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RingMaster's Big Honkin' Haunt Trip Report (Now With More Words!)


RingMaster
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Fun fact: Sogeti is Italian for Haunt. Not really, but the name sounds kinda spooky though.

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Not as spooky as what's on the other side of this gate...

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Anyone else getting odd flashbacks of the days when CBS owned the park? *shudders*

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So it's that time of year when the park gets all Haunt-ified and whatnot. Here's a shot of some two-bit magician keeping the Overlord's stage warm. Which makes sense considering how GOD AWFUL COLD IT WAS TODAY.

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International Street is decked out with cool tombstones and mausoleums. This gateway is a perfect example of what to expect.

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By 7, this whole area becomes overrun with zombies and chicks who look like statues but aren't really statues.

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See, back in the day, there was this neat maze called Cemetery Drive in Tower Gardens. It was a fun little thing that didn't do no harm, but someone decided to kick it out of its original home just so a bunch of raggedy scarecrows could ransack the place. Now the graveyard ghouls have to fend for themselves. This guy is stuck selling lanterns.

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This is how everyone looks when a big wind comes sweeping through the park.

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Speaking of wind, WindSeeker was down for the better part of the day and didn't open back up til around Haunt time. Same with Drop Tower. Kind of an oxymoron when you can't open up because of wind and your name has WIND in the title.

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There's a couple of dead baby jokes hidden in that sandbox somewhere, but I'm not set to dig them out now...

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Even the undead need to keep in tip-top shape; those teenage girls get faster and faster each year.

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This should be posted in every learning facility immediately. It's never too early to be prepared for a zombie apocalypse.

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According to the sign, Ohio is The State of Disrepair. I was set to call it the State of Denial seeing as how the Bucks got shut out earlier today, but then I forgot the Bengals have been in disrepair for years now.

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Let's take a quick peek at some of the spooky stuff, shall we? Let's start with one of the two new mazes, Holiday Horror.

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In there lies every single bad experience you had on a holiday. Girlfriend dumped you on Valentine's Day? Check. Burnt down your garage setting off fireworks? Yep. Your coworker still blackmailing you so those photos he took of you embarrassing yourself at the Christmas party never find their way into everyone's email folder ? Oh yeah.

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Tombstone Terror-tory....and moving on.

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Cut-Throat Cove. Better than Pirates 4.

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Kings Island has a real bad bug problem. First it's carpenter bees making a nest in every trash can in the park. Now it's giant spiders making a nest out of the water tower. Let's just hope The Racer doesn't become the epicenter of a termite onslaught.

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Part Two Coming Soon

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Good photos, and very nice captions to go along with them!

According to the sign, Ohio is The State of Disrepair. I was set to call it the State of Denial seeing as how the Bucks got shut out earlier today, but then I forgot the Bengals have been in disrepair for years now.

You must have shut the game off early; the Buckeyes did score a late touchdown. Michigan State won by a score of 10–7.

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This is Ed. Ed would like to welcome you to part two of the Big Honkin' Haunt Trip Report. Ed would also like some clothes because he's freezing to death. Seriously, I thought Kings Island would never stoop so low as to have their zombified animals without the bare essentials, such as clothing, shelter, and human brains. Where's PETZA when you need them?

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Okay, zombie cruelty jokes aside, Nightmare Alley is the new fear zone in Planet Snoopy.

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Jack now stands guard at one of the entrances to the zone.

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Deceiving smile is deceiving.

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These scrims are cool. Also, the kiddie carousel stays on and running through the night. Creepy indeed.

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The area may look barren when it comes to props (especially compared to the cemetery zone on I-Street), but NA actually rivals scare zones one would see at Universal's Halloween Horror Nights. It's even more true when the area is in full swing come Haunt time, with fog, lights, and monsters.

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Also neat is that the fog machines here are covered with themed boxes. It's the little things like this that make the zone that much more spectacular.

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Doesn't look that delicious to me...

