As we cut through the clothes closet of musty tuxedoes, we suddenly entered the seedy underworld of the Mortuary. The storage room was wrecked, bodies would suddenly slide out of theyre compartments without warning. Corpses hung from the ceiling, some of them soaked with blood with actual wetness you could feel. The autopsy room had a very gruesome mutilated body set up on the table. Blood slowly dripped from it to the red puddle under the body. From the freezer, you entered the furnace room. A good combination of pop out haunts between these two areas. We were then led into a hall of darkness, no haunts in here, but it worked. From here we entered a maze of gore: Bloodied bodies hung from the ceiling and were scattered in various positions, the walls smeared with various parts. Although there were not a lot of actors in here, it was still very effective because of the intense theming. We exited into a fairly large courtyard. A ghoul preached with all the gusto of a southern preacher on stage about the eternal and happy life he could give you there. We shouted hallelujah! and when he asked for an amen, seemingly all the guests (caught up in the fun of this maze) shouted AMEN! back at him. Throughout the courtyard there were scattered zombies which would surprise you because you had your attention on the preacher the whole time. Fantastic maze, best theming in the park. It lacked a certain scare factor that Tortured did, so this ended up being my second favorite maze just slightly below Tortured. The park gave it 5 skulls, and I agree!
With the high note of that maze, making us forget the dismal Bloody Bayou, we happily (but getting tired) traveled towards Demented Dimensions. On the way there, before and after the ice skating arena were strategically placed plant monsters. I swear no one could have known they were real walking through there. They blended in seamlessly. Needless to say, this caused some very loud screams. Well done. We got to Demented Dimensions and discovered only a 30 minute wait despite the massive crowds (which we later learned was at capacity). I had never been in a 3D maze before, so I couldnt really compare it to anything else. The best part of this maze was as soon as we entered. It was a swirling tunnel we had to walk through. This created a very trippy effect in 3D, I had quite a time trying to stand upright, but found myself leaning right trying to catch my balance. I could just imagine the time the drunk guests would have getting though this! We then ventured into a very sloppily put together hall followed by the nearly undecorated Akbar queue. It was rather obvious they were not trying to scare people here. After a little walk, we hit the actual maze. It all pretty much looked the same. The 3D effect worked to a degree, but you could still tell most of the time who was real and who wasnt. About midway through, the maze changed its tone to what we call the pimps house section. It was nothing but walls of pink fuzz walls with pink fuzz spooks with a huge evil jack-in-the-box lodged in the middle. Overall, I liked the 3D maze. It was not too terribly frightening, but was a lot of fun just to walk through. The park gave it 3 skulls, Im bumping it up to 4.
After a group photo with our 3D glasses, we swung by Escape from Insanity since some of the group hadnt had the opportunity to try it yet, but unfortunately it was a 90-minute wait. It was about 11 and there was another meet set up for the group at midnight at Montu. So, we werent quite sure what to do, but ultimately decided to go check out the train ride. We arrived and just missed the train, so we moved on. We stopped off to rest at the snack bar right past Agony Express. While resting, we picked up another member of the club walking by who had been alone throughout the night. We moved on and arrived to a very large crowd at Tortured, we werent about to wait in that line. So, disappointed, we made our way back to Montu.
On the way back, my back was hurting so I started walking funny to try and kink it out. Well, apparently this group of stoners thought it was funny and wanted to chat with me. They also thought our WE RIDE ALL YEAR shirt meant that we rode something else other than coasters all year. So, for some reason they started talking about this film they had coming out October something or other which was an adult film these people were messed up. So, I got my picture with them (I just couldnt pass up the opportunity!) and the group had a good laugh. We stopped again at the same snack bar. I took pictures of everyone sitting at the table and deemed it the low part of the night tired, worn, and slightly cranky. So, with weary feet, we headed to Montu. Finally, the whole group met up for the night. We shared our experiences from the night and were shocked to find most of the other people didnt go in a single house. We all just decided to leave together except for a couple (one being someone who took his, I think, 600th ride on Montu). We all said bye, but several of us were staying at the same hotel and were going to either go to Adventure Island or Busch Gardens the next morning. I opted for Adventure Island, and we had a lot fun for being as tired as we were that morning!
