Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Review

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni - Review

Higurashi (When They Cry)

Initial Rating: Instant Fav

 Themes/Genres:    Mystery, Horror, Psychological, Supernatural, Thriller

Main Characters:   Keiichi Maebara, Rena Ryuugu, Mion Sonozaki, Satoko Houjo, Rika Furude

Overview:

Good horror is always difficult to come by, moving into smaller subjects narrows those choices down even further.  Anime is no exception; for every series that thinks having some dead bodies means horror, you get the sparse legitimately compelling and brutal ones.  Higurashi is in the latter area.  Based on a series of video games and their multiple endings, Higurashi’s imagery horrifies after putting your guards down with adorableness and childish fun, while its story snags you and keeps you guessing.  It’s a series of differently focused mini-stories as each arc reveals more about the major storyline, though often brings up more questions than it answers.

In this review I’ll only be taking a look at the first anime season so storylines and plot relevance from the games and the later seasons will be left out.  So let’s take a closer look at the sections of the series that make it the confusing, brutal, bloodthirsty series it is.

Summary:

Keiichi Maebara moves to a new, tiny town called Hinamizawa and promptly finds himself wrapped up in the hectic friendship of a group of girls and their afterschool club.  It’s all fun and games, mostly at his newbie expense, until a horrifying truth about the town's past suddenly surfaces.  As he attempts to uncover more about this truth, he becomes paranoid and mistrusting of his close friends and the hectic, fun-fueled friendship turns into a gruesome nightmare for everyone.  But even once the group faces a horrifying death… time seems to reset and they start over, taking different paths and finding different difficulties each time.  As each reset passes, only one of the group, the shrine maiden with the connection to Oyashiro, seems to have an idea, or even remember, what might be happening.

Opening/Closing:

The opening theme of the series starts the series off strong with a beautiful yet dark song and animation.  The song, itself, is a low grumbling mixed with high vocals piece, accompanied by a series of short looks at each of the main characters.  Each view of the solo character, while short, hints and reveals pieces of their story without actually giving much away.  Unlike many other anime openings, it’s not using scenes from actual episodes, filling the opening title with spoilers.  The only thing the opening is promising is brutality and madness, a fitting explanation of the series.

The closing theme, on the other hand, is much softer and sadder and instead focuses on vague, yet fitting, imagery and scenery over the characters, themselves.  Some diluted blood here, a swinging knife there, a ‘dead’ cicada to end on.  More indirect glimpses of storytelling that still fit the anime well and both themes unique enough to be immediately recognizable as the series pieces they are, though the opening more so than the closing.  Though the ending theme is beautiful and just as important to the series, the opening is more immediately recognizable, in my opinion.

Plot:

Even though the audience is left guessing most of the time, as any good mystery does, the story unravels slowly and subtly throughout the arcs.  It's confusing and terrifying right up to the end of the first season, but in ways that keep you wanting to know more.  Considering the fact that the anime is based on a game and all of its multiple endings, it’s relatively well put-together.  It keeps you curious to the overall story, but the ending of each arc feels final enough that you know it was an ending.

There's even very little filler, if any, in this series as each arc is only 4-5 episodes long and they need to reveal just enough to give you pieces of the puzzle, but leave enough for the next arc to fill in more.  Since it only has 26 episodes to tell you as much as it can, the episodes only show you what you need to know to get a handle on the story.  There isn't too much or too little, as long as you take into account that there's a second season to finish explaining what the first didn’t finish.  Beyond that, there are hints and double meanings all over the anime that, while you probably won’t catch the first time through, a rewatch or two will reveal.

Animation:

While the animation may not always be the most proportionally correct, with itty bitty limbs and very large heads, the show has such a unique style to it that the odd proportions work in its favor.  Certain artistic choices, such as details in the eyes and face when 'Oyashiro' seems to be taking over, are especially noteworthy as they really give Hirgurashi its own feel, setting it easily apart from the many, many others.

If there’s one thing that’s vital to horror, is that it has to have its own unique style, especially so if it’s animated.  Outside of the actual scares, that’s what I love best about horror anime, it never looks like just another anime and therefore can’t feel like just your average, run-of-the-mill anime.  There are, of course, exceptions to that; there are series that doesn’t want you knowing just how fucked up it is until the brutal deaths start hitting you in the face, but Higurashi is not one of them.  Higurashi is a fucked up, bloody series that takes little time to get into the action so the art style works well with that.