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Time to take the hearse and roll out to another area of the park. Much quicker than walking, and it can also be used as a battering ram when pushing through crowds.

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So we first went to GatorHead's Meat Market for some lunch. It's cheaper than most of the food at the park, and, unlike SOME food being sold (I'm looking at you, emu leg pretending to be a turkey leg), it's all real human. No fillers or artificial flavors.

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Oh, and if you get a chance, try the Blonde. Quite a delicacy. Though don't eat too much of it in one sitting; your IQ might temporarily drop a few points.

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We then hit up the Shipwreck Bar and Grill. Several Hurricanes, a couple Bloody Marys, and a Diet Coke later, we attempted to walk back to the car.

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Unfortunately, we got lost and wound up somewhere between the super tall wooden-looking thing and item #51.

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So we asked the big skull from Castle Grayskull for directions. He belted out a haunting spiel describing a most glorious production involving show tunes, jazz hands, and MC Hammer taking place in the Festhaus...in a mere 15 minutes as well!

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It was then that we realized it was just a prerecorded spiel over the park speakers and not a hollow skull prop with a fetish for Broadway musicals suddenly talking to us.

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So they dug up Graveyard Shift after burying it ten years ago, polished it up, and put it inside the Festhaus. See, Hollywood isn't the only group doing the whole remake schtick.

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It's got ze dancing girls in it, something every show is required to have these days.

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It definitely shows its age as the majority of the songs used don't go past the year 2000 save for a Black Eyed Peas song at the end, the same year the original was made. Still, it's a great show, if you can get past the fact that they rework classic songs to fit the theme of the show by changing the lyrics (such as Love SHOCK as compared to Love SHACK), and you haven't been completely numb to the park strictly doing musical revue shows.

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So we leave Festhaus to find smoke EVERYWHERE. Apparently that two-bit magician earlier flubbed a spell and made all the smoking areas disappear, therefore bringing the park back to its pre-restrictive smoking area days. Yes, that's how bad it was back then.

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Needless to say, he got canned, the smoking areas returned, and the secondhand smoke quickly dissipated. Only to have the park turn on the fog machines almost immediately after.

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But that can only mean one thing...

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GIANT BUNNIES HAVE INVADED Kings Island!!!!

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Okay, so it's just the one bunny, but still, how awesome is it to have a giant, demonic bunny rabbit wreaking havoc amongst parkgoers? They should have, like, a whole maze devoted to nothing but evil rabid werebunnies. Like Wolf Pack, but with bunnies. Armed with chainsaws. Why chainsaws? Because nothing's scarier than a giant bunny wearing a vest running around with an 18" chainsaw.

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Moving on.

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Massacre Manor is still up for sale even after seven long years. Maybe the tacky Halloween decorations scared some potential buyers away.

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Club Blood has a new mural adorned on its wall. Looks better than a bland wall, that's for sure. Maybe the park will call them back to to do something with that bigger brown building in Rivertown.

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Wolf Pack is now officially awesome this year. Why? Two words: NO TWILIGHT. Gone are the shirtless actors with dog faces, only to be replaced with real, 100% all-American werewolf.

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Remember how we mentioned earlier about the park canning that two-bit magician after he made all the smoking areas disappear? As a parting gift, he cast a spell on Mysteria to make it suck. While nowhere near the level of suck last year's Death Row had, it's still at a pretty high level. Higher than Transformers 3, but lower than Bucky Larson.

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I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...

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And we end this with a midget skeleton clutching a pole. Why? Because we can. And our camera/phone died so there's no more pictures for you to see. Sorry.

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Written Edition with reviews of all haunts except for Club Blood, CornStalkers, and Cut-Throat Cove coming tomorrow.

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So we first went to GatorHead's Meat Market for some lunch. It's cheaper than most of the food at the park, and, unlike SOME food being sold (I'm looking at you, emu leg pretending to be a turkey leg), it's all real human. No fillers or artificial flavors.

