Halloweekends at Cedar Point
If you have read any of the reviews on this site for theme parks or events with multiple attractions, you will know that they tend to go over every attraction separately and will have a final overall grade at the end. Not for this one. Why should I put a lot of effort and care into an event that doesn’t put any into it? Halloweekends is just a terrible event, and honestly is such a severe disappointment.
Where to even begin with this one? How about the extreme crowds? Now, let it be known that I will never give a negative score about a house or park having huge crowds, because why can I fault a place for being popular? Where I will fault the park is how they handle the crowds. For a place and an event that is so incredibly popular, it feels like Cedar Point doesn’t know what to do when people show up. Security feels non-existent with lines being a free-for-all with multiple cases of line cutting occurring that we personally saw. Security was informed by people in front of us, and despite multiple people stating that people cut in, they did nothing. The lack of ability to find out any line times was also frustrating. Maybe we were missing something in the app, but not being able to know wait times for houses is brutal when every line is so long.
How about the scarezones, or as I like to call them, fog-filled areas with actors standing in the center of the path occasionally saying “boo” at those passing by. Seriously, is popping a Xanax a requirement for actors before their shift? I have never collectively seen a group that just doesn’t seem to be into it. This isn’t helped by the designs of zones that have decent to good set design, that are hard to see due to the insane amount of fog. A lot of fog is not a problem, but better lighting would certainly make it easier to see what work was put into the zones. It isn’t like the actors are using the fog for decent cover for scares or anything.
The houses are mostly bad. Having gone through ever single house, I don’t think anyone in the group experienced any scares really at all. The set design for the houses are all generic and feel like not much thought went into them. The actors are basically just extensions of the sets, offering no energy. Eerie Estate is the only house that seems to put together decent sets and actors, making it feel like the only house that got money put into it. The only other house we found entertaining was Deprivation, which is basically just a maze in the dark. At least it allowed for some fun in the middle of the event. The Slaughter House set the standard for bad houses. So generic that it feels like the same props and signs appear in every single room, with actors that are more guides to point you to the next room than anything else. It is the single worst house I’ve done. Other houses like Zombie High School and Hexed aren’t terrible but aren’t anything more than mediocre.
So is there anything worthwhile from this event. Yes, and it is Midnight Syndicate. The long running Gothic-horror duo has a live show at the event, and it is simply incredible. Not just playing music on stage, the duo have created a story that makes it feel like you are viewing a short horror film. Featuring on and off-stage action, this story has large amounts of suspense and even some good scares, all with a backdrop of Midnight Syndicate performing their perfectly creepy music. The best Halloween show I have seen at any park, and an absolute must do.
Halloweekends is just bad. It comes off like Cedar Point knows people are going to show up in large droves no matter what and have decided not to put much effort into the actual attractions. You will find much better thrills and scares riding the great collection of rides at the park than subjecting yourself to any of the houses. The overall score would be lower, but Midnight Syndicate are a saving grace worth a full point alone. A lone positive light at a mostly unenjoyable event.
1.5 / 5