Overall, I liked the event, but couldve been better if the crowds were less. The houses were great with an exception or two, and the scare zones I thought exceeded HHN. However, HHN is still worlds better in the scare department and Busch has a ways to go until they get really good at this. It was certainly good enough to make it a yearly event for me, and Ill be sure to check it out next year! Thanks for reading
So, we got in line for Escape From Insanity, which ended up being a very helpful strategy. It was about a 20-minute wait from when they started letting guests in until we got in the maze. It starts off in the asylum lobby where the nurse greets guests. You then wander into the courtyard where a few inmates beg for help and drums rattle as if guests were inside them. After a brief trip through here, you are ushered into the asylum. Inmates are littered throughout nasty cells, some inside, some outside their cells. Some just cry out, some attack you. The warden walks up and down the halls loudly clanking his stick on the cell cages. These cell scenes are separated with long winding paths in which pictures would suddenly drop from the walls and a spook would pop out. This went on for a very long time, winding through filthy bathrooms, escape scenes, electric rooms, and more. There were some good scares, particularly the electric room one and the ones hidden in the walls, but on the whole, this section had too few actors for the great length the maze was (often wandering path after path with only one or two characters). Once this is over, the maze leads to the outside courtyard again where there are various spooks hidden behind and in broken pipes. After a very long maze, you make your escape from insanity through a large sewer pipe. The map gives it 5 skulls (out of 5), I give it 4. It was a good long maze with above average theming, but as I said before, there were too few actors for the length of this maze ultimately hindering it.
I checked Demented Dimensions, but the line was too long and we had to meet at Kumba by 8. So, we began walking over there. First scare zone we hit was Agony Express. I must say the scare zones here are very well done. The shovel dragging train workers were a nice touch to the very well themed haunted train station. One of my favorite effects here was the body cut in half. It featured one lower half of the body on one part of the bench with the actor top half of the body on the other side, looked very real. I took a few pictures of the happy-to-pose spooks and continued on my way to Kumba.
Next up was the scare zone Cursed. This was my favorite scare zone. The actors here were very energetic and were into chasing the guests. Some of the stuff here was very bizarre and hard to take in due to the constant barrage of attacks. One example was a giant eye, which right in front of the eye was a vat of rubber eyes that someone would periodically pop out of.
We got to Kumba at about 8, but no one was there. After some tomfoolery in the Kumba test seat, we decided they got caught up in parking, so we went to do the Tortured house, which was a walk-on at the time. This house is essentially what it says, it is a dark, aged house that has many people in various tortured positions. It is one of the more gruesome houses: lotsa blood. It had the same pop out of wall scares as Escape did. Many unique scares were also in here. There was someone from above with a duster. Two very cool halls in which were lined with coffins and one bodies with arms sticking out very close to you. Needless to say not all the coffins are filled with dummies nor does the hall with the bodies inches from you on both sides have all dummies. This provided for a very nervous and effective spook. It had some free roamers in the halls that did a very good job. Two bloody points of interest were the dummy with the slit neck that misted you as you walked by and the transparent walls with blood smeared on the other side that would have hands clawing from the other side to get out, nice effect. This was my favorite maze by a hair. It was long and was packed with spooks, never a dull moment! The map gave it 5 skulls, and so do I.
We dropped back by Kumba to see if anyone was there yet, but no one. After about 10 minutes, we gained four more from the club, but they said parking was a nightmare and everyone else would probably be awhile. So, we just decided to do Tortured again, ride Kumba, and then move on. Next in line was Ripper Row.
