By Cheralyn Barrington, Layout Editor
It seems that Busch Gardens was going for sex appeal rather than a scare factor with this year’s Howl-O-Scream theme.
The theme centered on a jaded, broken-hearted, enraged rock star that plans to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend by subjecting him to physical pain. The theme itself does not seem extremely frightening, as the woman, Sylvie, who is supposedly the park’s antagonist, is quite small in stature and holds a guitar as a weapon. Sylvie is the lead singer of the band My X, and in addition to My X being the park’s theme, the band also has a haunted house and performs twice nightly for about 15 minutes at a time.
Upon entering the park, the event’s theme is immediately evident, as the guest is greeted by a giant tower of instruments and televisions while tortured-looking band groupies dressed in rock star attire gather around with miserable looks on their faces. These “scare-actors” are set throughout the park to jump out at and mingle with the guests. In comparison to last year, there seem to be fewer scare-actors, as there are many areas of the park that are poorly lit, but do not contain any costumed workers. Additionally, the scare-zones seem to contain fewer decorations and actors as well. The event seems to have been done on a tighter budget this year than last. Regardless of this, it is still amusing to peruse each scare-zone, look at the decorations, and interact with the scare-actors who all play specific parts.
The biggest let down is probably that most of the haunted houses were the same ones the park used last year, just with slightly altered names. For instance, the Taste of Blood vampire-themed house from last year is now called Taste of Blood: a Different Vein. The new house that got added is a My X themed house that is decorated very well, but does not take very much time to get through. The houses were all well decorated and elaborate, but not much was changed from last year. This made the houses’ scares predictable for anyone who had attended Howl-O-Scream the year before. However, the houses still provide reasons to scream, as the actors within the houses jump out from dark corners and bang wooden windows open and closed. Additionally, the decorations in houses such as Death Row Vengeance: No Escape, and Delta Epsilon Delta: Extreme Rush (DEDer), allowed the guests to step into frightening situations such as witnessing electric chair executions, and extreme hazing.
Overall, Howl-O-Scream is worth attending for a good time, especially if it was not visited last year. Even if one attended last year, it can still be a ton of fun; just do not expect many surprises.
