Movie World Fright Nights 2016

[jacob15]

How much was the Catatonic VR experience? 

[BNErider]

Interesting feedback guys. How did the two new mazes feel in terms of size (not length)? I remember last year they felt "tight", and people were saying that was because of the UTT stuff. A few years ago we were starting to get some pretty big sets built within the mazes.

[Reanimated35]

1 hour ago, ash.1111 said:

Interesting feedback guys. How did the two new mazes feel in terms of size (not length)? I remember last year they felt "tight", and people were saying that was because of the UTT stuff. A few years ago we were starting to get some pretty big sets built within the mazes.

F13 felt a decent length, easier to navigate this year too which was good. 

Conjuring was great, but I honestly preferred the tour we did of it earlier in the day as there's just so many effects and little details in there that you don't always get to notice first go during the normal operation. 

UTT has no impact on maze sizes at all this year. 

To me, all mazes felt about the normal/same length as previous years. 

[MaxxTheMonster]

Having not been for 10 years I have nothing really to compare it to...  For me there was really only two things I was disappointed about...  More info when I get more than 10 minutes away from work...

Being the first night there was going to be some teething issues but overall I really enjoyed the evening ????

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

8 hours ago, jacob15 said:

How much was the Catatonic VR experience? 

$5 

to the people who did the tour last night, were you guys fully aware of the Wyrmwood secret room? I didn't know that existed until later the night when I had one of the staff members tell me about it in the C2 secret room,

now onto my full review of last night, we went to Conjuring 2 after the opening, I really enjoyed this house and I thought it was a fun maze to go through, If you don't have Fast Track and you line up for this for an hour you might be disappointed with it, the final scene managed to get me scream, the highlight of the maze was definitely the Terror Room, I never had so much fun scaring people, won't give out much on the Terror Rooms as that's something you will have to do ?

after C2 we went to F13, it was great to see this maze return for this year, pretty much all the scenes from last year made a return for this year, I didn't have any complaints with this maze looking forward to doing this maze again

then we went off to FDTD, as I already said last night, it had the scares which was but the themeing got really repetitive after a while, it wasn't completely that bad as I made it earlier, the guy with the horns at the end of maze got me very time I did this, 

then it was Wyrmwood, I really didn't Wyrmwood last year I thought it was a lot more better this year than its debut last year, I think the reason why it was better than last year was because there was less bush scenes compared to last year,

by the time of doing the mazes once it was time for us to do the VIP Tour in the Scooby Oveflow, I'm not sure of what I thought about this, the ending was good but I found the last VIP tours more entertaining than this years, after that it was a quick ride on SE and Doomsday, 

we managed to get all the mazes done at least three times last night (we did Conjuring five times last night) two rides, the secret rooms which we spent a good amount of time in and the VIP Tour which took us to 9:50 and that's when we left, 

I'm giving last night a 9/10, looking forward to heading back in  three weeks time, I will be interested to see what others have to say about the event last night,

before I finish off, I wouldn't mind seeing something similar to the Behind The Screams tour return as I wouldn't mind seeing the mazes lights on and seeing the effects work etc, I thought it was pretty good walking through WC2 and EW with it lights on when they had it back in 2014 ?

[j_m-kelly]

I will write a review shortly, just wondering, does FDTD have a secret room? I did see C2 and F13 had one and now I know Wyrmwood does. 

[Jay Jay The Jet Plane]

1 minute ago, j_m-kelly said:

I will write a review shortly, just wondering, does FDTD have a secret room? I did see C2 and F13 had one and now I know Wyrmwood does. 

from what I saw no, just those three ?

also worth mentioning was that Michael mentioned the studios are going to be used for flims in the next twelve months which means we can rule out the Sound Stages from be used next year, on the way out from the lounge I heard him saying to someone they tried to get the rights to The Purge as a precinct however they weren't successful,

[westical]

28 minutes ago, Theme Park Ninja said:

I'm giving last night a 9/10, looking forward to heading back in  three weeks time, I will be interested to see what others have to say about the event last night,

So Conjuring 2 is a fun maze except if you have to line up, FDTD was repetitive, and the UTT was less entertaining than previous years, but you gave it 9/10?

[Zanstabar]

Seeing as how it was opening night, and there's bound to be issues, I thought I'd just share a couple of my initial thoughts. Some mazes may be spoiled, so read with caution...

