Dan Harkless
Last modified: February 16, 2010
This attraction was new for 2007, replacing the venerable Red Moon Massacre. I was excited when I first heard the name, thinking the subject was going to be crazy pyromaniacs and/or psychic firestarters, and that there'd probably be some live fire effects, something that would be uniquely safe on this attraction since it's not very feasible for guests to get out of their logs to get near the fire and get burned (not to mention the close availability of lots of water if something did go wrong). However, what we got instead is rogue firemen, random hillbillies, and only simulated fires via lights and sound effects.
I guess in retrospect it was perhaps unrealistic to hope that Knott's would have been able to engineer some live fire effects, given that the ride, which had been closed since early 2007, reportedly only got approval from the Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) to reopen to the public shortly before Halloween Haunt (and it was not for sure that Pyromaniax would be possible at all). People riding the Log Ride during the Haunt may have noticed that there's a room just after a drop that used to be designed like a cavern, but post-rehab, it's now just an empty room with exposed structural members -- more of a traditional, non-themed flume ride experience, which is unfortunate.
Speaking of unfortunate, the timing of the Pyromaniax theme was not great, since October 2007 was Southern California's worst wildfire season in some time. It's perhaps not surprising that the guys dressed up as thuglike firefighters didn't put much enthusiasm into their scaring, most just doing the stupid penny-can shake. When I went on the ride earlier in the Haunt season (on my non-camera visit), there were a couple of mechanical effects which weren't working on my taping visit -- there's a fireman on a ladder that's supposed to teeter, and the helicopter is supposed to crash. I wondered if Knott's had intentionally disabled these effects out of respect to the at-the-time very hard-pressed fire-fighters (it was even the case that a water-dropping helicopter had been instrumental in getting one area of the fires under control in the couple of days before this visit).
So, overall, Pyromaniax was a disappointment relative to Red Moon Massacre, and even Camp Gonnagetcha before that. I mean, Prodigy's "Firestarter" is a great song and all, but that only goes so far. However, I still really enjoy Knott's approach in re-theming rides, even when the theme could stand to be better, and still feel that this is one of the areas where Knott's maintains an edge over the other Halloweenized theme parks (with Disneyland a close second in that regard due to the Haunted Mansion Holiday).
|
Dan Harkless
Last modified: February 16, 2010
|
Validated HTML 4.01 Transitional |