So glad y'all stopped in and had a bite! At Slaughter House we pride ourselves in serving the freshest USDA Grade F meat allowable by law. Just don't ask us the source, 'cause we don't ask their names...

Great TR, can't wait to read your impressions of the haunts in your next edtion.

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^^ You're right that new shading and dimensionality was added to all of the coasters (such as the visible texture on Vortex's track compared to the original 2011 map and the highlights on Diamondback), and Dinosaurs Alive was also added where it had once been just a logo.

But beastfan11 was spot on about the shrubbery foliage. :P

And again I'm surprised by the changes Kings Island makes mid-season... I suppose they just made sure their second order of park map's included a few changes. Very strange, but I'm not complaining [for once?].

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Sorry, got a bit tied up during the week, so here's the reviews for the haunts. Club Blood, CornStalkers, and Cut-Throat Cove were the only attractions I wasn't able to get done. And for those who don't know my rating scale:

SCREAM (Excellent)

SHRIEK (Great)

STARTLE (Good/OK)

KNIFE (Bad)

AXE (Horrible)

Also, I'm putting up my ratings from 2010 (if applicable) to show if an attraction has improved, stayed the same, or gotten worse. Enjoy!

HOLIDAY HORROR

NEW for 2011

(Peanuts Playhouse - Planet Snoopy)

For the way the Haunt has been handled the past several years, seeing an attraction of this caliber become a part of the event is both a welcome addition and a bit of a head-scratcher. Holiday Horror is predominantly a humor house, a far cry from the serious overtones other mazes emit, like Urgent Scare and Slaughter House, so to have a maze you can have fun in and laugh at is much needed. It's also confusing as it's a very gore-less maze, and the past four attractions the park has built under the Haunt moniker have the blood and gore as their mainstay. Anyway, this maze has you traversing through several major holidays gone completely awry, from New Year's to Christmas. Holiday Horror is in the same vein as Wolf Pack, where most of the scenery is hand-crafted and hand-painted, and makes for a very beautiful maze. I hope the park continues in this direction when it comes to designing attractions. That said, some scenes are quite barren when it comes to detail and design, like the beginning New Year's scene and a room dedicated to birthdays, but the rest are astounding to look at, such as an oversized flower garden with a giant Easter basket off to the side, a backyard on fire from fireworks, and a living room filled with snow because a sleigh has crashed through the roof. The only other major problem with HH is that the talent isn't given a lot of opportunities for clever and effective scares. Almost all scares come from behind a curtain, and more often than not, actors have to stand in the middle of the room as statues, something that gets annoying after seeing the same technique five times in a row. Aside from those two complaints, the rest of the attraction is really well done, and hilarious to boot. My absolute fave is the Presidents' Day room, though some might say the masks used for that scene are borderline ridiculous. Still, Holiday Horror is worth a try if you're tired of dark and depressing themes of the other mazes, and also to check out how beautiful some of the scenes are. If you go on a Saturday, wait until it gets dark as this is the only so-called "indoor" haunt not actually in a building, but a daytime trip would also be good just to see how much detail went into some of the larger rooms.

RATING : STARTLE

MYSTERIA

NEW for 2011

(Warehouse 13 - X-Base)