Ripper Row was placed back in the picnic areas next to Python, and although there was a fairly large crowd in the area, the house was a walk-on. In the queue, there were town criers warning about Jack no, not the clown, the Ripper. We then enter the streets of England littered with kill scenes, some very bizarre. Two particular scenes that stood out to me: one was a room we walked into that we heard a moo. Hmm a plastic cow! We then turn to corner to find someone eating a dead cow with blood all over their face. I gave a thumbs up to the cow eater as I passed, didnt know quite how to react. The second scene was a playground, which was a fairly large area with the merry-go-round going around silently with an abandoned doll on it. It was a pretty effective scene for a creepy and menacing mood. This was one of the shorter mazes and didnt have many pop out scares. You saw almost every spook before you came to them, and was often just a blood scare, relying more on gore than on the traditional boo! scare. This maze didnt really work for me, but the effort wasnt half-bad. They gave it 4 skulls, I give it 3.
As we exited, we could tell the crowd were getting quite thick, and with 3 houses to go we better pick up the pace. We started in the direction of Bloody Bayou, which was situated by the birds with two scare zones between us and the house. The first of these scare zones was Grisly Gardens, positioned parallel to the Stanley Flume drop down. This was a very well done scare zone. It had a narrow path, wide enough for one person only. The path was lined with relatively thick bushes with perfectly disguised haunts in the bushes. Often you couldnt tell if that was a real limb brushing you or a spook. At the end of the path were white statue actors that would be believably still and then would suddenly break out of their stance and attack you. This was a very close second for my favorite scare zone.
The path towards the Tidal Wave was roped off and you were forced around the long way to get to Xecutioners. On the way, we past a very lonely DJ station (as were they all) and the theatre that housed Fiends, which happened to be running a show. As we neared Xecutioners I had no idea what this zone was about, but I quickly learned. Extreme sports goons were skating all around us, and they even had ramps set up for them to do tricks on. This was a very inventive scare zone. One of the best features were actors that had metal plates on theyre knees. They would run and skid along the paths emitting sparks from these plates. Very chaotic, things coming from all directions, and wide paths. Check off the scare zones, we had completed all 4!
We now exited into Land of the Dragons, which was populated by about 5 dragon creatures. A nice addition here, as I wasnt expecting much in the way of spooks outside of the scare zones. We got in line for Bloody Bayou, which stretched, to the dragon cages. There was a dragon crouching in the grass across from us, so I went ahead a got my picture with it (once again very posable actors, I liked that).
As we were waiting in line, some of the actors ventured out and were talking to the folks in line. They acted like genuine southern rednecks and had quite unsightly appearances. One of them we called Cousin Itchy agreed to a group photo with the group. This helped the line move a little faster, and before we knew it we were being ushered into Bloody Bayou. This was not a traditional maze I could tell right off the bat. The house had wide pathways and scenes with only one or two spooks more often than not in plain view of the guests. It wasnt very scary at all. The flow stopped at one point and I noticed a character that looked like Freddie. So, I started yelling at him that they stole that from Universal he beckoned me toward him, so I walked up to him asking what he wanted, but apparently he wanted nothing he couldve at least lunged at me. The best part was the end with a bunch of clotheslines and strobes followed by a chainsaw man attack. All in all this was a bad maze, we all agreed. It was short and most certainly not scary. They gave it 4 skulls, I bump it down to 2, and thats being generous.
Somewhat disappointed we moved on. We got in line for Gwazi, but quickly realizing that the line stretched out of the station and was running under one train operation, we exited. There was a mass of people in front of the DJ station there, so we assumed it was the Mortuary line and got in it. This moved relatively fast and wasnt that bad of a wait, 30 minutes at the most. We entered The Mortuary with weird little creatures with white hoods chasing us in. Once we entered, I could tell right away this would have some great theming. It was a red curtain hall leading straight into the coffin showcase room. A ghoulish figure offered for me to try one out, so I started to act like I was going to get in. He said it was only for the dead, so I said well have to do something about that. As we cut through the clothes closet of musty tuxedoes, we suddenly entered the seedy underworld of the Mortuary. The storage room was wrecked, bodies would suddenly slide out of theyre compartments without warning. Corpses hung from the ceiling, some of them soaked with blood with actual wetness you could feel. The autopsy room had a very gruesome mutilated body set up on the table. Blood slowly dripped from it to the red puddle under the body. From the freezer, you entered the furnace room. A good combination of pop out haunts between these two areas. We were then led into a hall of darkness, no haunts in here, but it worked. From here we entered a maze of gore: Bloodied bodies hung from the ceiling and were scattered in various positions, the walls smeared with various parts. Although there were not a lot of actors in here, it was still very effective because of the intense theming. We exited into a fairly large courtyard. A ghoul preached with all the gusto of a southern preacher on stage about the eternal and happy life he could give you there. We shouted hallelujah! and when he asked for an amen, seemingly all the guests (caught up in the fun of this maze) shouted AMEN! back at him. Throughout the courtyard there were scattered zombies which would surprise you because you had your attention on the preacher the whole time. Fantastic maze, best theming in the park. It lacked a certain scare factor that Tortured did, so this ended up being my second favorite maze just slightly below Tortured. The park gave it 5 skulls, and I agree!