Ending:

The series doesn't reach its final ending in the first season, having several games and arcs to work off of, so the ending of the season can easily feel unfinished before you watch the second arc.  It does, however, go through each of the stories for each of the main characters, exploring their different "bad endings" and managing to find a hopeful note to end on while also telling you there's still more to learn.  Many of the mysteries are still left to unravel, including why the world is repeating, in the first place, or even what, or who, Oyashiro even is.

It has a decent season finale, even though things still don’t feel completely wrapped up.  You feel hopeful for their future, seeing the possibilities that they can solve the mysteries around them, if not in the final life of the first season, then at least in their later reincarnations.  There are still burning questions that need answering, of course, but it’s to be expected when the first season and thus, the first set of arcs, are dubbed the ‘Question’ arcs.  Luckily, the second season, and second set of arcs, are dubbed the ‘Answers’ arcs, so the answers lie ahead.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, or When They Cry by its English name, is one of my absolute favorite anime.  It's brutal, it's bloody, it's relentless, and it's decently well-written.  It's a full-blown 'who done it' mystery but also a brilliant supernatural horror at the same time.  Even the harem-like undertone can be tolerated considering most of the punishment and ridiculous outfits, courtesy of the group’s after school club activities, end up on the main male character rather than the females.

The entire group loses at club games at times and faces equal levels of embarrassing punishment for it, so there isn't an over-bearing amount of unnecessary moe.  I couldn't recommend it enough… as long as you can tolerate brutal deaths and an anime that keeps you guessing.  Though I do warn, this anime is not for the faint of heart or easily offended.  Other than that, it’s one that I’ll happily watch several more times.

Figure Review - Sadako Yamamura

Sadako Yamamura Figure - Ringu

Production Company: S.H.Figuarts/Bandai

Price: ¥4,536 (Discontinued)

Height: 5 1/2" Standing

You're setting up your horror collection corner and you've got your movies, your books, your manga, your anime, maybe even a creepypasta collection book and it's all looking really nice and organized and shows off your love of all things horror.  But then you stand back and take a look and realize "I think something's missing" but you can't quite put your finger on it.  You've got the basics, you've got the shelf, you've even got a poster or two... but you're still missing something: a figure!  No collection of anything is fully complete without some sort of figure from your favorite franchise, be it movies, games, etc, and this carries over to the horror genre.

So while everyone else is filling their shelves with creepy ass Pop figures, I prefer decorating with the somehow-less-creepy-yet-more-realistic figures, be it from Target, comic shops... or, in this case, Bandai Figuarts.  For this first figure review, we'll be taking a look at a present from my boyfriend: a now discontinued Figuart of Sadako from Ringu!  And while I'm not much of an expert in the figure-reviewing-genre of life, I'm pretty fond of this one so let me tell you why.

First things first, let's take a look at the poseable features of figure:

• Removable head
• Double ball-joint neck
• Full-Rotation Swivel Shoulders w/ dress piece coverage
• Double-Hinge Elbows
• Swivel joint w/ hinge Wrists
• Double Ball-Joint Waist
• Single Ball-Joint Removable Hips
• Ball-Joint with Swivel Thighs w/skin piece cover
• Double-Hinge Knees
• Swivel w/ Hinge Ankles
• Single-Hinge Toes

It's a high-quality, highly detailed figure with a full range of possible motions, making it not only fun to play with, but also easy to recreate scenes from the movies.  An important part for displaying in a horror corner, for sure.  The figure doesn't come with a stand, but stands well enough on it's own.  Plus the crawling position, both with the TV and the extra skirt, negates the need for a stand.  And speaking of the TV, it comes with a decent set of accessories to make your positioning (and play time) that much more fun and unique.

The set comes with these accessories:

• 3 different hair/head pieces
• 1 extra, crawl-position skirt
• 1 extra set of hands
• TV +extra screen
• Video Tape

The second TV screen comes with a ball-joint to attach the figure at the hip for a 'crawling out of the TV' scene recreation, as well as a hair/head piece to match the position.

