Madness Manor Review - New for 2024 Lemax Spooky Town 

Can’t believe we all already 3 weeks in. Can’t wait for local Michael’s to stock up

I love the new packaging. I hate the squeak of styrofoam when it’s pulled out of the box. And it’s more environmentally friendly. Win win.

Great video as usual man! This piece looks awesome. I wasn't crazy about the color changing light in the right room, but it actually works better than i thought! Looking forward to pairing this with boogieman's hangout and hungry treehouse.

Love your channel. FYI, I’m subscribed and have all notifications on and yet I’ve missed the last 3 videos in my feed. Stupid RU-vid.

The soundtrack reminds me of the vintage Twilight Zone TV show intros. I'm digging on this piece

Soundtrack gives me that into to a Twilight Zone episode vibe.

That lighting is insane! So well done.

That's a really gorgeous piece. Thanks for reviewing it.

Great video. Do you find the white lights in the middle door too bright?

Love this Doug. Will you be doing candle reviews this year?

My favorite part is probably the girl telling us to come inside i just love this set up a lot

Thanks for the review Doug! Can’t wait for this to be released. So many I want this year😀

Cool piece! I actually like that there's a story working with the lighting. I hope Lemax keeps up that creativity. Thanks for the review Doug, i didn't pay attention to this one before!

These videos are so helpful! I look forward to your videos

Great Job on review, as always. Video angle of showing the house etc and your style always rocks. This one is a must.

The internal wires are really noticeable through the middle window. You'd think they would hide the wires better than that.

This is one of my favorite 2-3 pieces of the year, except for that strobing light. Will probably wait until next year though to avoid dealing with Michaels.

I’ll be picking this up 100%

That's my favorite lemax spooky Town building

I absolutely love this design! Very clever and really don't mind not having animation, the lighting and sound effects are very cool on their own.

looks really good !

Ooh I do like this....getting

I like your background. I'm gonna start documenting all my Halloween decorations I have a few from the 70s that was handed down from the family. So I went on TEMU And found a rotate table so I can put my one at a time spooky Halloween decorations while it goes around and around it goes left or right slow motion and it only cost me $21 some have mirrors on a platform in some don't. So if you're looking for something like that to show off your amazing spooky decorations I might look into that. TEMU is very reasonable and they have a lot of stuff for photographing spookdelights I can't even tell you how amazing they are and the prices are to die for LOL. Halloween backgrounds and all. So thank you for sharing I only have one spooky house that I bought in the 90s. But if I start collecting I will become very obsessed because they're all amazing. 🧡🎃

Any idea which buildings will be at Michael’s

I like this one. I think this will be one of those houses that you don’t trick or treat at just run by in my village. 😂 I have the tree there and I agree, it’s gonna look awesome beside it.

With a little work u can make a castle with the styrofoam. Add some skeletons with some ravens. Cut some windows into it, and a paint job

Very cool!

Love the house!

I noticed some 2024 houses have no animation.

Doug, First, I LOVE Haunted Houses! They are one of my favorite pieces to collect. Unfortunately, Madness Manor is the type of Haunted House that feels uninspired to me. Take a bunch of generic Halloween tropes and insert them into a Haunted House shell. It feels like an early Lemax piece I bought back in the day called Morbid Manor. What looked cool on the surface, quickly became uninteresting to me, because nothing felt special about it, the elements chosen were blah and felt like check boxes. Madness Manor does the same thing for me, but feels even more overcrowded. Maybe less is more may have worked better? I'm glad you like this one Doug, but you own pieces like Nightmare on Oak Street, Black Raven Manor, and Hallograves Manor, haunted houses that you can tell just by looking at them that they were crafted with a worthy charm, something you'd be proud to add to an actual Halloween Village setup. Would you use Madness Manor in one of your villages? Even The Last House on the Left, a piece that didn't quite do it for me, which had some of it's tech put into a re-imagined and amazing piece called Ghostly Manor, is still light years more interesting than Madness Manor. Madness Manor does have a different feel from the aforementioned buildings, but there doesn't seem anything to it, like it's that song on an album put there to just fill space. Of course, this is just my opinion, but it always makes me a little sad when I see pieces come out that look like they were released just for the sake of putting something out. As a collector that has WAY TOO MANY of these, I don't want to buy anymore that will just sit in some storage space not being displayed. If this piece can come in at around $40 (I don't recall if you said the price or not), I think it might be fun for some people to throw up as a random Halloween decoration. Maybe seeing this in person might change my mind, I will be looking to see it at Michaels before I pass my final judgement. By the way, I don't know if you've seen a Haunted House piece, I believe it released in 2023, and was a Costco Exclusive. It was called the Disney Halloween 12 piece set. I know you aren't into the licensed village stuff very much, but HOLY HECK, the Donald Duck Haunted House that comes in the set has to be seen to be believed! It will reinvigorate anyone who has been Halloween villaging for years! The house is SO DIFFERENT from any kind of construction I've seen before, yet so incredible and familiar as a Haunted House! It also comes with a Cathedral-like companion piece lit up and another spooky tree like you showed in this video (not to mention all the other cool pieces). This one sold out quickly, but I was able to snag it on Ebay the other day for a decent price without a huge markup. I got mine at $117 new in box and it retails for $109. I definitely recommend checking out a video or two on this set. It will BLOW YOUR MIND! Regardless of how a piece makes me feel, I am SO APPRECIATIVE that you continue to take the time to show us village pieces! Thank you! vgv

Are you posting these in your Facebook page? I haven’t seen any of the new ones on there.

It will be hard to not buy when they come out at Michael's later this summer.

You have the choice when you order. Costs just a bit more.

OK, this one will need to join my other haunted houses. Just hope I can find one when released, our Michaels doesn't really get on the ST bandwagon unfortunately. Great review, and I love seeing your warehouse, Doug. 😄

With regards to the packaging, I really hope Lemax tested the cardboard. In my experience Styrofoam has much better shock absorbtion with fragile items. Ive been collecting since 2018 and this just seems to be yet another cost cutting measure (we've seen increase use of plastic material, adapters not included, and now this). This feels like how a knock off brand would handle packaging. I think market is willing to pay more if the quality backed the pricing. Consuers in this hobby understand inflation and rising costs. We understand D56 is the premium option. Lemax ahould be positioned just below D56. Otherwise the market will shift to the knock off brands or over time because the pricing doesnt wattent the product.

Great lighting! I would keep the soundtrack off though. I prefer soundtracks that have spooky sounds and music but no narration. I’ll bet they are switching to the new packaging for the environment which I will commend them on as long as it keeps the piece safe and snug inside and provides enough shock insulation.

This guy is very cute

Love this house but unfortunately I can’t get it because it’s demonic

I like this piece! 🏚️ I’m not a fan of the verbal soundtracks though. I prefer music or noises. It’s not bad when they are stand-alone pieces but amongst others with talkative soundtracks it just sounds like overwhelming chatter. I’m curious how the cardboard inside will protect pieces better or not versus the styrofoam.