davidm
Strata Poster
So last week I was off at an IT conference I have attended for the last few years in Las
Vegas. Unlike other years I have not tacked on a little holiday as part of the trip and
since the coasters in Vegas are a bit rubbish (and I've "done" all of the ride stuff before)
there isn't a big TR for this trip from me....
...however since I last went (end of 2011) there is one new themed-attraction thingy which
has been opened, and since I needed to keep myself awake on my day of arrival I wander
upstrip a bit (I was staying at Luxor, this is next door to Planet Hollywood) to the haunted
house which is described as...
Eli Roth's Goretorium Link : http://goretorium.com/
The place is located in a new mini-mall attached to the corner of the Planet Hollywood
hotel/casino, the entrace is inside the 'mall' on the upper floor where the ticket booth
and shop are located (along with the usual horde of Las Vegas promotion type people
handing out $5 off flyers).
I had one of the flyers, but still cost me $28 I think - I later saw that the 1/2 price
ticket booth places were selling tickets at $21 (plus commision?), so its not cheap in
any way.
Obviously they don't let you take pics inside the attraction itself, but you start off
heading up a staircase to the right of that ticket booth...
(OK some minor-spoilers I guess to follow, but I don't think anything I'll say really is a
proper spolier, and all pics are outside the main attraction anyway...)
Theres a little holding area on the staircase with a scene-setting video (TV news reports
around some serial-killer/deserted hotel type shennanigans) and then after another holding
area suggesting that you are about to tour said hotel, you enter an elevator to take you
UP a few floors in the hotel (rather than down to the basement where the serial killers
left their 100s of victims). Obviously the lift malfunctions and you end up DOWN in the
basement anyway.
Thereafter you work your way through the various rooms/scenes all festooned with the
remains of the serial killer's victims - copious amounts of dismembered limbs and dead
bodies (clue is in the name of the place here ; not the Goretorium for nothing).
Theres a few neat special FX on some of the scenes, mechanical FX and projected stuff
and quite a few actors scaring you / moving the story along / moving you along. The
actors are pretty involved with the punters, doing much more interaction than the HHN
"jump out and say boo (repeat)" tyle and I was impressed with them to be honest. Some
actors were just "props" - stuck in some torture machine doing little more than random
moaning whereas others were walking you through a scene interacting all the way.
The scenes themselves were leading you through a hotel's facilities all decked out in
gore; towards the end there is a nicely set up wedding reception and you finally exit
out a weird claustrophobic tunnel and pop-out onto the terrace above the Vegas strip.
Theres a bar up there with some great overviews of the strip (crappy panorama photo though)
The bar/exit has some gore-y theming on it, a wall of babies-heads for example;
and piles of dismembered limbs etc
After that you descend back to the entrance level and the gift-shoppe (behind the ticket
booth from earlier pics).
Shaop has a few more gore-y themeing stuff going on amongst its array of tasteful Tshirts
and tat.
Wander out and you are done...
Impressions : yeah it was good enough - lots of themeing (even if a lot of it is just
plastic body parts with red on them), actors were good and varied (and quite a lot of
them too), some good FX and stuff. You go through in groups (rather than the processional
like behviour at HHN), but if you are towards the back of the group (and I was only in
a group of 5!) the initial room-scare was often happening as you were still in the
previous room.
Worth the entry? Probably not (but what is in Las Vegas?)- its expensive for what/how long
it is - probably 20 minutes walk through. Worth killing some random time with - sure.
One last comment, I went on a Friday night, around 9pm - what you would think was "busy-time"
for this sort of attraction (apparently there are no actors in if you go before 4pm, can't think that that
is a good idea) - and there was no queue to get in, so possbily this place isn't going to be around for
a long-time?
Vegas. Unlike other years I have not tacked on a little holiday as part of the trip and
since the coasters in Vegas are a bit rubbish (and I've "done" all of the ride stuff before)
there isn't a big TR for this trip from me....
...however since I last went (end of 2011) there is one new themed-attraction thingy which
has been opened, and since I needed to keep myself awake on my day of arrival I wander
upstrip a bit (I was staying at Luxor, this is next door to Planet Hollywood) to the haunted
house which is described as...
Eli Roth's Goretorium Link : http://goretorium.com/
The place is located in a new mini-mall attached to the corner of the Planet Hollywood
hotel/casino, the entrace is inside the 'mall' on the upper floor where the ticket booth
and shop are located (along with the usual horde of Las Vegas promotion type people
handing out $5 off flyers).
I had one of the flyers, but still cost me $28 I think - I later saw that the 1/2 price
ticket booth places were selling tickets at $21 (plus commision?), so its not cheap in
any way.
Obviously they don't let you take pics inside the attraction itself, but you start off
heading up a staircase to the right of that ticket booth...
(OK some minor-spoilers I guess to follow, but I don't think anything I'll say really is a
proper spolier, and all pics are outside the main attraction anyway...)
Theres a little holding area on the staircase with a scene-setting video (TV news reports
around some serial-killer/deserted hotel type shennanigans) and then after another holding
area suggesting that you are about to tour said hotel, you enter an elevator to take you
UP a few floors in the hotel (rather than down to the basement where the serial killers
left their 100s of victims). Obviously the lift malfunctions and you end up DOWN in the
basement anyway.
Thereafter you work your way through the various rooms/scenes all festooned with the
remains of the serial killer's victims - copious amounts of dismembered limbs and dead
bodies (clue is in the name of the place here ; not the Goretorium for nothing).
Theres a few neat special FX on some of the scenes, mechanical FX and projected stuff
and quite a few actors scaring you / moving the story along / moving you along. The
actors are pretty involved with the punters, doing much more interaction than the HHN
"jump out and say boo (repeat)" tyle and I was impressed with them to be honest. Some
actors were just "props" - stuck in some torture machine doing little more than random
moaning whereas others were walking you through a scene interacting all the way.
The scenes themselves were leading you through a hotel's facilities all decked out in
gore; towards the end there is a nicely set up wedding reception and you finally exit
out a weird claustrophobic tunnel and pop-out onto the terrace above the Vegas strip.
Theres a bar up there with some great overviews of the strip (crappy panorama photo though)
The bar/exit has some gore-y theming on it, a wall of babies-heads for example;
and piles of dismembered limbs etc
After that you descend back to the entrance level and the gift-shoppe (behind the ticket
booth from earlier pics).
Shaop has a few more gore-y themeing stuff going on amongst its array of tasteful Tshirts
and tat.
Wander out and you are done...
Impressions : yeah it was good enough - lots of themeing (even if a lot of it is just
plastic body parts with red on them), actors were good and varied (and quite a lot of
them too), some good FX and stuff. You go through in groups (rather than the processional
like behviour at HHN), but if you are towards the back of the group (and I was only in
a group of 5!) the initial room-scare was often happening as you were still in the
previous room.
Worth the entry? Probably not (but what is in Las Vegas?)- its expensive for what/how long
it is - probably 20 minutes walk through. Worth killing some random time with - sure.
One last comment, I went on a Friday night, around 9pm - what you would think was "busy-time"
for this sort of attraction (apparently there are no actors in if you go before 4pm, can't think that that
is a good idea) - and there was no queue to get in, so possbily this place isn't going to be around for
a long-time?