Moving on from accessories, the details are what really make the figure come to life.  Unlike the dead eyed minimalism of Pop Figures, the sculpting and, though minimal in its own way, painting on this figure gives it an almost 'straight out of the tv' feel.  Creepy in its own way and all the more impressive for that reason.

While there isn't too much that needed painting, where it does pop up is really well-done.  The face is fully painted, even though it's more often than not covered, and shows the connection point for two of the different hair attachments.  One covers the face completely, but the other shows the eye and thus the face was painted for the killer staredown Sadako's known for.

The other point of painted interest are the torn-off nails from trying to crawl up inside of the well.  The intricate work here is really what sells it to me for the figure, a detail a lot of others might look over completely or do such a shoddy job of recreating that they'd just basically paint the nails red.  But on this figure not only did they actually paint over the nails, but they made it actually look like the ripped off pieces, trailing back a bit on the fingers, to give you that deep-seated nail cringe every time you saw her nails (or lack thereof) in the movie.  I really have to give them props for this detail, especially.

Then there's the sculpting, which is a much bigger focus on this figure.  Most of the details come from the sculpting rather than paint and thus the attention to said details are certainly of note.  For example, and obviously the major focus, the hair.  Not only is each section of the hair nicely etched for their own piece, but the connecting points between the different hair pieces line up well enough that it keeps the look flowing.

The dress pieces, as well, make sure to add plenty of properly-placed folds and pleats to make sure it looks more like cloth than flatly-shaped molding.


On the body, too, tendons, muscles, and finer nail details keep the figure alive without getting too 'flat doll' like.

So, all in all, it's a great figure and one I'm happy to add to my growing collection.  Right now I don't have much of a display I can put it in, which is why the pictures are on a bed rather than a shelf, but I hope to someday have a proper display for it.  As a final conclusion, here's a few more photos:

    

A Quick Look - Rings (2017)

Rings (2017)

With Hollywood throwing out sequels and reboots and remakes at every turn lately, it seems not even the Ring franchise is safe from revitalization from left field.  Naturally, being a long time fan of the franchise, from the Japanese original Ringu to the terrible sequel The Ring 2, I decided to check out the newest movie Hollywood popped out.  This will just be a quick look as I've only seen it the once in theaters and might do a full review once it comes out on DVD and I can watch it a few more times, but let's get into it, shall we?

Right off the bat, my first problem with the movie is in the title, itself.  Rings.  There's already a Rings.  It was a short film in 2005 that came as an extra for the re-release of the first movie.  The short explored what happened and the signs people saw as they went through the week after seeing the cursed tape.  It was nothing major and a lot of people never saw it, but it was a decent smaller addition to the lore of the tapes.  So they've already used this name once and, unless it's a reboot, which this isn't, you can't just use the same name twice in the same franchise like the first one never happened.  The only lean I can give is that the premise, the start of the new movie, is based on the idea of the 2005 short.  Except instead of a group of high school/college-aged students studying and blogging about the visions during the week, it's a shady college professor creating an intricate group of his students to study the week after watching.  But it's only used as a setup and doesn't go into much detail regarding the concept.  All it is, is a means to an end to get the main character involved.

Which leads me to another major gripe with this movie.  There are two writers.  One thing I've noticed, in my relatively recent introduction into the deeper world of movies, is that the more writers you have on a project... the worse it gets.  While two is relatively tame compared to, say.... Cars and it's 6 goddamn writers, it still becomes blatantly obvious where the writers seemed to switch off during this movie.

The beginning of the movie is actually decent, it has some brilliant cinematography throughout, one of the only real redeeming factors of this movie, the editors and camera crew clearly knew what they were doing, and the nods towards the 2005 short film, which are entirely in the beginning half, are a good setup.  But then the movie does a complete 180 right around the middle and basically just turns into a lesser clone of the first one.  In all the worst ways.  Including the final "plot twist" that was already given away in the trailer.  Anyone who's seen the first Ring knows exactly what's going to happen.  Hell, anyone who watched the trailer would know what's going on.  The fact that the characters in the movie don't is some of the most "screenwriter's convenience" I've honestly ever seen.

