Joe_Halloween

I agree... bad call to just put the price up during the season once it's advertised... but I suspect they are doing this simply to "ease" the situation on the park for the remaining nights - if last Saturday is anything to go by, I reckon the bookings for the remaining nights will be pretty high, but it's still a bad call. Had a laugh for a minute as thought they might have read my review where I said the current prices were too low I can guess things will be going up next year anyway... I think it's a no-brainer...... this is a quality event - the more revenue they get then (hopefully) the more improvements we will see in the park

Thanks for comments. Yes all reviews are the opinion of the reviewer only of course, I didn't intend to make it sound like fact, that's just the way I write! Loved the night and would like to read any other reviews or experiences. I'm off to Halloween Horror Nights in Singapore for 2 nights this coming weekend so will be interesting to compare the events. I know the crowds will be even bigger but I have an express pass for both nights so should be ok! Wait for my review...

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

At MW now, 7.12pm Sat and the maze lines are simply massive... I think they will need to start designing with continuous streaming next year (like HHN), at least for the peak periods... Mega atmosphere, great zombies, huge crowds!

Interesting reports so far. I'm really only interested in the mazes and so much the rides, but the reports seem underwhelming. Seems like the 2 sound stage mazes are great (as they were last year), but the other mazes and the streets have a real lack of scare actors? They seem to be spending so much on developing mazes, using movie franchise concepts and marketing, so why not just get more actors to truly give us what we deserve? I'm sure at least some of the execs or creative people have done Universal and seen what it takes? I hope it gets better, but I guess it's only $29.99 so we have to keep it in perspective.

We can only hope that common sense prevails...

It all still looks like a diamond in the rough, but 500 times better than the first events they ever did - the physical sets look better than ever, the only thing lacking seems the number of scare actors, but we will see when I get there on 13 October. Then going to Halloween Horror Nights in Singapore the following weekend, which actually has a smaller number of mazes, but will it be more polished? I LOvE this time of year, first Halloween costume party tomorrow and it will keep going all month...

Well don't over expect and you will enjoy it. As a 'veteran' of US theme park events since 2003, I can say this event has gotten better and better every year, so I too have high hopes for this year - if last year is anything to go by, it was pretty impressive.

So hanging out for the major fog they use at Fright Nights, one of the most amazing parts of this event...