Greetings,
Phantomaniacs! It is time once again for my annual recap of my trip
to Atlanta’s greatest Halloween attraction, the Atlanta Zombie
Apocalypse!
Before
I get any further, I want to make sure you know that I work with one
of the creators of AZA and have known him for years. I consider the
guy a friend and a great talent. But that does not mean I’m going
to do any turd polishing. If you read my recap from last year,
you can see that I’m pretty straightforward about the zombie shoot.
While I admit that I probably tend to go a little easier on folks
that I know, I still try to be as objective as possible.
Also,
I won’t be spoiling anything here. There are two walk(run)-throughs
at AZA. A mystery haunt and “Return of the Curse of the Undead”.
I’ll discuss them both, but only in as much detail as I feel is
absolutely necessary. And for those looking for a straight review;
well, this isn’t really it. This is more of a narrative of AZA and
the events surrounding it. Honestly, all you need to know is that
it’s a unique attraction that has to be experienced to be
understood.
Every
year we look forward to the night we can go to AZA. We find a sitter,
get a group together, load up on adult beverages, and head out. Only
this year I was working Monstrosity Championship Wrestling at Six
Flags and then heading straight over to AZA, so I – for the first
time ever – experienced AZA stone cold sober.
Side
Note: I was discussing this with someone the other day. I don’t
know what this says about me or my perception of the world or my
mental health or whatever, but I enjoy almost everything to a greater
degree when I have some alcohol in my system. I think it’s from
being raised in such a massively uptight household and being pretty
uptight myself. I feel like the straight edge people or folks who
don’t drink or whatever must just be freer spirits than me. Or they
aren’t actually having fun and just don’t realize it. I dunno. My
point here is that booze is great.
I
was all kinds of sweaty and gross after four hours of walking around
a wrestling ring outdoors in four layers of clothing and a wrestling
mask:
So
after the show I went to Queen of Crunk and Bear’s place to take a
shower. I cannot possibly express how much I appreciate them letting
me do this. There’s a shower at Six Flags, but I’m just not a guy
who does public showers. Plus, I have learned something absolutely
fascinating since I have been working the MCW shows at Six Flags –
the combined smell of zombie paint, sweaty humans, twenty different
kinds of aerosol deodorant and twelve different kinds of colognes
creates the worst smell you could possibly imagine. This stench is
the Voltron of olfactory nightmares, with legs formed from Drakkar
and CK1, arms from Right Guard and Axe Body Spray, a torso of pure
human ass funk, and a Blazing Sword of Hi Karate. The head is made
from Quozzy Quozzborne’s eyeball sweat. It would take a giant
Robeast made of nothing but Febreze to even put a dent in that
stinking miasma.
So
I really didn’t want to hang around. As a matter of fact, I didn’t
even change out of my gear on Saturday because I knew I was going
straight to somewhere I could change.
Queen
of Crunk and Bear live in what appears to be a huge military complex
with a fancy central garden and pool. The apartments are super nice
and their auxiliary shower is great. After I showered and put on
fresh clothes it was pretty close to the time we were all supposed to
be meeting at AZA and I hadn’t eaten yet. I told Bear I was
probably going to just go to McDonald’s and he got this look on his
face that healthy people get when you tell them you’re going to
McDonald’s. Well, healthy people and food snobs (I believe Bear is
more of the former). He said there were plenty of better places to
eat that were just as close and gave me a list. I thanked him and
acted all excited about eating at some place better than McDonald’s
and then went to McDonald’s. And super-sized my meal.
I
texted Mrs. Troublemaker to let her know I was running a little late
and she said that they were, too. She was coming down with Beau and
Sally since she’s seen my act and doesn’t need to be sitting
around a hot arena all day watching me sweat.
We
had agreed to meet at the paintball facility where AZA is staged at 8
PM. I got there at about 8:30 thanks to my GPS deciding to direct me
out onto 85 and then 285 rather than taking me through downtown. I
felt like that was wrong, but I have a terrible sense of direction
and no ability to judge proximity, so I didn’t fight it. I did
spend the drive wondering how I ever managed to get anywhere on short
notice prior to owning GPS-enabled devices. I remember getting lost a
lot and making lots of turns.
Pro
Tip: Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse is a fun and amazing Halloween
experience. Essential, I’d say. But they are there to make money.
As such, they realized a couple of years ago that they could charge
for parking. So remember to bring a few bucks cash for that. I told
the attendant I thought it was ingenious. He said most people didn’t
feel that way. I’m all for capitalism.
The
AZA compound is basically a massive block of offices. When you arrive
you will see a central area with t-shirts, snacks, and picnic tables.
To the right of that is ticket sales and further right is the
entrance to the mystery haunt. To the left and all the way around the
side are the Zombie Killer and Return of the Curse of the Undead
attractions. I won’t be talking about Zombie Killer this year
because I wasn’t crazy about it last year and, quite frankly, funds
are super tight right now. Between all of the normal October expenses
and how much it’s costing me to work MCW this month (yeah, you read
that right) I just didn’t have the extra to spend on what might or
might not have been an improved zombie shooting experience. That’s
not even considering the fact that Matty has loaded this month and
next month up to be the most expensive in the history of the MOTUC
line.
But
there was no way I was going to miss out on the two main haunts.
“Return of the Curse of the Undead” is a sequel to 2012’s
excellent slightly Evil
Dead-themed
adventure. I was excited about returning to that world. But the main
draw of 2013 had to be the mystery haunt. I had heard whispers that
this was some amazing new innovation in haunted houses. Everybody I
know that was working AZA was very excited about it and – most
amazingly – I hadn’t heard anything.