Which leads me to the next massively major problem: the characters, especially the main character, are just downright dumb with the worst case of  "plot-convenient naivety" in a modern movie.  We've all seen plenty of it and it's always annoying, the "simple" miscommunication that, if taken out, would destabilize the entire point of the movie.  Between that and it's 10x's more obnoxious cousin "we're in a conversation but I'm going to stay silent and stare off instead of answering or asking a question like a normal human being would because screenwriters don't know how to real people for the life of them", this movie is just aggressively annoying.

This is worsened by the fact that, once again, the beginning of the movie shows an entirely different character.  At the start, all the characters seem believably intelligent for a 2017 movie involving college students, yet, by the end they turn annoyingly dumb for the sake of a shitty, rehashed plot.

Speaking of the plot, it's just downright confusing and too obvious at the same time.  Jumpscares are seen miles away, twists are obvious, but an actual explanation of what in the nine hells is even going on is the only thing that escapes the audience.  It takes the concept of the first movie of going back to Samara's roots to find a solution... except that they aren't even Samara's roots we're going back to.  For some reason... it's Evelyn's.  Which starts with the most unnecessarily confusing backstory no one asked for.  If anything, the entire concept of "further explaining Samara's backstory" just lessens Samara's original impact.  In the Japanese movie Ringu 0/Birthday, an entire movie dedicated to how Sadako got into the position she did, even when straight up asking about her actual father, the movie still doesn't answer, keeping her true origins, which is a huge part of Sadako/Samara's existence, a mystery.  So the over-explanation where it's not needed in Rings... is just sort of insulting, in a way.

(As a side note towards the marketing department... no one ever feared saying her name.  That wasn't a thing.  At any point.  Ever.)

The one major compliment I can give the movie is the one I mentioned earlier.  On top of the beginning being a decent setup, the visuals were wonderful.  While the symbolism hit you over the head repeatedly, as, admittedly, these movies, even the Japanese ones, tend to do, it at least looked brilliant while it was happening.  Sadly, it still wasn't enough to save the movie from bad writing, but I do have to give props to the camera crew and editing team for giving the movie what little redeemability it has.

Overall, however, I can't give this movie a passing grade.  It's confusing, annoying, and downright insulting to a fan of the franchise.  It's another case of Hollywood Sequelitis that I'm glad I waited until a $5 Tuesday to go see because it's not worth the price of popcorn, let alone full admission.  Will I buy it on DVD once it's out?  Probably.  But I have The Ring 2 on DVD, too, and that's downright god-awful.  It's a necessary evil for full reviewing purposes.  And special features.  Sometimes it's not what's in the movie that says the most, it's what they take out.

7 Days to Die Review

7 Days to Die

Rating: Nightmare Fuel

Themes/Genre: Survival Horror, Zombies, Nuclear Apocalypse, Open World

Everyone likes zombies and the idea of a zombie apocalypse someday.  I know I do, the idea of life becoming a true test of strength and ability, going back to the basic plan behind evolution where its survival of the fittest, when money, class, and history becomes meaningless and only the most prepared remain.  Unfortunately, the likelihood of that becoming a reality is next to nothing, so instead we turn to the media for our zombie fix.  While movies are a great way to see the many possibilities, I much prefer to experience, rather than watch, and there’s no better way than with video games.

It’s an idea that’s been done and again in almost every way imaginable, some games, like the original Resident Evil, make the zombies the main focus and storyline, while others, such as Minecraft, just make them one of the various enemy types you’ll happen to see.  And others, still, like Call of Duty, just tack it on as an extra mode, separate from the main game.  There’s been plenty of success in the Zombie genre, but there’s an equal amount of flop.  For every Left 4 Dead 2, there’s a The War Z.  There’s no shortage of zombie games, across several platforms, so it stands to reason that people want to make sure they get their money’s worth when it comes to picking one out.

So let me tell you about the one I’ve been playing recently: 7 Days to Die.

The alpha version of this game originally came out on PC back in 2013 for Kickstarter backers and people who pre-ordered.  While the game is still technically in alpha, according to its Steam page and still being funded and backed on Kickstarter, it got a console (PS4 and Xbox One) release in June of this year.  It’s priced at $25 for PC on Steam and $30 at Gamestop for the console version. While the reviews for the Steam version are relatively high, having a 9/10 rating, the more expensive console version is rated far lower at 4.9/10 on IGN, 3/10 on Destructoid, and 2/10 on Gamespot, though these are based off the Xbox One version.  Only Metacritic gave a score of 45/100 on the PS4 version, which still rates higher than the 35/100 on the Xbox One version.