Conjuring 2

 

A bit of a let down in my opinion. The use of pneumatic props was great, and something that we've haven't really seen in previous Fright Nights. Same goes for the ceiling scare. The semi-themed queue was a good touch too. However, the maze felt a little flat in my opinion. There was just something a little off about it. Could it be the detail in the maze? The actors? The soundtrack? I'm not too sure. All I can say is that I wasn't really too impressed by the Conjuring 2

From Dusk til Dawn

 

My favourite maze of the night, which is to be expected considering I was one of the two fans of the franchise at event. It was great to see some familiar characters and set-pieces, as well as hearing After Dark as you entered. The fog towards the beginning of the night was a little bit overwhelming, however it was improved drastically later in the night. My only real issue was that Satanico Pandemonium's Snake Dance didn't have the namesake snake. It's a really minor tidbit, but it's just something that I picked up on straight away. It was also great to see them utilise a drastically different setting than previous mazes. I'm used to the generic outdoor/woodland based mazes, so the change to a Mesoamerican temple was a great change.The claustrophobic nature of some of the corridors and the more labryinth-like rooms were a great touch as well. I can't wait to see how this one evolves over the coming weekends.

Friday the 13th

 

A real mixed bag from last year. My biggest issue last year was that some of the outdoor scenes didn't really seem outdoors. Black walls were abounds, and the effect was ruined. Compared that to this year, and I think they've hit the nail on the head. Most of the outdoor scenes, while a lot more condensed, really help the suspension of disbelief. A lot of the cabin scenes felt a lot more detailed as well. If the level of themeing from the cabin scenes could be transferred to some of the other mazes, than I'll be extremely happy. Aesthetics aside, I didn't feel it was as scary as last year. It's a bit of a weird trade-off. I felt it looked better but didn't provide as many scares as the previous iteration.

Wyrmwood

 

Wyrmwood was the weakest in the bunch last year. This revised maze feels like a remarkable improvement than last year IMHO. As with Friday the 13th, a lot of the outdoors scenes felt a lot more convincing than previous years. There were also some good scares. I don't really have too much to say, as this maze just didn't really hold my attention too much. While I was ranting and raving about some of the other mazes, I seemed to have neglected Wyrmwood. If I had to rank the houses, this might be on the bottom just due to the process of elimination.

Ultimate Terror Tour

 

It was a fun little romp, but it's really hard to top last year. While there was some nice moments, I don't think they're ever going to outdo the carousel scene from last year. Maybe it's just me setting high-expectations, but I can't say it was absolutely over-the-moon about this experience.

Overall thoughts

For opening night, it felt a little stagnant. It felt a little bit like MW were trying to repeat the success of previous years by following a formula, but it just didn't work in my opinion. I'll be attending a lot over the next couple of weeks, so here's hoping this year's Fright Nights finds its groove 

Edited October 2, 2016 by Zanstabar

[Theme Park Girl]

Wow, I'm a bit sad to see all the negativity so far! Personally I had an absolute blast last night, more so than I did last year when I attended with the wrong crowd and missed most of the goings on.

I acknowledge that there were some teething issues, especially in a couple of the secret maze rooms where camera and props weren't working, but honestly I felt the rest of the night made up for it. At least it did for me, anyway ??

Absolutely loved the Conjuring 2 maze, so much that we went back and did it a second time. I loved the sets in there, and the fact it had progressing storyline, other than just random events happening. I thought it was a massive improvement over the Wolf Creek 2 maze that was in there last year, which tbh I didn't think much of.

The Wyrmwood maze was awesome again this year as well, that was my fave out of the two I did last year. Still get seriously creeped out by the dude in the yellow contamination suit. Thank God there were no attacking bushes this year ??

I thought the Friday the 13th maze was a bit short, however I think they got the most scares out of me with that one (Jason Vorhees running past the queue with a machete got me every time, haha). The Dusk Till Dawn maze was probably my least favourite out of the four as it seemed a bit tamer than all the others, but I did love that they went with a vampire theme for one of them this year ?

The Pendleside Occult Museum VIP Tour was creepy (as others here would know, I was on edge the entire time throughout, knowing something bad was gonna happen, but not sure what) ? Not gonna spoil it, but it had some great unexpected special effects - one big obvious one in particular which they clearly went to a bit of effort to add. Nice little touch having that as an addition to the tour ?

It was my first time doing the Ultimate Terror Tour, and I thought it was worth every cent alone just to have fast track for nearly everything. This is one thing where I went wrong last year, as I attended as general admission on Halloween (the final night) and spent half the night queued up for mazes and didn't get to do any rides. My only complaint is that the fast track didn't include Arkham Asylum, my fave Coaster, as I really wanted to experience it at night. Wasn't worth the lengthy 1hr queue wait, though, especially when there was quality time to be had elsewhere with what the fast track did work on. 

