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WB Movie World Fright Nights 2012 (#7) “The Walking Dead” – A Comprehensive Review Let me start by saying this was the most impressive Fright Nights yet. There were scenes well reminiscent of visits to Halloween Horror Nights from the USA, and I think we can truly say this event has well and truly come of age, although there is still much room for improvement, mainly I think to do with staffing levels, with some fine tweeking of the actual scare ‘product’ on offer. 1/ Entrance & Entry Plaza – Anybody trying to get to Movie World around 5.30-6.30pm on Saturday would have found themselves in the first “scare zone” of the evening. As this event gathers strength, Movie World will need better traffic management and maybe a few car park marshalling staff. There were 2 security guards at the middle ticket booths doing some random bag checks, but anybody could have easily avoided them by going past ticket booths on the left or right hand sides. The entry process with the E-Tickets (which most people had) was pretty easy. The “castle” entry way is back in place this year, but now with flames shooting out the top, looked quite impressive. Loads and loads of fog as usual – Movie World is great at that! 2/ The Film Vault Maze – The red illuminated pathway past Arkham Asylum to the film studio mazes was a great scare zone, with zombies leering out of the fog for some great scares. The queue time was about 20 mins, with entertainment provided by a zombie who stumbled between the steel fences and got right into peoples faces. This studio housed the “Zombie Apocalypse Maze” in 2011, and the same concept of steel fencing and disorienting strobe light remains, interspersed with some film horror icons, the best of which was Samara from The Ring, along with the slasher guy from Scream, Freddy Kruger, etc, etc. The formation area followed by the entrance room with Beetlejuice was good too. But the greatest entertainment from this maze really was the screaming audience (girls) and the huge level of disorientation from mass strobes & fog – although can this same concept be taken into another year? We will see. I give this 7/10 – still more scare actors needed. Upon exit from The Film Vault, the park was well and truly packed, and the queue for the film studio mazes was back to the zombie scare zone. Saw the final moments of “Creatures of Rock” then got something to eat – Gotham City was just nuts with their pre-paid burger offers, but Outback BBQ, hidden away in a dark section of the park was almost instant service. One of my thoughts for future years – start really using the back section of the park – disperse the crowds a little! 3/ Death Derby Live Show – A very quick and rather strange combination of sexy cowgirl dancers, drifting cars and zombies attacking the whole thing with mayhem ensuing. Look, chicks with guns is a great concept, but this show was lost from the start - very noisy, with very little focus on any central (or believable) characters. We know stuntmen can’t act, but Movie World could have done better on this. It’s almost like they came up with an idea for a show then just ran out of time. Circus Of The Damned from 2011 was far, far better than this incoherent babble. I give this 5/10, and even that really is being nice. Had a quick ride on Justice League: Alien Invasion 3D, then… 4/ Hillbilly Slasher Maze (Spoiler Alert) – Wow, for me this was the best of the night, and sparked what is making this event so exciting. This maze had some brilliant elements, not executed perfectly, but showing some wretchedly good promise. US Cop Car outside, along with some “Billy Bob” Southern style Sheriffs who menaced the queue line with some funny interactions. Then inside, trees & bushes, a strong storyline moving from the forest/outdoors into the hillbilly house with loads of detail, gore, great characters - the queer hillbilly lunatic with pigtails, the fat guy in dungarees with the shotgun, the ugly momma, etc. LOADS & LOADS of character interaction, and things to look at. Combine this with maybe just a few more scares, and they are onto an absolute winner. I give this house 9/10 – only losing a point for not enough scares, but I feel possibly the best Fright Nights maze so far EVER. Then quickly on to… 5/ Psycho 3D Maze – The old spinning disorientation tunnel gets trundled out again as the Psycho 3D Maze gets another run for the 3rd (and hopefully the last) year. First timers may get a mild scare or 2 from the black cloaked mask people, but the sheer gap between the quality of this and the other 3 mazes is a major letdown. My dream for next year would be a 4th proper maze, maybe in a large tent at the back of the park or in another film studio. At least you’ll know where to save time next year if this is STILL here. Come on Movie World, enough already. 2/10 – purely because it’s there and maybe kids like it. 6/ The Walking Dead Maze – So here we are at the end of the night, and this is what it’s all about. I think we might have missed a load of the actors here (too late), but I loved the level of detail here – the bloody showers, the hospital (the GORE), the cells… Really, really good but still room for improvement… I want to see some live characters mixed in with those brilliant static gore scenes – maybe have a person in the pile of dead bodies that reaches out as you walk past. Definitely more actors needed – but I give this one 6/10 for the concept and the detail. So the positives: - The price (so low) - 3 really awesome mazes (1 not so good) - Some great zombies in the streets - The overall concept for the night including the flames and of course the good ole’ fog, for which Movie World are truly experts! And the improvements (I won’t call them negatives!) - MOVIEWORLD - START USING THE BACK OF THE PARK! The crowds, from the beginning of the night were heavy – would have been interesting to see the attendance numbers. By mid-evening, the zombie element was well and truly alive in the crowds shuffling between locations, mainly focused on the front of the park. - Increase the staffing in the mazes – more scares, look for more ways to scare – use more elements of surprise, scare from above (plenty of scope for that in the studio mazes) - Maybe start to identify a lead “character” for the Fright Nights season or something like that. - Open more nights! Take better advantage of all the hard work put into this event. I’m not saying push it back into September, but more nights could be done, easy money. - Use Ricks Café – Howl-O-Scream in Tampa has a “Fright Feast” with a buffet dinner and early park access booked in advance. With the queues I saw all night for food & shopping, this is just a no-brainer. The fanatics like me (and many, MANY adults I saw dressed up) would book in for this, no doubt. People are prepared to pay for something more than just a cheeseburger. - Call it Fright Nights #8 next year – be proud that this is the 8th year, and getting better every year – have some focus on the event history. - Increase the price - $29.99 is really, really low by all international standards for an event like this, and I would be happy to pay more for better quality and greater improvements. This event seems to be “catching on”, so to say, so I’m sure there is definitely room to ease up the price next year and people will still come. What else can I say? Thanks to Judy, Alex, Sophie and Liz for being my cohorts for the evening. And well done Movie World – if I didn’t have other things on this month, I definitely would have bought a season pass

Why are you sitting wondering? If you'd just check out the videos/websites for each new WnW, you would see how all of them are different in some way. Obviously being water parks there are some basic attractions you'll stil see at all of them (Eg all have a lazy river, all have a racing slide etc etc) Some of them share ride names and logos too (Eg Wet n Wild Phoenix has a Mammoth Falls, but theirs is a Family Boomerango

The sound is definitely all there when you ride, but to date POVs haven't had good audio. Batmans narration has been there too, and is working fine now, In the early days however it was way off (As in playing in completely the wrong scenes)

That's such a great POV, I'm surprised more people haven't commented on it. Clearly the most obvious thing is how much better the ambient sound effects and narration are in this video compared to the actual ride itself (I'm assuming because Sally added them in in post production?). Is there any actual Batman narration on the ride itself? Or is this still yet to be installed? It certainly helps the ride make more sense. I also noticed most of the animatronics in the city scene are now activated, including the shopkeeper (or whatever he is) actually opening the door. I also really like the giant Starro spore in the spaceship. I hadn't really seen it before and I notice it is animated with proper moving parts. Reminds me of the giant alien at the end of MiB at Universal