Real Heroes are Sandwiches: Review of Epic Universe Part 4: Dark Universe

The unique power of theme parks as an art form comes from their ability to combine the built environment with the tools of theater (music, staging, actors, etc.) to create a cohesive environment in which the audience can imagine themselves in a different time or place.

Theme parks can tap into existing cultural ideas and bring them to life. The caves sequence at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland works because everyone knows what a pirate's lair is supposed to be like, and the thing you see at the beginning of the ride executes the concept at a grand scale. So even though not much is going on, it is everything you imagined it would be, and at any moment, you could imagine Blackbeard himself burying another treasure chest.

Platform 9 ¾ at Universal Studios Florida does this too. The ideas in Harry Potter are as much a part of American culture as apple pie, so when the full size Hogwarts Express train pulls into the station, nearly everyone has a set of expectations about what that should be like. So when costumed operators manage the excited crowds into the passenger cars to the musical score from the Harry Potter films, every detail adds up to what people imagine it to be like. All of the tools at the disposal of a theme park combine to help the guest imagine themselves as a student at Hogwarts getting ready to board the train to take them to wizarding school.

The Universal Classic Monsters are the most popular version of monsters in our culture. The Frankenstein book has been in the public domain for generations, but the version everyone thinks of is the version from Universal's film library.

Prior to EU, however, Universal has limited their use of the Classic Monsters in their theme parks to stage shows like Beetlejuice's Rockin' Graveyard Revue and the Horror Make-Up Show. But these shows are jokey, and play up the camp elements of these characters and stories. In a lot of ways, they don't take the idea of Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and the others very seriously.

The sense that these characters live in a world one could visit has not been attempted in a theme park setting prior to EU's Dark Universe.

Dark Universe ★★★☆

The Dark Universe section of the park is accessed through a graveyard which leads to the grey and foreboding village of Darkmoor. Towering over the village is Castle Frankenstein, which periodically erupts with lightning. Beyond the castle, the land becomes less well defined, with a large rollercoaster (and safety netting) filling the forest. Finally, the Burning Blade tavern sits underneath a very impressive windmill that lights on fire periodically.

This land features some great streetmosphere actors (which play the characters in a more comic fashion, so the people who like camp definitely have something to enjoy) in addition to the impressive settings and rides. Darkmoor in particular is a really fun environment.

The forested portion of the land currently isn't much of a forest, and I am concerned that the rollercoaster's safety envelope may prevent it from ever growing into one.

If I didn't decide to stick to my own stupid rules when I started this review, I would give the Darkmoor portion of Dark Universe four stars and the forested area near the Curse of the Werewolf would get only two.

The Burning Blade Tavern [restaurant] ★★☆☆

The exterior of the Burning Blade is amazing. There really isn't much more to say about it.

While I was at the park in April, we went inside the Burning Blade Tavern and used Mobile Order to get a garlic stake-themed garlic bread. The food was disappointing, but the bigger issue is that the food pickup window was outside (at a window you could see from the inside of the tavern!) After I got the food, I realized I needed a fork. So I waited at the bar to ask for one, and the bartender said I had to go back outside to get it from the pickup window (which opens into the very kitchen he is standing in!)

This is the kind of hiccup that I am sure will get resolved as the park operations meet reality. But it still is strange that food is currently only available at the mostly-unthemed outside seating area.

A lot of the quick service food at this park seems to be Mobile Order only. I think that Mobile Order is a fine service to offer, but I think some of the execution was a bit confusing. Perhaps that is something that will improve with time as well.

Curse of the Werewolf ★★½☆

This is a launched rollercoaster with spinning ride vehicles. It is a fun ride, but the the theming is pretty sparse. The queue has nice decorations with a somewhat generic traveling carnival theme. Once on the ride, guests encounter a couple of static figures. But the ride is definitely not telling any story in a Universal ride narrative sense.

Theme parks have a long tradition of rollercoasters expressing the theme of a ride by having elements that are a physical embodiment of whatever the ride is supposed to be about. For instance, the Incredible Hulk Coaster is relatively unthemed in a scenic sense. But the launch followed by large looping elements do feel like what Bruce Banner feels when he turns into the Hulk.

Not every rollercoaster needs to be Hagrid's Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure!

But it's not clear how the Curse of the Werewolf is an interpretation of turning into a werewolf. I don't think of werewolves as spinning very much. And the portion of the ride where the train stalls and launches again also doesn't feel very wolf-like.

Its a fun coaster, but in a park filled with excellent rides and coherent themes, this ride falls short. It is more like a second-tier ride at Busch Gardens. It's nice. But not to the standards of the rest of the park.

Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment ★★★★

Monsters Unchained is everything that Curse of the Werewolf isn't. Grand. Ambitious. And executed extremely well.

The queue is an elaborate tour of Frankenstein Castle, including artifacts from Victoria Frankenstein's more recent experiments. Apparently the ride takes place in the present, because many of the artifacts seem to be kept at bay with modern technology.

After a series of very impressive preshows, guests pass a set of double sided lockers and Dracula's open casket before boarding the ride at a giant turntable. What follows is a series of vignettes full of classic horror movie imagery that probably makes sense if you ride it enough times to piece it all together. But it actually doesn't matter because it is so overwhelming and impressive.

The best Universal-style rides are the ones where the plot takes a back seat to the action. In The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and in Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, the rider is overwhelmed by a series of impressive scenes featuring everything you imagine a ride on this subject should contain.

In the case of Spider-Man, it doesn't matter that Doc Octopus' scheme to ransom the Statue of Liberty is completely silly. What matters is that you get to see your favorite Spider-Man villains and have a fireball blown in your face.

Likewise, you don't care that Harry Potter wouldn't skip an important Quidditch game to lead some strangers around on a flying bench--you get to chase a dragon and get attacked by dementors!

Monsters Unchained is as impressive as those other two rides. It features most of the tricks in the book, a collection of special effects on a grand scale, and every classic monster you might want to see in a ride. This ride is the peak of the Universal house style and is one of the best rides in the world.

Over the past few weeks, it has become clear that this ride has a great capacity too. Lines for this ride rarely get to be over 45 minutes while the other headliners even off north of 90 minutes. The team for this ride really knocked it out of the park with this one. At the time of this writing, I haven't yet been on Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry. But I would be shocked if this isn't the best ride at the park.

Series Directory

Review of Epic Universe Part 1: South Campus, Terra Luna, and Main Entry

Review of Epic Universe Part 2: Celestial Park

Review of Epic Universe Part 3: Super Nintendo World

Review of Epic Universe Part 4: Dark Universe

Review of Epic Universe Part 5: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Ministry of Magic

Review of Epic Universe Part 6: How to Train Your Dragon — Isle of Berk

Review of Epic Universe Part 4: Dark Universe

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Review of Epic Universe Part 4: Dark Universe