Had one ride on SE, GL & SDSC. Went back to do SE a second time just after 8.30pm, but it had closed. 

The buffet food was awesome, mainly the hot food. Yummy roast, veges, pasta, salad etc.  Found there were a little too many lolly offerings for my liking for the dessert table, as someone who doesn't really like lollies and prefers stuff like trifles, cakes, mousses etc, as per what they have on offer at Rick's. The choc fountain was great ?

Loved being able to go back to the VIP Lounge whenever I wanted to chill, have a bite and a much needed cold drink - especially after the mazes, which always gave me an incredibly dry mouth for some reason (maybe the fog machines?) ?

We got special collector 'I Survived the Ultimate Terror Tour' badges to keep, which were handed out with our lanyards. Looks great next to my MW 25th anniversary Star Tour one ??

All in all I had a fantastic evening, despite some of the little teething issues which I am sure will be ironed out on subsequent nights. I look forward to doing it all again this season, at least one more time, if not more! I'd attend every night that Fright Nights was on, if it were an option to me ??

36 minutes ago, Theme Park Ninja said:

also worth mentioning was that Michael mentioned the studios are going to be used for flims in the next twelve months which means we can rule out the Sound Stages from be used next year

Wasn't that the point of them building the two new sheds? So that they don't have to rely on using the sound stages for Fright Nights mazes? I was under the impression that they probably wouldn't utilise them again in future, now that they have made their own substitutes which are available 24/7. 

[Reanimated35]

41 minutes ago, j_m-kelly said:

I will write a review shortly, just wondering, does FDTD have a secret room? I did see C2 and F13 had one and now I know Wyrmwood does. 

All the mazes have secret rooms. Some are just better than others (ie the ones that are in use at the moment). You're not missing much in the other two as they're mostly just squirt bottles again hence why they aren't using them as they didn't want to repeat themselves. 

[themagician]

I'm finding it funny how some people think the reused mazes are better than the new mazes. But i suppose with it being a second attempt at the Maze, then they could refine or fix things.

[Nick]

I went to Fright Night last night and did 3 of the 4 mazes (I missed out on F13). Wyrmwood stood out as the best by far, so I would highly recommend it! I didn't see Wyrmwood last year though, so I don't know how it compares to last year.

[rappa]

Having seen this event grow from nothing I think it's fair to say the first night is always a bit iffy and I'm sure any of the quibbles anyone has will be sorted by the next few nights for sure. 

[flipp]

1 hour ago, Theme Park Girl said:

Wow, I'm a bit sad to see all the negativity so far! Personally I had an absolute blast last night, more so than I did last year when I attended with the wrong crowd and missed most of the goings on.

I acknowledge that there were some teething issues, especially in a couple of the secret maze rooms where camera and props weren't working, but honestly I felt the rest of the night made up for it. At least it did for me, anyway ??

Absolutely loved the Conjuring 2 maze, so much that we went back and did it a second time. I loved the sets in there, and the fact it had progressing storyline, other than just random events happening. I thought it was a massive improvement over the Wolf Creek 2 maze that was in there last year, which tbh I didn't think much of.

The Wyrmwood maze was awesome again this year as well, that was my fave out of the two I did last year. Still get seriously creeped out by the dude in the yellow contamination suit. Thank God there were no attacking bushes this year ??

I thought the Friday the 13th maze was a bit short, however I think they got the most scares out of me with that one (Jason Vorhees running past the queue with a machete got me every time, haha). The Dusk Till Dawn maze was probably my least favourite out of the four as it seemed a bit tamer than all the others, but I did love that they went with a vampire theme for one of them this year ?

The Pendleside Occult Museum VIP Tour was creepy (as others here would know, I was on edge the entire time throughout, knowing something bad was gonna happen, but not sure what) ? Not gonna spoil it, but it had some great unexpected special effects - one big obvious one in particular which they clearly went to a bit of effort to add. Nice little touch having that as an addition to the tour ?

It was my first time doing the Ultimate Terror Tour, and I thought it was worth every cent alone just to have fast track for nearly everything. This is one thing where I went wrong last year, as I attended as general admission on Halloween (the final night) and spent half the night queued up for mazes and didn't get to do any rides. My only complaint is that the fast track didn't include Arkham Asylum, my fave Coaster, as I really wanted to experience it at night. Wasn't worth the lengthy 1hr queue wait, though, especially when there was quality time to be had elsewhere with what the fast track did work on. 

