After our 2002 season, the first time we attended HOS, we couldn't wait to get back to Florida's up and coming haunted attraction. We'd been in contact with Scott Swenson, one of the minds behind the madness and he was gracious enough to meet with Brian and I prior to the evening's festivities and give us a little more in depth into the event and a glimpse behind the curtain.

We had been given a tour guide by the park, Kim, and we could not have asked for a sweeter or kinder host to accompany us on our journey that evening. Kim walked us over to the Desert Grill for our reserved stage-side table for the Fright Feast, a package that can be added on to your HOS ticket, allowing you to see one of the shows while grabbing a bite, and then gaining entrance into the park before the gates open to the general population. Always more than happy to be one step of the crowd, we happily jumped at this opportunity.

The show would be FEAR, the work of Michael Roddy, making his first appearance for HOS, the former scripts and show concepts manager at Universal and responsible in part to the success of HHN. As we had felt from our visit the prior year that the event's only weak points were the shows, primarily RIP TV, as Fiends was just a fun, campy musical, much in the vein of Universal's Beetljuice, aided by some sexy pink haired nurses.

Sadly, again, the show would prove to be the only weak point of our evening, but we would attribute that more to the format the park seems to insist upon keeping for the show. A unique twist was the audience participation, deciding the guilt of the parties involved, just who DID kill Frederick Edward Allen Richards (F*E*A*R). A large framed photo hung above the stage, picturing a distinguished but sever looking man... nothing out of the ordinary... but by the end of the night, fear would have a new face... the family of the deceased had been assembled for the reading of the will... from his Justin Timberlake-like son, his witch of a wife, the young Brittany-esque girlfriend, or his Ozzy-ish brother, you must decide, who helped him meet his fate. More lip-syncing and some dance, and the night ended when the gavel descended and swift and horrendouse justice would descend upon his wife.

Later we would meet up with Michael Roddy and the cast for a few photos, congratulating Mike on the show, the format may not be to our taste but it was well done none-the-less.

On to the houses and scare zones...As we have mentione before, Busch Gardens, deciding to follow in the vein of the highly successful Knott's Scary Farm's Halloween Haunt rather then Universal's HHN, brought back many of the houses, with some tweaking with the exception of Bloody Bayou which had been replaced with Dark Hearts Fear Fair.

The returning houses were Mortuary, Tortured, Ripper Row and Demented Dimensions. We had been taken behind the scenes of Mortuary earlier that day and were impressed with the house even with many of the house lights up. Rich Heavy materials and elaborate props took us through the stages of death once again, from the funeral parlor to the grave. At one point of our tour, Scott was happy to see me peering ever so closely into the rotting, maggot infested belly of one of the deceased... while watching Brian take pictures, I caught movement from the corner of my eye, and had to take a much closer look, not quite sure at first glance that they had not indeed use real worms for effect. Sadly, it is this sort of detail that is often lost in the low lighting and crowds of evening walk throughs.

Demented Dimensions had been tweaked, and still remains to this day one of the best 3-D houses we have encountered. The use of actual props painted to match the room adds to the confusion, not really allowing visitors to know what is the illusion and what is really there. Changes in Ripper Row were few, remaining a trip back thru time to the streets roamed by Jack the Ripper, and Tortured again walked us through demises of dark device.

Escape from Insanity, our favorite house of the 2002 season, would once again be our absolute favorite house of the evening, the only house we would make it through twice. Returning to Sunny Meadows, the inmates were now running the asylum, and things were running like a clockwork orange. Mellow strains of "A Summer Place" greeted you and a faint waft of "that hospital smell" as you walked thru the lobby... in walking thru, many of the rooms maintained some of their original integrity... but with the exception that the caged had been set free. The best effect of the house, and the best effect we had seen in any of the major theme park houses of that year, will remain, "The Bug Room."
While white walls covered with thousands of bugs may have made anyone's skin crawl as it were... the effect of them "falling on you" and "crunching beneath your feet" made even the most jaded of us hop thru on tip toe...

Dark Heart's Fear Fair was another great concept... panned by some in their reviews, they failed to see the concept of the house for what it was worth. The house was designed with several different paths, allowing visitors several passes thru to take "the road not taken." Actors were positioned at the path junctions to split parties, perhaps singling out the last trailing member to take the other route alone. (This did not work in our case, as our friend Lori refused to be seperated, politely explaining to the young man "No, I'm with her.") Done correctly, this is a great move and something we would love to see more of, less of the cattle chute method of ushering people thru.

Attempting an Escape from NY feel, with urban punks in charge, was the scare zone "Speed Demons." Not entirely succesful, not entirely a bust.

Cursed is always a fun scare zone... making our way once again thru a corridor of the damned... from voodoo themes to the Woody Allen type character selling fingers... some with the rings still attached...

Agony Express and Grisly Gardens also made a return, and are probably two of the favorites among patrons. Agony Express has such great costuming and theming, and the living statuary and shrubbery in thegardens, can make for quite a startle.

All in all, it was another entirely enjoyable trip. We love some of the changes that have been made and look forward to seeing what else lies in store for the 2004 season. Still one of the younger theme park haunts, they are testing the waters and will only continue to improve with the passing years. They have introduced a highly interactive website for their 2004 season, and some intriguing ideas for houses. We hope if you are in the Tampa area that you'll stop in, you will not be disappointed.