So right off the bat, you can probably guess to avoid the Xbox One version of the game if you’re going to get this one.  So the questions remain: is the PS4 version worth getting at the higher price?  And is the game worth getting at all in the first place?  While I can’t make that decision for you, I can at least offer some insight.

Firstly, is this game worth getting in the first place?

While it’s still in Alpha and a bit buggy, if you like open world, very Minecraft-like zombie games… then yes.  I think it’s worth a look.  Unlike games like Resident Evil or Left for Dead, where it’s very linear or story-focused with a clear goal in mind, an end of the race, 7 Days to Die is entirely open for exploration and playing at your own pace with your own goals.  You have the one goal of “don’t die” and how you go about doing that is entirely up to you.  Build a base, follow the missions, or just explore and try to fend off the zombies you run across, it’s entirely up to you.

But at the same time, you’re still in a zombie apocalypse and they are still trying to kill you, so it’s got the heavy sense of intimidation you’d want from a zombie game.  That comes through strong and vicious when you first start the game, especially depending on where you spawn in and even more so if you’re going in completely blind.  When my boyfriend and I first started the game we immediately got lost, killed, and spent the next several in-game days just trying to find each other again without running into randomly spawned groups of burners.  It was a terrifying fit of chaos.

Luckily, one of my favorite designs of the game is that it’s not completely impossible to spend several days just scavenging and building.  The zombies are ever-present and always there, but as long as you stay away from city-like areas… or the burning grounds… zombies are fairly spread out and most are slow enough to run around.  You can pick the ones that happen to wander near off easily enough and get right back to fortifying your base.

(Bonus: the scenery is gorgeous)

Which you’re going to want to do, because once horde night hits, you want to be as prepared as you can possibly manage.  Weapons, especially long-range ones, thick walls, and traps a-ready because as soon as it starts, you’re immediately hunted and the infected are relentless.  While the threat is always there throughout the rest of the week, it goes from “I can handle this” to “HOLY SHIT REPAIR EVERYTHING/I’M OUT OF ARROWS/HOW DID THEY REACH THAT/DID THEY JUST BREAK -CEMENT-?!”

7 Days to Die is the most accurate title I’ve ever seen for a game.

However, your inevitable demise at the edge of your own spikes is relatively relieved in the fact that you can still retrieve your backpack after you’ve died.  So if you’re lucky enough to die near your bedroll, it’s not difficult to get back up and get started again.  This is further alleviated by the fact that you can change exactly what you drop when you die in the settings.  You can choose to lose everything, just the items in your backpack, just the items on your tool belt, or have everything immediately vanish upon death… if you’re a masochist.  The convenience of that is, if you die and only drop your backpack, you can spawn with all the weapons in your tool belt ready to go, making retrieving the rest of your items just a bit easier.  You don’t have to punch trees with your fists to make a haphazard, temporary form of defense while you go retrieve that steel bat and machete you just dropped.  It also helps, being able to change that, when a supply drop manages to land in the middle of the way-too-deep-to-ever-retrieve-and-live ocean floor.  Change it to ‘keep backpack’, move everything off your tool belt, grab the supply box items, and just wait for the next half a second before you drown and die because there’s no way you’re making it back up to the surface.

Trust me.

The progression of the game is another great feature to it.  Not only do you upgrade yourself, your base, your weapons, and all fairly easy if you’re smart and consistent about it, but the zombies, themselves, also increase in difficulty each week.  Night 7 starts out with your minimal, wooden and stone tools in a basic, campfire-lit base, and your normal zombie types, with maybe a couple dogs and bugs sprinkled in.  It’ll be tough and it’ll test your starting base and preparation, but it’s nothing too crazy… yet.

Each progressing week, the zombies get bigger, scarier, and a lot more intense.  Spitters that can reach a third floor sniper tower, climbers that just say ‘fuck you’ to whatever wall you built, and massive hordes that make quick work of 4 rows of spikes start showing up at Day 21 and only get bigger each week.  If you last until the sun comes up, you’re going to have a lot to repair.  But you’ll have plenty of time to work on those repairs and upgrading and building new items between the hordes.  As long as you don’t run into too many wandering hordes left over from the horde night that feel the need to destroy the spikes you -just- finished repairing.