Had one ride on SE, GL & SDSC. Went back to do SE a second time just after 8.30pm, but it had closed. 

The buffet food was awesome, mainly the hot food. Yummy roast, veges, pasta, salad etc.  Found there were a little too many lolly offerings for my liking for the dessert table, as someone who doesn't really like lollies and prefers stuff like trifles, cakes, mousses etc, as per what they have on offer at Rick's. The choc fountain was great ?

Loved being able to go back to the VIP Lounge whenever I wanted to chill, have a bite and a much needed cold drink - especially after the mazes, which always gave me an incredibly dry mouth for some reason (maybe the fog machines?) ?

We got special collector 'I Survived the Ultimate Terror Tour' badges to keep, which were handed out with our lanyards. Looks great next to my MW 25th anniversary Star Tour one ??

All in all I had a fantastic evening, despite some of the little teething issues which I am sure will be ironed out on subsequent nights. I look forward to doing it all again this season, at least one more time, if not more! I'd attend every night that Fright Nights was on, if it were an option to me ??

Wasn't that the point of them building the two new sheds? So that they don't have to rely on using the sound stages for Fright Nights mazes? I was under the impression that they probably wouldn't utilise them again in future, now that they have made their own substitutes which are available 24/7. 

This review made me much more happy about what is going on. I tend to enjoy Fright Nights for what it is, my only disappointment with this year so far (although) I haven't gone yet is the Day of the Dead precinct, I hated how well-lit main street was last year, and it seems to be even brighter this year, I loved main street back in 2013 and 2014 when it was dimly lit with strobes and fast/dubstep type music, really gave off an adrenaline fueled feeling.

I have been following your Facebook page a lot this year and seeing how amazed you are with what MW is doing recently brings great pleasure to me because I appreciate it just as much. I'm gonna go to Fright Nights with this review on mind and I can guarantee I will enjoy every bit of it.

[MaxxTheMonster]

Now that I have some time...

The last "Fright Night" I went to was their Family Halloween Night in 2006...  Apart from not having much memory about a decade ago other than there was one scare precinct in the Chinatown alley area I have no previous experience at the current incarnation of Fright nights...  Sort of a Fright Night virgin...  And was extremely proud to lose that on the first night...

As expected there were some teething issues being the first night but overall these did not detract too much from the overall experience...  I will say here overall I was very impressed with the event but time to give my honest thoughts without giving away too much...

After getting to the Terror Lounge and listening to the opening remarks headed over to the opening briefing for the scare actors...  Was interesting to sit in on and find out a little more about the information and procedures for them...  Also gave information I could use to help reassure and calm down my wife multiple times during the night...  Timing was an issue here despite being told we were early at the beginning...  I think this comes down to being the first night of 2016...

Priority viewing area for the opening...  Yeah...  No...  Let's shove you here in front of these people...  Thought perhaps they were leading us up to the stage used for the dance during the day for a better point...

After the opening I found my wife and friends who were attending but not on the UTT and we headed to the C2 maze...  Managed to get there pretty quickly and chose not to use my UTT pass to skip the queue and enjoy this one with friends...  Only waited about 15 minutes for this...

Having watched the movie I was really impressed with the theming and accuracy towards the movie with several moments captured almost perfectly...  Wont spoil anything for others but felt that the last few rooms really upped the ante...

This is where I ditched my wife and friends for the first time of many and headed into the C2 Terror Room...  Had a great chat with the tour guide there about the process they went through in design and production as well as getting the opportunity to scare some of the people currently walking the maze...

From here headed to have dinner before doubling back to the F13 maze...  Always been a fan of the earlier F13 movies so really enjoyed this maze...  I do feel it could have done with more space as it was in some places hard to think you were supposed to be at the lake but I guess that is always the problem with a walkthrough experience...

After exiting headed straight into the F13 Terror Room...  This one was a lot of fun with the scarer in the room you could view interacting with the Terror Room occupants as well as the people walking through the maze...

Spent the next half hour wandering the park enjoying the atmosphere and looking at the precincts...  Of course I love this side of the parkz so just watching the scarers interacting with guests, the extra theming that had been put around and the overall atmosphere was something I was absolutely immersed in...

