ANALYSIS: Ghoul Bros. does a great job of taking their location in a shopping plaza and turning it into a creepy haunted experience that does a good job of quickly making you forget where you are. As soon as you enter the building it's like you're transported to a nightmare. Large creepy statues, dark lighting, and freaky sounds are the norm, and that's before you even enter the haunt proper.
The space, animatronics, and the makeup/costuming are all solid at Ghoul Bros. They are going for some creepy looks and they hit them very well. You're not gonna see many cheap plastic effects here. There are plenty of actors around every corner, although for the most part they just jump out at you and don't spend much time talking to you. This was a slow day and the actors had the opportunity to take some time with groups if they wanted to. Unfortunately they didn't do much, which led to the haunt taking a lot less time than it may otherwise have.
A few actors went above and beyond, however. A demon in black did a great job scaring the friend who was with me and ended up following us through multiple scenes. Unfortunately that didn't end up with any sort of big payoff, as at one point we looked back and he was just gone. Mr. Tickles the clown was the best actor of the night, freaking out guests as they came in and left. He even followed us through the parking lot and did a great job interacting with us. The actors in the haunt could have learned from him, because I would have loved to see that type of interaction throughout the haunt.
Unfortunately this is a very short haunt, clocking in at only about 13 minutes. They added some new pieces this year, but there's still a lot of building to be done to make this a top-tier attraction. The costuming is there, the scenes are well done, and the animatronics are a lot of fun (the giant clown is top-notch), but this haunt needs quite a bit more length and more actors willing to do something more than jump out at you. (J.MO) |
|