(Image from Steam page)

Overall, I’m having a lot of fun with this buggy little game.  As I said at the beginning, according to Steam it’s still technically in Alpha so updates abound, even for the console versions, but so far it’s a lot of fun.  That said, on the PS4, playing split-screen multiplayer, there are a number of lag spikes, bugs, and, with a recent update, crashes.  The lag spikes and bugs only cause minor inconveniences, but the crashes are a tad annoying.  Luckily, it seems to auto-save fairly often so even when the game crashes, we haven’t lost any progress.  It did spawn me in some spikes once, though, when I was trying to repair the roof.

(I'll get a screenshot of our base next time we play)

But, cycling back to the original questions, firstly which version is better?  In all honesty, probably PC, especially if you’ve got a decent computer.  While I haven’t played the PC version, I only have the PS4, I’ve seen a lot of gameplay for the PC version and it’s a lot less laggy than the console version, though I’m sure that’s entirely dependent on the computer you have.  But beyond the processing power of a good gaming computer compared to consoles, the $25 price tag on Steam is more reasonable than the $30 price tag for the console version.  The game is good and it’s a lot fun, especially for something still in Alpha/Early Access, but it is still technically incomplete and requires consistent updates, which are usually easier to manage on a PC than a console.

However, if the PC version isn’t an option for you for whatever reason, I can still recommend the console version.  I would just avoid the Xbox One version.  It’s still fun to play and sometimes the lag spikes are convenient to let you know when hordes and zombies spawn and to be on your guard, but the lower price for the digital version is probably the better deal.

All in all, though, it’s a fun game.  If you’re a fan of the more realistic “zombies are just there and you can often avoid them when you need to, but holy shit avoid large groups” situation like in the Walking Dead or the heavy reliance on crafting like Minecraft and the freedom of an open world… this is going to be a great game for you.  I’m excited to see how much more this game is going to develop and what the story is once that’s implemented, but even in its current state it’s definitely worth a look.  It’s one of the few consoles games that still have a split-screen multiplayer option instead of everything being online co-op only, so if nothing else, that’s a damn good reason to pick it up.

Direworld Scare Park Review

Direworld Scare Park

Rating: Nightmare Fuel

Themes/Genres: Western/Zombies

Isn’t October simply wonderful?  It’s the best time of year for horror fans, having our normally widely-ignored interests suddenly being focused on and a slew of fun for the genre coming out left and right.  On top of terrifying movies, spooky parties, fantastic clothing, beautiful decor, and the second best candy of the year, (Sorry, Halloween, as much as I love my eyeball marshmallows, nothing beats the various forms of chocolate-covered cherries during Winter) there are also the more obscure season releases.  Theme parks that are designed specifically to scare the shit out of you, for example, are things you can’t really find any other time of year.

But in October, the best comes out to play.

Coming from a decently tiny-sized town, a Scare Park was completely and utterly outside of my imagination boundaries, but as my boyfriend and I were out to pick up a friend awhile back… there was the sign.  Direworld Scare Park.  I was immediately searching it up to find ticket prices.  We planned to check out a haunted house closer to us once it opened up, but this caught my eye.  With descriptions claiming “premier horror theme park of Northern California” that was “designed and built by a top team of film industry professionals” you can imagine my expectations blasting right through that proverbial roof.

Luckily, the prices weren’t up there with me and the general ticket was not only affordable, but on sale, even!  The early bird gets the worm, as they say, and the earlier you get the ticket, the more you can get off of it!  Now we absolutely had to go!

So we figured out which day we were open, bought our tickets and I waited in undying anticipation.  Needless to say, my imagination and expectations were going wild, imagining what it might be like and what I’d definitely want to see out of something like this.  Besides a cosplayer that I was rather fond of working there, I was looking forward to chainsaws, long-haired ghost girls, creepy crawlies, and… not so much to pig-head masks that were undoubtedly going to be there.

But were my expectations too high or unrealistic?  Well, plain and simply…

Absolutely not.