Um...what can I say about this attraction that hasn't already been mentioned by everyone else? It's not a horrible maze as some have claimed it to be, but it's not a good maze either. I will say that it's a different experience than last year's Death Row by a long shot. A VERY long shot. That said, you're still getting the exact same layout as has been since the maze debuted way back in 2001, with chain-link mazes and fog, except every mirror that used to be in the maze has been covered up with plasterboard. Also, it's foggier. Much MUCH foggier. Take the fog bridge from Tombstone Terrortory and stretch it out so that it encompasses an entire maze. That's what Mysteria is all about. Oh, and all the talent wear these weird bodysuits (take a look at the second to last pic on the Picture Edition to see what one looks like). It's less of a disorienting maze and more of a nuisance trying to find your way through the fog and hoping you don't run into a wall or a fence or an actor. At least the talent is trying to scare people; last year's all-girl ensemble just stood there and was pretty much nonexistent. The cast is also quite acrobatic, as some were trying to contort themselves and do crab-walks and whatnot. My biggest problem with this is that this is just another basic retheme of a previous attraction (Death Row), except now they tried to pull a fast one on us and said this was a completely new experience, which it wasn't. It would have been better if it were a completely different layout, with clever tricks and gags to really disorient guests, even going so far as to jack pieces from other haunts (the Scarefactory Hallway 2 Hell wall system in Holiday Horror would work much better here). But as it stands, this is just a really poor attempt at creating a disorienting maze, and doesn't come close to being considered a "new" attraction. But hey, it's definitely better than Death Row last year, although that really isn't saying much...

2010 RATING (as Death Row) : AXE

2011 RATING : KNIFE

WOLF PACK

(Son of Beast Station - Action Zone)

WOW. What a completely different experience this was compared to last year. Gone are the shirtless Dalmatians and lackluster talent, replaced with fully-clothed talent with big werewolf masks that are energetic and on-fire. I had gone into this hearing about the change that everyone had a mask on, but I wasn't sure if the Twilight references remained to bog the maze down. Thankfully, that is not the case, and Wolf Pack has jumped into the superstar rank alongside attractions such as Urgent Scare and Red-Beard's Revenge. Things seem a bit slow and not as scary in the first half of the maze, but once you enter the cabin, all hell breaks loose, and wolves are popping out at you every two seconds. Everything about this maze is awesome, and definitely worth whatever wait it has at the moment. It has now risen up to the ranks of stellar attractions such as Urgent Scare and Red Beard's Revenge.

2010 RATING : STARTLE

2011 RATING : SCREAM

SLAUGHTER HOUSE

(Stunt Crew Grill - Action Zone)

While I'm nowhere near the biggest fan of a slaughterhouse theme, let alone extreme blood and gore being the centerpiece of a maze, I will have to admit Kings Island's Slaughter House maze is starting to grow on me. Even though the maze is still a disjointed mess, with no clear cut flow from one scene to the next, props that just don't work properly or are mistimed, and rooms that are too open and without a lot of props. The reason I'm starting to like the attraction more is because it's now the new Death Row - the maze with a sub-par design element, but an amazing cast of actors. Every group you see come out of the maze is running for the hills, and that's even before the guy with the chainsaw gets to the group! The cast really knows how to get people moving and moving FAST throughout the attraction, which is possibly why the wait for this maze is so darn short (five minutes at the busiest time of the night on a SATURDAY?!). As little props as there are in the maze, they use every nook and cranny to hide and pop out at just the right moment, the darkness adding another layer of sneakiness. The House also has their own batch of unique characters the actors themselves created, much like how the original Death Row/Asylum cast created theirs, from Sam the Butcher to even Granny running the store. If you're looking to get scared, or for some fresh quality cuts, just come on down to GatorHead's Gore-met & Grub!

2010 RATING : STARTLE

2011 RATING : SHRIEK

URGENT SCARE

(Action Theater - Coney Mall)

WindSeeker unknowingly happened to tear out two-thirds of arguably one of the best haunted attractions ever created for Haunt at Kings Island – Urgent Scare. Both outdoor sections of the maze have been taken out, leaving only the actual hospital-themed portion still standing. However, given the fact that in years past, most talent stationed outdoors get put inside when numbers are low, it’s understandable and favorable that the two sections mostly devoid of monsters have been cut. Also cut is the photo-op booth that was at the end of the haunt ruining whatever finale US had in store (it now lays at the beginning of Holiday Horror). But for everything they decided to cut, they also managed to bring the attraction back to the level it was back when it first debuted, albeit without the opening punch of the outdoor riot scene. Everything about this attraction is done almost pitch-perfect, from clever hiding spots to the soundtrack to the lighting and everything. They mix open areas with tight corridors, bright rooms with dark rooms, and chaotic scenes with eerily quiet set pieces. I also neglected to mention the fact that almost everyone now wears a latex appliance or mask. The masks are more of the ones that move with your face and your every expression, so the actors actually look like diseased monstrosities instead of just green spray paint on their faces. Also, the exclusion of the photo-op also means that both the beginning and ending scenes are now back, with the finale scare being awesome and a great way to end a maze.