Precincts:

The Halloween precinct (despite being labelled as the fountain area) was really the grass area in front of Superman with generic scare actors hanging around the fountain...
Day of the Dead precinct as many have mentioned had a Carnivale feel to it...  This is something that had been mentioned during the welcome but that they had gone with a scarier feel...  While this is true I don't feel they quite went far enough with it...
Apparitions was sadly a bit of a let down...  2 people who looked homeless grumbling and lunging at people as they walk past...  Not much more to say...
Gothic Hall had some great music playing during the night but everytime I walked past there was no one there...  May have just been bad timing on my part...

At this point it was time for my Terror Tour...  Didn't know what to expect here but it was a nice little novelty...  Was easy to predict what was going to occur for the most part but the moment everything started to happen worked well...  Quite a few people as we were walking out were asking is that all...

Took this chance to head up the back to Wyrmwood...  I was impressed with how they managed to pull off the feel of being outdoors while obviously inside...  The scare actors really got into it and there were almost constant screams from the group of girls behind me...

Considered FDTD but passed on it as I really have no knowledge of the source material...
Took another quick wander through the park and then it was time for the Rise of the Dead...  Great opportunity to get some snaps with some of the actors before a quick dance party and then wandering out for the night...

From information of previous years we came prepared with an esky of drinks in the back of the car to wait out the mass exodus from the carpark...  Finally left around 11:15pm

 

TL:DR - Overview:

Mazes
1 - Conjuring 2
2 - Friday 13th
3 - Wyrmwood
N/A - Dusk til Dawn

Precints:
Rather underwhelming across the board...

Terror Tour and Rooms:
Tour was a great little novelty...  Rooms were probably where I was most enjoying myself...  Given when I was handed my info was told only C2 and F13 had Terror Rooms was a bit disappointing to read here that there was actually rooms for the other mazes as well...

UTT:
Great with the ability to head in and out all night for the drinks which were much needed as TPG said with dry mouth most likely to all the smoke...
Meal was okay but this would partly being due to allergies I could only have roast potatoes, roast beef and ham.  Selection for deserts was poor, again as TPG states too many sweets needed a bit more variety...
Jumping the queues definitely made this worth it on its own despite only doing 3 mazes and no rides...

Given one of the points they advertise when purchasing was "Behind the screams: Meet our maze designers, see how characters are brought to 'death' via our makeup team and meet some of our deadly cast for photo opportunities" this really did not happen (meet cast did but was rushed due to timing) and was actually the biggest thing I was looking forward to for the evening...

Was it not the first night and knowing there were going to be teething issues I would have rated the night as a 6/10...  However taking that into account and remembering I have not been in recent years so cannot compare it to anything so am judging this completely stand alone...  I would give it an 8/10...

Edited October 2, 2016 by MaxxTheMonster

[Brad2912]

Good review Max but have no clue why, when holding a front a line pass you would skip a hero maze due to a "lack of knowledge of the source material"... Worse case scenario you waste 5min of your life being confused...

[MaxxTheMonster]

Guess that's just how my quirky mind works... ?

Edited October 2, 2016 by MaxxTheMonster

[Santa07]

Asked for three reviews, got four... thanks to each one of you for the fantastic reviews

Looks like there were some negative aspects that will hopefully improve as the month goes on, or next year.

[flipp]

I wonder if MW got the rights to the clown masks they are using this year that are CLEARLY Payday mask rip offs.

Anyone recognize these from last night? There are pictures on insta but i cbf asking lots of people for permission.

Edited October 2, 2016 by flipp

[MaxxTheMonster]

1 in full and 3 I remember seeing last night...

 

Edited October 2, 2016 by MaxxTheMonster

[flipp]

There is also a more dirty looking version of 4 I have seen on insta.

[Reanimated35]

26 minutes ago, flipp said:

I wonder if MW got the rights to the clown masks they are using this year that are CLEARLY Payday mask rip offs.

 

[rappa]

5 hours ago, flipp said:

I loved main street back in 2013 and 2014 when it was dimly lit with strobes and fast/dubstep type music, really gave off an adrenaline fueled feeling.

Couldn't agree more  They really nailed that right. 

Seems weird that some of those photos have all the Christmas lights on in Main Street. 

[flipp]

1 hour ago, reanimated35 said:

 

I actually don't get what this means. Am I missing a joke? :c

9 minutes ago, djrappa said:

Couldn't agree more  They really nailed that right. 

Seems weird that some of those photos have all the Christmas lights on in Main Street. 

It really makes me sad, not having the lights on, and keeping the normal lights (spotlights etc.) to a red/blue theme was just awesome, it was what instantly struck fear into me when I first went when I was 12; the fear of the unknown.