With the high note of that maze, making us forget the dismal Bloody Bayou, we happily (but getting tired) traveled towards Demented Dimensions. On the way there, before and after the ice skating arena were strategically placed plant monsters. I swear no one could have known they were real walking through there. They blended in seamlessly. Needless to say, this caused some very loud screams. Well done. We got to Demented Dimensions and discovered only a 30 minute wait despite the massive crowds (which we later learned was at capacity). I had never been in a 3D maze before, so I couldnt really compare it to anything else. The best part of this maze was as soon as we entered. It was a swirling tunnel we had to walk through. This created a very trippy effect in 3D, I had quite a time trying to stand upright, but found myself leaning right trying to catch my balance. I could just imagine the time the drunk guests would have getting though this! We then ventured into a very sloppily put together hall followed by the nearly undecorated Akbar queue. It was rather obvious they were not trying to scare people here. After a little walk, we hit the actual maze. It all pretty much looked the same. The 3D effect worked to a degree, but you could still tell most of the time who was real and who wasnt. About midway through, the maze changed its tone to what we call the pimps house section. It was nothing but walls of pink fuzz walls with pink fuzz spooks with a huge evil jack-in-the-box lodged in the middle. Overall, I liked the 3D maze. It was not too terribly frightening, but was a lot of fun just to walk through. The park gave it 3 skulls, Im bumping it up to 4.
After a group photo with our 3D glasses, we swung by Escape from Insanity since some of the group hadnt had the opportunity to try it yet, but unfortunately it was a 90-minute wait. It was about 11 and there was another meet set up for the group at midnight at Montu. So, we werent quite sure what to do, but ultimately decided to go check out the train ride. We arrived and just missed the train, so we moved on. We stopped off to rest at the snack bar right past Agony Express. While resting, we picked up another member of the club walking by who had been alone throughout the night. We moved on and arrived to a very large crowd at Tortured, we werent about to wait in that line. So, disappointed, we made our way back to Montu.
On the way back, my back was hurting so I started walking funny to try and kink it out. Well, apparently this group of stoners thought it was funny and wanted to chat with me. They also thought our WE RIDE ALL YEAR shirt meant that we rode something else other than coasters all year. So, for some reason they started talking about this film they had coming out October something or other which was an adult film these people were messed up. So, I got my picture with them (I just couldnt pass up the opportunity!) and the group had a good laugh. We stopped again at the same snack bar. I took pictures of everyone sitting at the table and deemed it the low part of the night tired, worn, and slightly cranky. So, with weary feet, we headed to Montu. Finally, the whole group met up for the night. We shared our experiences from the night and were shocked to find most of the other people didnt go in a single house. We all just decided to leave together except for a couple (one being someone who took his, I think, 600th ride on Montu). We all said bye, but several of us were staying at the same hotel and were going to either go to Adventure Island or Busch Gardens the next morning. I opted for Adventure Island, and we had a lot fun for being as tired as we were that morning!
Overall, I liked the event, but couldve been better if the crowds were less. The houses were great with an exception or two, and the scare zones I thought exceeded HHN. However, HHN is still worlds better in the scare department and Busch has a ways to go until they get really good at this. It was certainly good enough to make it a yearly event for me, and Ill be sure to check it out next year! Thanks for reading