2010 RATING : STARTLE

2011 RATING : SCREAM

MASSACRE MANOR

(Attitudes Warehouse - Coney Mall)

Simply put, this is a dull maze. There isn't anything in here to place this attraction as a bad maze, but then again there isn't anything in here to place it as a great one either. As one of the two oldest attractions the Haunt has to offer at ten years old (CarnEvil being the second), it is definitely showing its age, even though its last major "upgrade" was five years ago when it undertook the dual themes of the house being for sale and psychotic Emily character. Both of which still aren't necessarily strong themes for the maze, especially now that the realtor character is apparently gone (he/she wasn't present at the time that I went through). But if the house listing portion of the attraction's theme is, in fact, gone, then the description needs to be changed to bring Emily's insanity into fruition. And her insanity needs to be better detailed; hanging pictures up of her holding random weapons is a poor way of getting the story across when the talent in the house aren't holding the story up either. Scenic wise, this is similar to Holiday Horror, with some rooms nicely detailed, and others big and barren. Massacre Manor also doesn't have a lot of talent inside its walls for some reason, although that's probably more attributed to the fact that Haunt season is also Homecoming/High School football season, so more minors are prone to call off, but the talent that is in here is relatively aggressive and in your face, which is good. However, I think the Manor has had a long enough run and needs to finally be put into foreclosure.

2010 RATING : STARTLE

2011 RATING : STARTLE

CARNEVIL

(Enchanted Theater - Planet Snoopy)

I love (scary) clowns. Therefore, CarnEvil holds a special place in my heart as just an all-around fun haunt to walk through and see other people get scared. That said, some aspects of the maze didn't sit well with me over the years, such as the annoying music that plagued the attraction for the better part of eight years, years when the talent was not into their roles and gave off a lackluster performance, and an almost indirect refusal on the park's part to give the 3D aspect of the maze a much needed facelift; it's still running on TerrorVisions 1.0 when both other local 3D haunts and Halloween Productions' own TerrorVisions (the same company that built the original Circus of Horrors for Kings Island) use newer and better 3D techniques. With all that said, however, CarnEvil bounced back up last year after a dismal 2009 run with a new soundtrack and much more enthusiastic cast. This year, the crew is even more amped up than last year's, and, just like Urgent Scare this year, all of the talent have latex appliances and masks instead of simple blacklight paint on their faces. The crew seems to more resemble that of Wolf Pack, what with popping in and out of corners, getting in your face, and just being all around aggressive, which is a plus. I just wish they would have created a brand new layout for CarnEvil; this and Massacre Manor are the two oldest mazes of the lineup at ten years old, and it's time it either got an overhaul or a new maze replace it, and have the clowns join the carnie freaks in Nightmare Alley.

2010 RATING : SHRIEK

2011 RATING : SHRIEK

TOMBSTONE TERRORTORY

(KI Railroad/White Water Canyon - Rivertown)

