Jack is back at Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream

Busch Gardens Williamsburg is hosting their 25th anniversary of Howl-O-Scream every weekend now through November 3rd. We had the pleasure of attending last weekend, documenting many of the houses and scare zones, and are here to give a comprehensive breakdown and review for all things Howl-O-Scream this year.

Terror-tories:

Spread throughout the park, in nearly every “country”, are the Terror-tories. It should be noted for first timers that the entire park boasts impressive decorations, the Terror-tories are just the sections that contain live scare actors. These themed scare zones offer a wide variety in terms of style, but also fluctuated a bit in terms of substance.

Ripper Row

I am all for changing things up and keeping the event fresh with new offerings, but I genuinely hope they never get rid of Ripper Row. I can’t imagine a better fit for the England area of the park than a seedy town living in the shadow of Jack the Ripper. Every actor in the area, as you can see in the video below, has a very specific character that you can tell took effort to create. They will have full blown conversations with guests and are great at ad libbing. It sets such a perfect tone for the night to come.

The Bash

The Bash features characters from the past 25 years of Howl-O-Scream all gathering for a party to celebrate the occasion. This was hands down our favorite Terror-tory in the park. It consistently seemed like the most populated area by scare actors, and they all seemed to be having so much fun with their characters. It kills me that my recording equipment decided not to work both times that we walked through, as it consistently gave us some fun and genuinely scary interactions.

Stalker Street

I’m not going to lie, it hurt a lot to lose the fan favorite Meat Market in the New France section of the park. The gory sets, the grotesque costumes, it was a terrific scare zone. With that said, if there was one thing that could win us over in its place, it was giving us scarecrows attached to bungee cables. The costumes were really creepy and made for great scares as they blended into the corn stalks covering New France. Another big win for this area and a worthy successor.

Scary Tale Road

The concept behind this Terror-tory is my favorite in the park. In the candy colored streets of Germany, fairy tales come to life with horrifying twists. That’s why it pains me that this one just didn’t do it for us this year. The scare actors as always gave it their all and did a great job, but we never saw this scare zone occupied by more than 5 or 6 scare actors. In previous years the narrow streets were packed with small but effective sets based on different fairy tales, making it feel like you were going through the pages of a book and seeing the different stories play out. It just didn’t feel as alive this year as it did in those previous versions.

Gorgon Gardens

The sirens of Medusa are loose in Italy again, roaming the gardens and looking for victims. The costuming and creatures in this area are always impressive, especially Medusa. My only critique is that this area always feels so busy. It’s an important thorough way in the park, and I never feel like I can fully appreciate it for long before I need to keep moving along to my next destination.

Fest-Evil

In Festa Italia, Fest-Evil is a Mardi Gras party that leans into the supernatural aspects of the celebration. Our issue with this Terror-tory is the same as last year, not enough substance. It feels as though they hung decorations around the area from their yearly Mardi Gras celebration and hoped that characters would fill in the rest. The lack of substantial decor leaves the area feeling underwhelming and at times like you aren’t in a Terror-tory at all. Some larger set pieces would go a long way if they choose to bring this area back next year.

Haunted Houses:

This year, the haunted houses provided a few terrific highs, but are not without their faults. The returning houses built on their already solid décor and stories, while the newer houses still have some major growing pains to work through.

Killarney Diner: Condemned

At this point, Killarney Diner is basically a permanent attraction at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Now in its 4th year at the event, this house remains a fan favorite, and for good reason. As you should expect with that many years of operation, it boasts the best set design for any house at the park. It is made to feel as if you are walking through the alleyways, back rooms, and walk-in fridges, of a 1950s era diner. The big show stopper being the actual main dining room. This house is always enjoyable, and usually features some of the best character design, but in an effort to keep it fresh they have added different overlays to it each year. At this point, the overlays feel like they disrupt the narrative more than adding to it. I’m all for something new coming to this location next year (if it’s a worthy successor). However, if it is going to stick around, maybe let’s go back to what made this house great to begin with.

Clown Town

Of the two new for 2024 houses, Clown Town is by far the most successful. This house takes you through a twisted carnival with creative set design and very interactive characters. As someone who doesn’t have much of a clown phobia, I would say this house falls more on the fun side as opposed to the scary side, but that’s not a bad thing. We were laughing and having a blast throughout each of our multiple walkthroughs. Considering the positive response that it has gotten so far and the VERY long lines that it commands, I could see this house returning next year. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind that either, as long as they take that opportunity to enhance the already well done sets and make this house even stronger. The highlight of this one is no doubt the full outdoor carnival scene, featuring rows and rows and clown barkers calling you to test your luck at a number of horror-fied carnival games.

