Event Review: SIX FLAGS’ FRIGHT FEST 2010

Most groups of friends have at least one tradition or annual outing where each member takes a break from their busy lives and they all get together in order to both reminisce and enjoy each others company.  For some, this activity is centered around a sporting event and for others, it entails a camping trip.  For better or worse, my friends and I have chosen Six Flags Fright fest to be our activity of choice.

For those of you unfamiliar, Six Flags is a theme park chain with locations all around the United States.  For one month each year, these parks become decked from top to bottom with horror décor and the employees don scary costumes in honor of Halloween.  The shows usually have a ghoulish theme, the train ride usually turns into a haunted train ride, and the park adopts some form of a haunted house.  In past years one was guaranteed to expect equal parts cheese and horror, and would even be treated to a few surprises.  When my friends and I originally started coming to this annual event, Six Flags would do promotions to entice people to come back to Fright Fest.  This included having an Alice Cooper haunted house called “Brutal Planet” or even running some of their most popular roller coasters in reverse.  In recent years, the promotions have continued to dwindle and a cash strapped Six Flags has noticeably put less effort in recent outings of this annual event.  Despite all this, it has always managed to garner praise from everyone who I was in attendance with. 

The Fright Fest we attended was at Six Flags St. Louis which is located in Eureka Missouri and is about a half an hour outside of the St. Louis City limits.  Usually there is some kind of special on admission and this year was no different.  Every guest paid the Children’s price to get in(a meager $33), which is a reasonably good deal.  Upon entering the park, one could tell immediately that Fright Fest was in full swing as the park was crawling with fake skeletons and all the store name signs had been replaced with creepier names ala “Aberzombie & Witch”(that made me groan just typing it).  We were immediately drawn to the Fright Fest guides that were being handed out, so that we could plan our day accordingly.  Upon first site we were left scratching our heads as the schedule almost appeared to be a near repeat of last year.  However, there were a few exceptions, the haunted house and haunted hay ride now cost $7 each.  This seems excessive since the only other haunted ride is the Terror Train.  Since those attractions didn’t begin until night time so it was off to the rides and shows.

The rides were the usual fare that you would find in most amusement parks, tons of top notch roller coasters and even a classic log flume.  The horror themed shows were hit or miss.  The Six Flags produced shows were cheesy affairs where they have ghouls dancing to some of today and yesterday’s biggest hits (yawn) but they seemed like they took about two seconds putting these together.  Hands down the best show of Fright Fest was done by an outside talent, a magician/comedian whose tricks were great and his humor was hilarious.  After walking about the park all day it became apparent that they had put up the decorations from the last few years as almost nothing had really changed.

Once nightfall hit, we were ready to experience some of the best horror Six Flags had to offer as we waited patiently for the Terror Train.  The line to get onto this ride was over two hours long, the production value was so terrible that we were left bewildered (I was up front and I had no idea what was going on), and the train speakers were blasting such catchy tunes as I Can’t Drive 55 by Sammy Hagar (a soon to be Halloween classic!!) and Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne.  The ride wasn’t scary at all and was downright confusing and the reason why it was such a long wait was because it took a full half an hour for each group to go through.  After this trepid affair we were so disappointed that we didn’t have the heart to hand over $7 more dollars for attractions that were sure to be terrible in quality.  Needless to say, the lackluster effort by Six Flags left a bad taste in all our mouths.

I think right now would be a good time to remind everyone that Six Flags partners with Warner Brothers on their licensing of characters, hence Batman and Bugs Bunny walking around the park.  One question that I have is why the hell don’t they get the rights to use Warner Brother’s other popular franchises?  Do they not also own the rights to The Exorcist, Friday the 13^th, and Nightmare on Elm Street (the latter two obtained when New Line and Warner merged)?  Hell, I would even take another Alice Cooper haunted house. 

As a loyal customer, I have been promised terror and fright but the only thing that scared me was the amount of money blown at the end of the day.  After years of patronage, I feel like I have handed over plenty of money but have received little in return and I believe my friends feel the same way.  If Six Flags doesn’t improve next year, I think that this is one annual tradition amongst my friends that may be laid to rest…..