I was never a fan of this attraction when it debuted as Headless Hollow way back in 2005. It was a clever concept of using the train as part of the attraction, but a combination of two lines (with one being unbearably long) for one maze and the actual maze portion resorting to walking past crates and boxes have kept this attraction from ever becoming good. Fast forward six years later with a thematic change, and my patience is wearing thin for Tombstone. Even with them FINALLY doing a train robbery scene as the excuse to get everyone off the train, it's not enough to warrant a trek through the Terror-tory, as it's the exact same layout as it always has been and probably always will be. What's worse is that this particular run-through saw the entire first section leading up to the fog bridge devoid of talent, and many large chunks feeling the same effect. Apparently, some new system is in place which has minors taking breaks from 8 to 10, which has a disastrous effect on your maze if its comprised almost entirely of minors. I've never been a supporter of having minors working Haunt because of a rule that they have to leave early, which in turn means they simply just clock out and go ride rides and come through the maze. The situation of not having enough talent in Tombstone because of the break rule didn't contribute to my score, because I saw the same thing occur when going through Holiday Horror at night after going through this. If there's one maze I would love to see go, it would be this one. Aside from the talent in here, of which they're still a good cast given what all they have to work with, there's just nothing redeeming in here and they need to put an end to this attraction.

2010 RATING : KNIFE

2011 RATING : KNIFE

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

NEW for 2011

(Planet Snoopy)

As per mentioned above in the Picture Edition, Nightmare Alley is the new fear zone encompassing most of Planet Snoopy. I say most of simply because most of the kids' area is still blocked off (everything behind Snoopy Boutique along with the path from RFYLCB to Flying Ace). Still, there is a lot of prime real estate to be used for the zone, which is themed to an old-world carnival. The name and the description for the zone completely throw people off about what to expect with NA, something the park should remedy. But it's but a minor complaint considering everything else is well done with Nightmare Alley. I described in one of the pictures how NA rivals scare zones seen at Halloween Horror Nights, which is all true. I literally felt as if I were walking through something Universal Studios put together, and not Kings Island. It's astounding. Although it's nothing more than just colored boxes, hay bales, and a few popcorn stands, you don't need a whole lot to create an amazing fear zone. Heck, the roamers and creepers have gotten by with the bare minimum for years! All it takes is a group of performers to really wow the audience and it's a hit, which is more than enough to say about the talent seen in Nightmare Alley. Your standard freak show fare is seen here, which isn't all that exciting given that's what one would see with this kind of theme, but the cast do a great job of working their environment and using distraction scares. If there's one complaint I have with NA, it's that only a small portion is used, from Snoopy Boutique to Blue Ice Cream, whereas the whole area stretches to both Boo Blasters and the entrance to Holiday Horror. They need more talent to cover the dead spots the zone has, but as it stands, Nightmare Alley is a great experience, and hopefully the park will learn to copy its success and make more to put in other areas.

RATING : SHRIEK

NECROPOLIS

NEW for 2011

(International Street)

Okay, so this fear zone doesn't technically have a name, let alone not even having any sort of recognition for it being an actual attraction. Which is sad because this is the underdog attraction of the whole event. You would think that a change of scenery would throw off a cast from being effective in their scares, but they adapted to their surroundings very quickly and are a force to be reckoned with. I was afraid that the statue women would lose their ability to be scary now that they're completely out in the open with hundreds of guests walking by, but it still works and they can still get people running at a moment's notice. The scenery really holds up well within the confines of I-Street, especially with the makeshift gates and openings. I also love the detail in boarding up individual windows on the facades, and the lighting and sound effects when walking down a street. Kings Island made a big mistake not including this on the list of attractions and on the map; it definitely needs to be seen to be believed.

2010 RATING (as Cemetery Drive) : SHRIEK

2011 RATING : SCREAM

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The House also has their own batch of unique characters the actors themselves created, much like how the original Death Row/Asylum cast created theirs, from Sam the Butcher to even Granny running the store.

Uh oh... you called Mama "Granny". I don't think she's gonna like that! Mama don't like her boys to think about girls in that way, so she ain't no Granny yet!

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  • 9 months later...

Ringmaster , I am just now seeing this and i want to personally say thank you from everyone at nightmare alley for all of your kind words . going into this we were not sure how people would like it and we really worked our asses off every night. so once again thank you so very much. (dirty carny NA)

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