Fright Night 2014

[downunder196]

All you had to do was watch the trailer to figure that out...

[Reanimated35]

Finally over my sickness enough to go to FN tonight. Taking the camera along - anyone want pics of anything in particular?

[Brad2912]

attended tonight.

Despite the large crowd, mazes lines flowed well.

I arrived late at about 6:30.

First maze: Evil Within

Queue about halfway between the entry signage/scaffold & the dividing fence between the studios. 30min wait.

Impressive maze, some good scares, theming and very good length. Solid amount of scare actors as well. 8/10

Second maze: Wolf Creek 2

Queue back to entry sign/scaffold. 40min wait.

Again really well themed, some good scares, scenes true to both movies. Plenty of scare actors, decent length. 8/10

Third maze: The Ripper

Queue line hooking around the skill tester games near the arcade. Wait 40mins. Thought the theming was decent for a 'non-hero' maze. Only one decent scare IMO. There was a definite dead spot about 60% of the way through where we seemed to walk an eternity without seeing anyone, clearly people on breaks/missing as you could see Hiding spots not being utilised. Fell a little flat for mine. 5/10.

Last maze: Clowns

Queue line back to entry to fixed queue line. 30min wait. No real scares, lacking in actors IMO, no real consistent or thorough theming. Super short as well. 3/10.

All 4 mazes completed by 9pm, so 2 1/2 hours for all 4 including walking time.

Wanted to fit a ride in but all closed by 9:05 when we got back through main St.

Considered doing WC2 or EW again but queues were stretching into the studio walkway from SE for both, so approximately hour+ waits to called if a night.

Overall mood in park - thought the lighting, fire effects and sound fx/track was superior to previous years. Smoke in main st probably a little too toned down for mine. Missed the horror movie icons roaming as seen in previous years, which was a negative for mine. The 'burst' of 10 or so actors from under the big screen every 30mins or so was fun, as they ran/slid down Main Street causing heaps of screams. Stilt walkers bit overdone IMO.

Overall I'd say a 7/10, had a great night but IMO it didn't top last years event.

[downunder]

I went on Saturday night (18/10) on the Ultimate Tour, this is my first time at Fright Nights though I've been going to US events like Halloween Horror Nights and Knott's Scary Farm for years as a comparison point.

I liked the mazes, Evil Within and Wolf Creek 2 were definitely comparable to Knott's and moving towards Universal territory. Ripper had great sets, but lacked scare actors, especially towards the end. Clowns was passable, some good scare actors.

Scare Zones lacked a scare actors especially the alley to the soundstages. Main street was better though, especially when they had the rush of characters go through.

The event really needs more attractions though to break up the crowds, even if what is there is good quality. It would be interesting to know how much of the crowd are people getting a free ticket from an Annual Pass (or do they have a cap on AP tickets).

Overall, the event was tons of fun. The Ultimate Tour was excellent, the Lounge, special tour, bag of goodies, meet and greet with event cast at their briefing and Front of Line privileges were outstanding. They could make it clearer though that there are no backstage tours included in the Ultimate Tour. Luckily a friend knew the backstage tour wasn't included so I signed up for that while I was there during the day - the lights-on maze tour was excellent.

One major turn-off is the dire public transport situation getting back from the event, I was lucky I got a lift with a friend or I might have been walking back to Surfer's.

Edited October 19, 2014 by downunder

[Reanimated35]

Yay. Got my Ultimate Terror Tour booked for Saturday.

Thanks downunder for the info

[rappa]

Enjoy it!

[Reanimated35]

I'm in the terror lounge and I know there's at least one other member here. I know who they are, but the question is, who am I?

[pin142]

The Batman?

[XxMrYoshixX]

Well Scooby is down for maintenance for only 2 days, so Magician might be right. (no rhyme intended)

Edited October 25, 2014 by XxMrYoshixX

[Brad2912]

??? Do you want to reference Magicians post, as without it your post makes no sense or relevance.

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

Scooby and Clowns were down for half an hour due to a false fire alarm tonight. We did the VIP TOUR as well tonight, It was pretty good

[Reanimated35]

No, the VIP tour wasn't "pretty good" it was the best fucking idea Movieworld has had in years!

From here down this post will contain spoilers of the Ultimate Terror Tour. I will wrap the special bits in spoiler tags though so it's up to you if you want to read the general stuff beforehand. You have been warned.

You arrive at the park at 4:30. You listen to a bunch of people complain about standing in a queue at 4:20 just because you can't see anyone with Rodney (More on him later). Then, as expected, you get into the park at 4:30. You're taken to the Terror Lounge where you're met by some mighty fine looking nurses with drinks and jelly syringes. You spend around an hour just chilling out, getting your briefing and gift bag and having an intro done by the lead maze designer. At around 5:30 you are lead to the stunt driver arena where you listen to a comedy presentation from the guy who played Peaches the clown last year. You then get to mingle with the maze cast who will join you in the seating (or "upwards seating pit" as someone on here might know it better as). A brief photo opportunity follows before you head out to a special area to view the opening act.

It's free game from then on, you go and do as you wish until you're time is ready for the FMX show. (If you're not that keen on FMX, skip it, it's nothing fright night related but you should all know that by now). Again you have free time to roam around, do mazes, rides, hit the terror lounge buffet (great potato salad btw).

Now, here's the really good bit. The time comes to do the tour part of the Ultimate Terror Tour. Boy is it worth the wait. Spoiler alert.