Monster Mansion

Oh no… This feels like the first big miss that I’ve experienced in my years of going to Howl-O-Scream. I legitimately left our first walk through echoing Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park, “You do plan to have monsters.. in the monster mansion, right?”. I just don’t know what they were going for here. Parts of this felt like a laboratory, parts of it felt like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, parts just felt like a generic haunted maze, but none of it felt like a “mansion”. Maybe it’s the influence of the iconic Six Flags dark ride looming in my mind, and call me crazy, but I think of a monster mansion as a big old manor style home that is filled to the brim with creatively designed monsters. I can’t imagine I was alone in that being my expectation. When I first heard the title, I was so excited for this house, but something just got lost along the way and this house feels very incomplete. Hopefully, this was a one and done house built in an effort to fill out the line up with the previous “Witch of the Woods” plot being an active construction site for the new coaster.

Death Water Bayou: Morte

I love this house. I don’t know what it is, but I’m a sucker for spooky bayou vibes. Even with the rebranded name, not much has changed from last year's version. It offers well done Mardi Gras style décor, solid costumes, and probably the most actual jump scares from any of the houses. The only thing that I was a little disappointed in was that at least on our visit, the fog effect was missing, which caused certain rooms to feel like you were wading through swamp water. It made for some really great scares in previous years when scare actors would emerge from the fog.

Lost Mines: Bloodstone

The additions to Lost Mines from last year made for some really interesting story development. Last year's house had crazed miners trying to protect the gems they have unearthed deep in the Lost Mines, while this year the gems have begun to fuse into the miners and actually take them over from the inside out. We were able to take a tour behind the scenes of Lost Mines during the day (you can read my review here), and having the narrative explained in detail really helped to sell the changes made from last year. Unlike some other houses at HoS, this one has a clear story that is conveyed through the sets, characters, and scenes.

Shows:

Unfortunately, Monster Stomp was not up and running during our visit, but we were able to see every other show that the park had to offer.

Phantoms of Festhouse

Phantoms of Festhaus is an “American Idol” style singing competition that involves monster-fied versions of pop stars performing songs with Halloween twists. Ex: Taylor “Witch” sings You Need to Calm Down while displaying mind control to subdue her rabid fans chasing her around during the performance. We always really enjoy this show, but this year felt a bit underwhelming. In prior versions, we’ve seen as many as 5 contestants perform in this show, but the current iteration only featured 3. Not only is that disappointing as we enjoy the variety of performances, but because it gave the show a 15 minute run time from start to finish. Not really what you expect when you sit down with lunch for entertainment. There also used to be live band members playing along with the show, which we’ve noticed have dwindled down in past years, but were completely missing in this line up. What is there is very enjoyable, and the performers give it their all, but this just feels like a lesser version of what it’s been in the past.

The Skeletones

Another yearly favorite of ours, The Skeletones did not disappoint. The performers in this show are in character as (you guessed it) skeletons and perform great renditions of Halloween classics like This is Halloween, Monster Mash, and Thriller. There is no big twist or catch, it’s just talented performers singing all of the songs that you want to hear at a Haunt event. An easy win.

Fiends: The FREAKquel

The best way that I can try to describe Fiends is that it’s a burlesque version of the now defunct Bill and Ted show that used to run at Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. I never had the opportunity to see Fiends in its original iteration, as we’ve only been visiting Howl-O-Scream since it went on a hiatus, but from what I’ve heard this is a worthy successor to the previous shows. Fiends has a loose plot revolving around Dr. Freakenstein and his sidekick Igor recruiting classic monsters to star in a blockbuster movie about himself. It mixes a variety of musical performances with comedy skits revolving around current pop culture jokes. It’s very silly, a bit risque, and overall a really fun show.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this was not our favorite year for Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream, but still absolutely delivered on the scares and good times. Looking ahead to next year, we just hope that they really emphasize enhancing the offerings throughout the park. Between the shows, scare zones, and houses, the bar seems to be lowered ever so slightly from our previous visits to the event. We still really enjoyed our visit and would absolutely recommend Howl-O-Scream as a must do haunt for theme park and spooky season enthusiasts everywhere.

A Comprehensive Guide and Review of Busch Gardens Williamsburg Howl-O-Scream (with walkthrough videos)