The 3rd Advance Screaming Post

Wednesday was the employee-only night for Halloween Horror Nights 08. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been to three of these bad boys already. This one was definitely one of the most fun. George, Bruce, Rio, Greg and I went out for the ‘Advanced Screaming’ and had a great time. Some of the houses where a little dubious, but I know it was essentially a test night for a lot of the scare-actors and a fair few of the effects where not running until the full event starts this weekend. This year they had a focus on ‘scare zones’ much more than previous iterations, and the result works really well. Instead of the occasional characters wandering around between the haunted houses, there were five or six themed areas that where flooded with people waiting to scare you. They ranged from a crashed school bus filled with evil trick-or-treaters to chainsaw wielding guys in straight jackets.

My favorite area was themed after a twisted version of the Wizard of Oz. A creepy version of all of the main characters where wandering around in the fog while a wicked witch set fire too the rooftops. However the coolest part was defiantly the flying monkeys who swung from two of the soundstages across the path. It was very cool, and decidedly eerie. There was also a warped version of Alice in Wonderland and a few other classic fairy tales gone wrong. As always Bill and Ted where back for their Halloween Adventure show, which was pretty hilarious. The McCain and Obama parodies where pretty damn funny, as where some of the others the managed to fit in. There was a little too much Hellboy for my liking, considering I never saw it (did anyone!?) but the Speed Racer spoof more than made up for it.