You meet up again with your guide and Rodney. Now, I just need to take a minute to say how awesome Rodney is all through this. He seems to get no credit in reviews I've seen posted anywhere, yet he is always there when you need to go somewhere, he does seem pretty lifeless most of the time, and he is just hanging around there, but he does his job really well. Anyway, you follow Rodney down to the WWF area where you're met with one old creepy bastard who has a few stories for you. After chatting to him, you head further towards the back of the park where you're greeted by

some slut a lovely young lady who would love to get to know you better. Unfortunately you aren't given the chance to take her up on that offer as the creepy old guy (forgot his name) tells her to go away and sit on a naughty stool, (but to make sure it's the right way up when she sits on it this time). From there you head out to back of house past the WWF after a brief show along the way. Around a couple of corners and a couple of other shows later (including watching Ninja's dad get propositioned by the creepy old guy's mum) you get to the really really fun part. You go behind the scenes of the Ripper maze. Do you remember getting squirted with water as you went through the maze? That was quite likely someone on the Ultimate Terror Tour. That's right. You get to participate in the maze. If you do the tour, aim for the eyes and ears, it's more fun. If you read this and then go through the maze, don't forget to wave to the people on the other side of the one-way mirror, you're sure to cop a face full of water, but it is a nice way to cool down slightly. Once that portion of the tour is complete, you're again free to do as you please.

The tour is certainly worth the money and I'd encourage you to go and book one of the final ones right now.

And Ninja, no, the ride and maze was not down due to a false fire alarm. Didn't you listen to the clown? 15 people died in the maze and they had to move the bodies.

I will add a couple of photos and a movie a bit later.

Finally, Rodney is a stuffed squirrel mounted on a stick that the tour guide will lead you around with.

[themagician]

??? Do you want to reference Magicians post, as without it your post makes no sense or relevance.

Here you go:

One thing to note is that SDSC is scheduled for maintenance on from the 3rd to the 5th November. Im thinking that this will be the time when the maze will be taken down, if there were to be one in there.

Thanks for that review and images reanimated. Sounds great and love the interaction you get with the mazes.

[Reanimated35]

(Turns out the issue was with the size of the photos, have re-uploaded them to be hosted on Parkz and have reported my previous post to have the images deleted since I can't do it myself)

Free finger food in the Terror Lounge

Rooftop Corpse

A handy light

Jelly "Shots"

The living dead drop in to say "hi" before the show

A few more of the cast

Blood fountain

Obligatory stool sample

Fright Nights Hearse

Did someone say "free drinks" in the lounge?

Edited October 26, 2014 by Richard

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

Did you do any of the mazes Reanimated?

[Reanimated35]

Mazes

Ripper about 4 times as we wanted to cool off after the rides closed and the water spray was nice. I must say, they've fixed this up a lot since I first did the maze. We did it night in the first couple of nights and it sucked so we didn't bother going back until last night. Glad we did. Wasn't scary (but in saying that I don't scare in the mazes, I love walking through them to see how well they've been made and I can easily see how it would scare some people). This time there was a lot more women and a lot less of Jack, I think I saw him twice in the maze, which was a lot better than the 10 or so of him that were around almost every corner last time. Also, not that she's likely to see this, but great work to the young lady in the (I think) red dress that was playing dead in the maze, she looks creepy as hell when she's doing that.

Clowns 3 times (was going to be twice but by the time we got back to Scooby again the ride was closed for the night so we did the maze while we were there.

EW - did that one twice, but we'd done it to death on previous nights

WC - did that one twice as well

Rides

Scooby - did it a few times because with front of line and free photos, why not?

Superman - twice (got to love the look on people's faces when you've lined up twice before they even move through the switchbacks before the ramp).

GL - missed it by 2 minutes.

AA - skipped

[Reanimated35]

This is the girl I was talking about playing dead in the Ripper maze. (No she wasn't doing it all night so she wasn't being lazy) She did a great job.

[jcgoldcoast]

I was there last night too (although not with Terror Tour - boo - will definitely be doing it next year!) and agree, she was probably the creepiest character of the night - went through Ripper twice and only saw her playing dead the second time, so certainly not just being lazy!

[pin142]

Will agree with reanimated in saying the Terror Tour wasn't just "pretty good", it was excellent and the best thing to happen with the Fright Nights experience. Right number of people, excellent value for what is offered and a great VIP only experience that is enough to be it's own separate show on the night. If offered next year will be doing it without questions.

Random locker photo too I see, guess that was after they closed the lounge Reanimated.

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

I will upload some pictures of last nights event this evening

Edited October 26, 2014 by The_Ninja_59

[Reanimated35]

Will agree with reanimated in saying the Terror Tour wasn't just "pretty good", it was excellent and the best thing to happen with the Fright Nights experience. Right number of people, excellent value for what is offered and a great VIP only experience that is enough to be it's own separate show on the night. If offered next year will be doing it without questions.

Random locker photo too I see, guess that was after they closed the lounge Reanimated.

Nah we stocked up early in the night lol. Only went back to the lounge twice. Once for a quick snack then once around half an hour before closing for a late dinner.

I will upload some pictures of last nights event this evening

That's ......great?

I'll go back to watching the V8 race.....

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

Fright Night Photos

Huge crowd went to Fright Nights

V.I.P Terror Lounge

One of the actors getting their makeup done

Cast Briefing

We got an exclusive area to watch the parks opening

The Grim Reaper.

The Actors are ready to scare the crap out of everyone

Backstage area for The Ripper, Sorry it's not bright enough but flash photography wasn't allowed

The Church scene in The Ripper maze,

[Brad2912]

Bummed I couldn't do the tour this year, just hope they keep a similar experience next year, in quality and without slamming too many people into each group given the popularity

[Reanimated35]

Well unless they found a new location of the terror lounge, there's probably not really any more people you could fit in. Given this was the first time they'd done it, they seemed to get a perfect balance.

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

They only let 130 people in for Ultimate Terror Tour! I'm pretty sure they bring it back next year due to popular demand