Officials announced the ride will open at the same time the park opens for the summer, on April 18. Season passholders will have a chance to ride the attraction early during the park’s Passholder Preview Day April 17.
Located in the building which formally housed Boo Blasters on Boo Hill, Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare’s queue line will use the same entrance room and a portion of props from the former attraction. Instead of traveling through the foyer of a haunted castle, guests will traverse the lobby of the titular Phantom Theater.
While waiting for the ride, guests will encounter several animatronic figures, including Maestro and No Legs Larry.
These figures will explain the attraction’s storyline, with riders helping No Legs Larry prepare for the theater’s reopening, making sure to recapture all the “ghost notes” causing chaos inside.
Ride’s new vehicles revealed
Park officials showed off Opening Nightmare’s new ride vehicles, which are a recolored version of the cars used for Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. Instead of the green and purple color scheme, the vehicles are now painted purple and black.
While the new attraction will use the same ride system as Boo Blasters, there will be a major change to its operations. Instead of each ride vehicle being evenly spaced apart, two ride cars will be sent through together. This change was made to give the show scenes enough time to reset in between each group.
The ride’s new interactive elements were detailed
Similar to Boo Blasters on Boo Hill, Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare will allow guests to “shoot” targets placed throughout the layout.
Attraction designer Sally Dark Rides have designed new shooting mechanics for the ride: Flashlights. Guests will capture the ghost notes by shining their lights.
The notes themselves will also be digital projections, instead of physical targets, allowing them to move throughout the various ride scenes.
“We are actually projecting the ghost notes into these spaces,” said Lauren Weaver, vice president of marketing and business development at Sally Dark Rides. “These targets are going to be drifting through spaces, you know, coming on props, on scenes, so we had to figure out how that gameplay worked.“
First scene
Those invited to the media tour got a chance to check out the first show scene of the new ride. During this portion, guests will meet with No Legs Larry as they learn how to use their flashlights.
In addition to an animatronic of the undead usher, the room will be decorated with posters, teasing some of the ghouls and ghosts guests will encounter.
Continuing the legacy of Phantom Theater
Park officials and representatives of Sally Dark Rides said they want to ensure the new ride lives up to the legacy of the original.
“We’ve always maintained great contact with our friends here at Kings Island, and we’ve also known that a lot of fans have been petitioning almost for Phantom Theater to come back,” said Weaver. “Being dark ride enthusiasts ourselves, we also wanted it to come back. And we have now created an all new Phantom Theater experience, Opening Nightmare. Paying homage to the original, but also taking that love of the game into play, too.”
“When we truly say this is a perfect homage to that old ride, we meant it, and guests are gonna love that” said Kings Island’s Manager of Public Relations Tony Clark. “I think they’re gonna love the scenery, the upgrades to the ride vehicles themselves, the flashlights, the interactivity, the characters, the fun. It’s a fun story, it’s not scary, but it still has the spooky elements to it, so they’re gonna love it.”
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