I got a discount coupon in an email from Lagoon last week or so. I think it's good for the rest of the season.

Macintosh's Frightmares 2012 review 2012: WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.
I decided that I would post my review of frightmares this year around right before the second weekend started. Each haunted house will be rated as the over all experience.

Nightwalk: Last year this haunted house was not very good. So I was very skeptical about this one, but decided to go through and give it a second chance. Once I entered I noticed that there were parts that were the same as last year, but some that are different. First off (THIS PART MAY CONTAIN A SPOILER) there was a person in costume as the devil that were on some type of contraption that had them hanging 12 feet in the air then dropped them when someone walked by. I thought this part was the coolest thing ever because I have never seen anything like this in a haunted house. You can also tell this costed lagoon a lot of money. There was also a room where the floor was completely full of sand. It felt like you were at the beach. This was a very cool addition to the experience. Lagoon did a very good job with the over all experienc of this haunted house. OVERALL RATING: 8/10

Lockdown: I did not notice anything in this haunted house that was different from last year. Same annoying actors screaming in your face and treating you terrible.
OVERALL RATING: 4/10

Fun house of fear: Same as last year, which is not a bad thing by any means, they do have the "pick your door thing" at the begining but half the time the person working the haunted house chooses it for you. And the whole choose your door thing seems like its kinda shortening the haunted house, in my opinion. This haunted house was good though. OVERALL RATING: 7/10 (for atmosphere, not scares.)

Backlot: I liked this haunted house the best. I've always been a huge fan of horror movie scares and this one does not dissapoint. It has many of the rooms used in deception, like the wax museum, Jason room, even some of the things that were used in Deception's original location like the coffin thing that goes on and on. So you can for sure see deception in backlot, but deception was a great haunted house, so thats not a bad thing. Also, (spoiler alert) there is a HUGE animatronic inside of backlot which is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Its huge. It looks like something that would go in dracula's castle. OVERALL RATING: 9/10

Lagoon's over all atmosphere this year at frightmares was good. Same things they put up on the light pulls and such as they have done in past years. But I do have to admit, I miss the junkyard. And the hypnosis show. I feel like they added a lot to the over all experience of frightmares. OVERALL FRIGHTMARES REVIEW: 9/10. If you got a season pass, go! Go for sure its an awesome experience. If you don't, still go! You get 4 haunted houses and most of lagoon's rides for 34.95! Why pass it up? Cheaper then if you were to go to 4 other haunted houses for 20 bucks a piece.

Thanks for the review, Macintosh! I love reading what others thought of their Frightmares experience. I should have my own haunted house reviews up soon. I just haven't had much time to get it all typed up.

I just got back from lagoon fun house isn't scary like I thought it would be

For finally going to Frightmares this year, I decided to post my review on the houses. I must put a disclaimer, that since I volunteer at Castle of Chaos, I do have a biased opinion for always thinking Castle is better. As I will try my best to stay clear from bashing on Frightmares houses, take it all with a grain of salt.

My first house was Fun House Of Fear. As I am well known for clown at Castle, my standards were high. I don't understand why clowns scream in your ear, instead of maniacally laugh here. I was intriuged with the decision to put Deception's balloon walls into FHOF. I liked the idea, although still think they should put more air pressure into the balloons. I didn't like that I was tripping on it. One room that I had quite liked was the room with balls all over the place. I believe it was because you saw 3D being all over you, and it was quite disorienting. The fishnets on the walls I also thought was genius!

Then it was on to the all new Backlot. Exactly as I thought, basically Deception re-invented. Not much to say for this house, for even though I thought Deception was the best house there, Backlot just didn't wow me. Thought it was a nice way to make Deception look better on the outside. The one thing that made this Backlot, and a good house, was the insanely big animatronic ghoul. It was awesome.

