mulchpuppy
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2003
- Messages
- 100
I was underwhelmed by Saturday night's event. We only did three of the houses (a conscious choice, as we're returning in a few weeks with Express passes), but we did hit all of the shows. Of the three houses we did, I didn't feel like they were adequately staffed with scaractors, and it seemed like the overall atmosphere of the houses was hit-and-miss.
Entering the Elm Street house (after getting drenched by a five minute rainstorm - yikes) there was a good familiar vibe. Everything looked right. But it didn't feel like they really did much with the property other than that, a few instances of name-dropping, and an appearance by Freddy at the end of it. What I would have liked to have seen was some sort of recreation of any of the kills from the movies. I'm not asking for the world - I don't need to see "chick turned into a cockroach," but what if they had set up a mattress with a hole in it, legs sticking up out of the hole, and put a blood cannon underneath launching muck up to the ceiling (my favorite Elm Street death - and the most disturbing since the next scene of the movie shows buckets in the floor downstairs from where the blood dripped through the ceiling). Or how about audio (other than the creepy piano motif) that brought back memories of the film? I don't recall hearing the "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you" theme, nor did I hear the nails-on-a-chalkboard screeching that Freddy commonly would do in the films. Heck, why didn't we walk through a boiler room?
(I understand that I'm not Universal Creative and coming up with this sort of stuff is silly, but I'm trying to think of stuff that really stands out from the Elm Street films. The house itself didn't really vary much from what you'd find in any of the other houses as far as the basic locations. I don't want to sound like I'm playing the "I coulda done better" card, but I have to assume that the folks who designed these things at least sat down and watched these movies with a notepad)
Psychoscarapy was next, and I thought it was pretty good. The Leatherface house didn't really meet my expectations, but I couldn't really decide if they were doing a house based on the original Chainsaw movies or the remakes. As a result, I'm willing to cut them a little slack for not having Grandpa in there (and while there was a crotchety guy in the beginning, fans of the original Chainsaw films know that Grandpa is barely even alive and wouldn't be yelling at people). I would have also liked to have seen a bone room, with different common household items built out of bones.
The reason I'm really harping on the Elm Street and Leatherface houses is because I don't think they got their money's worth out of the properties. Seeing the character pop up at the end of the house is great, but the buildup to that just didn't feel that strong. Maybe there were limitations to what they could and could not do (notably with Leatherface, but Freddy's been a New Line character since day one. It was him and those dang turtles that built that studio). If that was the case, I honestly feel like they'd be better off developing more of their own characters (and maybe then they could give Jack another year or two off).
Moving onward.
Bill and Ted is always a hit or miss show. When it hits, it hits good. When it misses...hoboy. This was a hit year for me. There were 4 or 5 really strong laughs, as opposed to some years where they barely warranted a snicker. It probably helped that most of their targets this year were severe tabloid residents. I wonder how the script will change with yesterday's Britney news...the only absolute bomb of the show was the inclusion of two Grindhouse related gags (one involves a "deleted scene," the other involves a character). Grindhouse was a massive bomb theatrically, and the DVD hasn't been released yet (at least not Rodriguez's portion, which featured the aforementioned character).
Rocky Horror tribute was very well done, even with the deletion of two of the better songs (Meat Loaf's song and Frank's last song). Frank, Riff Raff, Columbia and Magenta were all dead on. I was less impressed with Brad and Janet, but they're squares anyway.
The "Freak Show" was really more of a magic act, but that's not a bad thing. I liked the guy, but I don't think he really got the audience into it until his very last gag (which involved EVP and was fascinating even without the gag). His act was very much one of those self-conscious acts (think of The Amazing Jonathan, just not THAT good) and I think the audience was a little too ADHD for that kind of routine to work.
The Carnage show was weak. Jack just isn't that interesting to me, and I was disappointed that they again failed to utilize the properties that they probably paid too much for.
I liked the one Scarezone, but it was far too short and oddly underpopulated with characters. The chainsaw dudes over by Earthquake were nice, but you can only do so much with 7 or 8 guys.
I'm not disappointed that I went, but I hope people who keep repeating "oh, it always sucks the first weekend" are really accurate. This is the first year I've gotten a FF pass, and this is the first year I've questioned whether I wanted to do the event a second time.
