These thoughts are only from opening night and will be brief because I only did them once, once i get through them more than that I will have more to say. I did not get to do Stranger Things because I got to the event late and kind walked around for almost 2 hours before starting to hit houses. The houses are in the order that I did them. There might be some spoilers in here.
Graveyard Games: I really liked the sets in this house and the costumes were scary. I need to go through this more because being my first house of the season I always tend to get a lot more scared and mellow out later in the night. I enjoyed it enough, but nothing really stands out too much for me (besides a pitch black hallway that I'm not sure if there was anything in). Can't wait to do this one more.
Universal Monsters: Wow! This house was fantastic, I really did not expect to love this house as much as I did. The sets were really great. I think the bell tower might be one of the coolest rooms I have ever seen. The monsters felt much more sinister than I was expecting them too, especially the mummy. This was definitely one of the highlights of my night and the walk out to this one feels much better than it did last year (This could have been ion my head though), but the exit walk is a long one.
Depths of Fear: This house was interesting. I think I had a bad run because non of the scares really hit me (and I get scared really easily). The costumes of the fish things were cool. The sets were nice and I like how they did the facade for this house, and nightingales, where you were kinda "in the house" before you were in the tent, so it definitely felt less like you were walking into a tent. Needs some more runs to get a good feel though.
Nightingales: I liked this house, It felt like the claustrophobic house of the year to me, it had some tight corridors. I'm really iffy about the new look of the nightingales, I think the old ones felt a lot scarier than these. This house wasn't afraid to get gory either. I really did enjoy myself in here. Also the facade, other than what I said about it in the last house description, was really well done.
House of 1000 Corpses: Man they improved the facade of this location a lot! I had pretty high hopes for this house and it kinda delivered for me. I enjoyed the back half of this house MUCH more than the first half. I think with time this house will only grow better and better.
Us: I think they did an awesome job translating the movie into a house. There are some cool effects that I thought really worked. Two involved looking into open doorways. I don't think the scares felt samey. Seeing the facade twice was cool and made sense in the context of the movie, but might seem weird to those who haven't seen the movie. Overall I really enjoyed it and can't wait to see it grow over the course of the event.
Yeti: At this point in the night I thought this house had the most impressive and convincing sets so far. It was a little colder than a normal house and there was snow effects. I was super impressed and immersed in this house. The downside of most of the scares coming from a huge yeti is that it's kind of easy to see where he might be coming from. This was definitely the least scary house of the night for me, but I still really enjoyed it. There is a scene where there is a yeti above you by what seems like quite a bit. I pointed at him to make sure my friend saw him and he pointed back at me. So, props to that yeti.
Killer Klownz: This house was a lot of fun especially if you have recently watched the movie. It wasn't the scariest, but the costumes were really cool and I think people worrying about the size of this venue fitting them in should not worry about that anymore. Especially with one exceptionally large room that had me do a double take. The house felt almost fun and playful at parts and other parts felt dark and creepy. Solid house, I can't wait to go through some more.
Ghostbusters: I LOVE THIS HOUSE. This was my favorite house of the night. Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies of all time and I think they did an amazing job. I also got some of my biggest scares of the night in this house. I know there might be some opening night hype on my end here, but I think this house is fantastic. There is also another impressively large room in this house.
I didn't really see much of the scarezones at night except Rob Zombie which was so packed full of people I could barely tell what was going on. I'll spend more time in the scarezones as the event goes on.
House Rankings:
1) Ghostbusters
2) Universal Monsters
3) Us
4) Killer Klownz
5) Nightingales
6) Yeti
7) Graveyard Games
8)House of 1000 Corpses
9) Depths of Fear