The next was Lockdown. I feel like it got locked down and set and won't be long for much longer unless they make some changes here and there. For one, the chain walls with the automatic door should be the crowd control in the beginning. It makes much more sense to me. Two things stood out to me in this room, which I liked for it gave the customers better interaction. The first one was when the row of guns shoot the guy in the chair. The actor decided to then shoot us when we walk past, and said that her finger slipped, then started going off that it was me, being the same person, but with multiple personalities. Maybe I just liked that I was being shot. I don't know. The other was when the actor gave us the choice to eletricute the prisoner at the end. Me being overzealous, I ran over and pushed the lever. After a bit of me and my friends (other Castle actors) being crazy prisoners running around in there as well, I noticed that the shocked prisoner was still alive. After asking her why she is still alive, she just yelled at me to get out, so I ran over and pushed the lever again, and she gave me the benefit of the doubt and have her being shocked again while I was running out of there.

I sadly was not able to go through Nightwalk for I wanted to ride a few rides noticing it was getting late. While walking past, I did notice a huge grim reaper that was inside the house and was taller than the walls. I never noticed it last year, so I am glad I will be able to go this coming weekend again.

I walked to PV to check out Scare and Crow's, just to overlook it and not go through it. I honestly really like how they still kept it western even though they had a witch at the beginning. The last character was a cowgirl and she was commited to the character which I highly appreciated. I thought she was the best actor of Frightmares, besides that butcher guy that walks around the park. He's cool looking and like his limping walk that he does all night. It isn't as eay as it looks to walk like that for a continuous amount of time. Props to him!

So, there is my review for Frightmares! I find it interesting how I talked most about my least favorite house with positive colors. I guess that is how the cookie crumbles.

Great review. I love the large animatronic in The Backlot as well, but I think it shouldn't have been placed inside one of the houses because you can't really enjoy it. I tried watching it for a bit, but the person in the room started yelling at me to move on.

(10-17-2012 08:53 AM)Velcro Wrote:  Great review. I love the large animatronic in The Backlot as well, but I think it shouldn't have been placed inside one of the houses because you can't really enjoy it. I tried watching it for a bit, but the person in the room started yelling at me to move on.

Yep, Blaine and I got "ushered" out of that room as well...

I do understand why they did that, if they don't "usher" everyone out of that room it will make a big line of people walking through. Killing the experience. What did you guys think of the animatronic's on the outside part of Nightwalk? I think the one in the graveyard was the same on as in the inside of backlot.

(10-18-2012 12:07 PM)Macintosh Wrote:  I do understand why they did that, if they don't "usher" everyone out of that room it will make a big line of people walking through. Killing the experience. What did you guys think of the animatronic's on the outside part of Nightwalk? I think the one in the graveyard was the same on as in the inside of backlot.

They are two different animatronics, and Nightwalk consists of two. For me, I never noticed the ones in Nightwalk for some reason. I guess I am now writing my review for Nightwalk.

At the beginning, it was too dark to see much of anything at all. I do understand they were making it a bit harder to find the way through, but when yoyu are running into people and little kids because you can't see them, there is a problem. All in all, it was much improved from last year. The one thing that extremely stuck out for me was when the lightning went off. Best part out of all the haunts. For some reason it never stuck out to me last year (if it was there), but this year it definately did. Kudos to the lightning!

On the day I went into Nightwalk, I also decided to visit Lockdown again. Wished I didn't because this time my experience did not go so well. The person who was supposed to split the groups up put me and my friend with another group which for me is a big no-no. It did not give us the best experience we should have as customers walking through, but putting us with people we don't know takes away from that. Another was when an actor growled at me. I pretty much yelled at him how he was a human prisoner, not a demon, and needs to act as such. As I was leaving, he stated how was his split personality. Didn't say anything more to him, bit for a split personality, you need two of them at the very least. Not just one that growls.

Not to disregard my previous review on Lockdown, just thought it should be stated what negative experience I had, so that maybe, if lucky, someone who works in Frightmares sees this and puts it to use to help them become better haunters.

I noticed the following image on Theme Park Review's Facebook page from IAAPA 2012. Isn't this the animatronic that Lagoon put in The Backlot?