Oh, and just in case anyone wants to accuse me of being too negative, let me give one positive: the drink of the year is better than last year. The mix includes several flavored rums, citric flavoring, and Full Throttle. I don't generally drink Full Throttle, so I was concerned that it would taint the overall flavor. I was wrong. Good drink.
Entering the Elm Street house (after getting drenched by a five minute rainstorm - yikes) there was a good familiar vibe. Everything looked right. But it didn't feel like they really did much with the property other than that, a few instances of name-dropping, and an appearance by Freddy at the end of it. What I would have liked to have seen was some sort of recreation of any of the kills from the movies. I'm not asking for the world - I don't need to see "chick turned into a cockroach," but what if they had set up a mattress with a hole in it, legs sticking up out of the hole, and put a blood cannon underneath launching muck up to the ceiling (my favorite Elm Street death - and the most disturbing since the next scene of the movie shows buckets in the floor downstairs from where the blood dripped through the ceiling). Or how about audio (other than the creepy piano motif) that brought back memories of the film? I don't recall hearing the "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you" theme, nor did I hear the nails-on-a-chalkboard screeching that Freddy commonly would do in the films. Heck, why didn't we walk through a boiler room?
(I understand that I'm not Universal Creative and coming up with this sort of stuff is silly, but I'm trying to think of stuff that really stands out from the Elm Street films. The house itself didn't really vary much from what you'd find in any of the other houses as far as the basic locations. I don't want to sound like I'm playing the "I coulda done better" card, but I have to assume that the folks who designed these things at least sat down and watched these movies with a notepad)
Psychoscarapy was next, and I thought it was pretty good. The Leatherface house didn't really meet my expectations, but I couldn't really decide if they were doing a house based on the original Chainsaw movies or the remakes. As a result, I'm willing to cut them a little slack for not having Grandpa in there (and while there was a crotchety guy in the beginning, fans of the original Chainsaw films know that Grandpa is barely even alive and wouldn't be yelling at people). I would have also liked to have seen a bone room, with different common household items built out of bones.
The reason I'm really harping on the Elm Street and Leatherface houses is because I don't think they got their money's worth out of the properties. Seeing the character pop up at the end of the house is great, but the buildup to that just didn't feel that strong. Maybe there were limitations to what they could and could not do (notably with Leatherface, but Freddy's been a New Line character since day one. It was him and those dang turtles that built that studio). If that was the case, I honestly feel like they'd be better off developing more of their own characters (and maybe then they could give Jack another year or two off).
Moving onward.
Bill and Ted is always a hit or miss show. When it hits, it hits good. When it misses...hoboy. This was a hit year for me. There were 4 or 5 really strong laughs, as opposed to some years where they barely warranted a snicker. It probably helped that most of their targets this year were severe tabloid residents. I wonder how the script will change with yesterday's Britney news...the only absolute bomb of the show was the inclusion of two Grindhouse related gags (one involves a "deleted scene," the other involves a character). Grindhouse was a massive bomb theatrically, and the DVD hasn't been released yet (at least not Rodriguez's portion, which featured the aforementioned character).
Rocky Horror tribute was very well done, even with the deletion of two of the better songs (Meat Loaf's song and Frank's last song). Frank, Riff Raff, Columbia and Magenta were all dead on. I was less impressed with Brad and Janet, but they're squares anyway.
The "Freak Show" was really more of a magic act, but that's not a bad thing. I liked the guy, but I don't think he really got the audience into it until his very last gag (which involved EVP and was fascinating even without the gag). His act was very much one of those self-conscious acts (think of The Amazing Jonathan, just not THAT good) and I think the audience was a little too ADHD for that kind of routine to work.
The Carnage show was weak. Jack just isn't that interesting to me, and I was disappointed that they again failed to utilize the properties that they probably paid too much for.
I liked the one Scarezone, but it was far too short and oddly underpopulated with characters. The chainsaw dudes over by Earthquake were nice, but you can only do so much with 7 or 8 guys.
I'm not disappointed that I went, but I hope people who keep repeating "oh, it always sucks the first weekend" are really accurate. This is the first year I've gotten a FF pass, and this is the first year I've questioned whether I wanted to do the event a second time.
Oh, and just in case anyone wants to accuse me of being too negative, let me give one positive: the drink of the year is better than last year. The mix includes several flavored rums, citric flavoring, and Full Throttle. I don't generally drink Full Throttle, so I was concerned that it would taint the overall flavor. I was wrong. Good drink.