Not only did they hit every mark I was hoping for, but they far exceeded them!  I showed up bouncing with excitement, and I left doing the exact same.  So what all does this scare park entail?  Let’s review!  (That said, I’m going to try not to go into too many details because it’s definitely better left unspoiled and experienced first-hand)

Let’s start with my first impressions… well, firstly we ended up walking into a dog show instead of the scare park, we were riddled with confusion but also adoring all the puppies walking around.  It seemed there were two events going on that night and the scare park was set up at the far end of the parking lot.  But, following the sounds of screams and the smell of a fog machine, we found our way over soon enough.

Upon reaching the entrance, there was a quaint little setup with skull molds acting as weights for the line bars and only hints of what was inside, the air of mystery was high and exciting and the relatively short, quick line kept that from fading.  In and over we were, though still a good half an hour early.  The ticket line opened at 7, but the park didn’t officially open until 7:30, so it was a bit quiet and empty when we first arrived.  That said, it was a good opportunity to take a look around, maybe grab some food, buy some beautifully haunting art, or get in line early for the attractions.  Given that the park was only open for a grand total of 2 and a half hours and some lines can take a little while to get through depending on the length, it wasn’t a bad idea to get in on something early.

Once it got closer to actual opening time, actors started slowly making their way out and into the crowds.  They. Were. Beautiful.  Not only are the outfits and makeup brilliantly done, but the actors, themselves, kept the atmosphere nice and spooky, keeping guests on edge even while walking around the open areas.  Hell, some of them even keep things spooky in the lines!  Never a dull moment, I can guarantee that.  The actors in front of the attractions stayed well in-character, giving you small backstories to the attractions before sending you in on your own.

(This was probably my best picture)

They kept the groups small and would stagger them out so you almost never ran into the group in front of you, unless the group ahead of you stalled ridiculously long.  We had that happen only once, though.  But once you’re inside the attraction you couldn’t feel more cut-off and immersed in the world you were walking through.  Noises, lights, decorations, actors, all flawlessly set up for a truly terrifying walk.

There were 6 main attractions and a separate one only for VIP guests, which were all displayed on the wristband you’re given at the front, and each guest can visit each attraction once.  I managed to get to 5 of them but ran out of time for the last one because I did a bit of lollygagging at the start.  You really need to be on you’re A-Game if you want to get through all 6 of them in the 2 and a half hours.  That said, they set up for the entire month of October, so there’s no reason you couldn’t go back a second time if you didn’t manage to get them all the first time around.  I honestly would have, had I the money or the time for it.

The attractions I did manage to visit, however, are listed here in the order I went to them:

Deadlands – an Old Western style walkthrough

Malice 3D – a beautiful Alice in Wonderland-styled 3D walkthrough, it was easily one of my favorites

Callson Manor – a large building that supposedly went up in flames, killing many of its residents

Death Sentence – a theatrical walkthrough about an execution

Dark Realm – walk through the pits of Hell, my favorite and the most atmospheric of the ones I went to

The last attraction I didn’t get to was called Asylum, and it’s probably an easy guess as to what its theme was.  As for the VIP attraction, it was called Panic Escape and it seemed to be a very Saw-esque attraction where a group of guests need to work together to escape whatever dire situation they’re put in.  It looked fantastic.

Finally, there was a magnificent fire show that started at 8 and, with at least two shows, continued through the rest of the night.  The dancers were beautiful and talented and may have been the reason I didn’t get to all the attractions, I absolutely could not take my eyes off the show once it started.

There were a couple artist booths set up to the side of the stage, as well, and a food court across from that.  The food prices were about what you’d expect of a carnival/theme park situation, but the Deep-Fried Everything booth tested my will to stick to my diet with their deep-fried Oreos.  Oh, deep-fried cookies, how shall I live without thee?!

All in all, it was an amazing night at an amazing theme park.  I couldn’t recommend it enough.  I planned to have this review out much early in the month, but unfortunately a nasty cold knocked me clean out of function, delaying this post far too long.  Luckily it seems like it’s still open for another week so if you’re in the area, I highly suggest checking it out if you haven’t already.  I had a great time and I can’t wait until next year to go again.

I’ll leave the link to their website here, so you can check it out yourself.