Once
the rest of the crew arrived – Mrs. Troublemaker, Beau, Sally,
Queen of Crunk, Bear, and Little Nikki – we got our tickets and
went straight to the line for the mystery haunt, which was marked
only with a slightly ominous “?”.
Pro
Tips: The perfect number of people for a group at AZA is ten. If you
can make your group that size you will have the best time. Otherwise
you run the risk of having douchebags merged with your group. By
which I mean the sort of people who walk through a haunt pointing out
that everything is fake or just generally not getting into it. I
don’t know why these people spend all that money just to be a drag
and clearly not be entertained, but they are out there. And you do
not want them in your group. We had seven and got lucky with both
haunts. The people added into our group were all fun.
Have
fun. Go in with an open mind and let the experience take you away. If
you are cynical or don’t like to have fun, maybe you should just
stay home and fold laundry or shine shoes or something.
Be
ready to spend a long time in line. We bought our tickets around 8:45
and didn’t leave until a good bit after 11. Neither of the haunts
take more than about fifteen minutes. But they are totally
worth the money and the wait.
I’m
not going to say anything
about “?”. To reveal even a little tidbit about it would be to
say too much. It is awesome and innovative and I predict that other
haunts will be attempting to mimic it for decades to come. You must
experience it this year. And don’t try to find anything out. Just
do it. I doubt I’ll ever see anything so innovative again in the
world of haunts.
“Return
of the Curse of the Undead” continues last year’s story of a
strange cult occupying the woods behind the compound (and much of the
interior). Upon entering you are greeted by a fella named Toby and a
psychic who bears a striking resemblance to a certain young lady from
earlier in the narrative. This pair lays down the basic story of what
happened in last year’s “Curse of the Undead” and Toby says
he’s leading tour groups through the woods to look for ghosts and
other paranormal occurrences. These two were a hoot and a holler;
Toby in particular. The characters you meet in the haunts provide a
large portion of the fun of AZA. You like
Toby – useless as he is – and you like
psychic
girl, so it works to the benefit of the narrative when they do things
or when things happen to them.
This
time around the haunt starts in the woods.
Pro
Tip: You will be running a lot at Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse. Wear
comfortable shoes and clothes and be ready for action.
Pretty
much as soon as you are immersed in the trees, shit goes bad. Even
though “Return of the Curse of the Undead” is a bit more of a
standard storyline and isn’t a carefully guarded secret like “?”;
I don’t want to give too much away. There’s a lot of fun to be
had and plenty of ghastly surprises. The final scene features a
satisfying conclusion and a couple of great monsters.
I
know I didn’t go into a whole lot of detail, but I think it’s
best if you just go to Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse knowing one thing –
it’s an experience unlike any other. No other haunt is so
immersive. No other Halloween attraction features the narrative
qualities and cinematic structure of AZA. That’s not to say that
other haunts aren’t fun and don’t have something to offer, but
this one is a singular experience. I would not consider my Halloween
season complete without a visit.
Phantom
Troublemaker vs. 31 Days of Halloween
I’m changing the format
a bit this year in order to more accurately portray SyFy’s schedule
and also to preserve my sanity. I had the genius idea to cut and
paste the schedule directly from SyFy’s page rather than typing it
out in my own format. This has saved me an awful lot of time and also
means that individual episodes are listed rather than blocks of
programming like previous years. So what I’m going to do is provide
commentary where I feel it is needed rather than posting next to
every single entry. Don’t worry – you’re getting the same
amount of hilarious, then kind of funny, then labored, then
thoroughly disenchanted Phantom content. Just in a different way.
Like last year, I am
covering the programming from the time this posts until the time of
the next post. That means that on Fridays you are going to be treated
to a shit-ton of this stuff.
Let’s do it!
Oct
21 11:00 AM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Chain Letter
This
is a decent movie with a silly premise. Or maybe it’s a silly movie
with a decent premise. I’m not even sure. I do know that the
opening scene is a lot of fun of the “They’re not really going to
do that, are they?” variety.
Oct
21 01:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie The Collector
We
saw the sequel – The
Collection
– before we watched this one. Both are excellent movies that any
horror fan needs to see. They have a very Japanese feel but are
purely Western creations. Don’t go looking up synopses. Just watch
them. Not only are they great flicks, they’re total owners and can
be bought for cheap. Do it.
Oct
21 03:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Wrong Turn 4: Bloody
Beginnings
Oct
21 05:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines
Speaking
of cheap, both of these chapters of the series about backwoods,
inbred horror appear to have been made for about a hundred and fifty
bucks. Not each – both
of them. I love the first three movies, but these two – which I
believe were filmed at the same time – are awful. The makeups look
terrible and the stories are incoherent.
Oct
21 07:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Nightmare On Elm Street 2:
Freddy's Revenge
I
forgot to mention it any of the many other times that SyFy has shown
this movie this year, but you should check out Mark Patton’s Jesse's Lost Journals
for some pretty interesting works that are meant to be companions to
the movie.
Oct
21 09:00 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Fright Night (2011)
Oct
21 11:30 PM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie 30 Days Of Night: Dark Days
Oct
22 01:30 AM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Toolbox Murders
Pretty
good flick, pretty much on par with Tobe Hooper’s latter-day works
(take that as you will). I haven’t watched the original, so I can’t
comment on how well done or necessary this remake is.
Oct
22 03:30 AM Scare Tactics Genie In A Beer Bottle
Time
for more Tracy!
Oct
22 04:00 AM Paid Programming
Oct
22 06:00 AM Paid Programming
Oct
22 08:00 AM Scare Tactics The Screaming Room
Can
I find a video of Tracy Morgan screaming?
Sort of.
Oct
22 08:30 AM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Toolbox Murders
Oct
22 10:30 AM 31 Days Of Halloween Movie Primal
-
Phantom
No comments:
Post a Comment