LEGO has released a designer video for the LEGO Haunted House (10273) that gives us a tour on the inner workings of this fairground themed, brick-built funhouse. Watch the video below.
LEGO designers Carl Merriam, Mike Psiaki, Austin Carlson, and Niek van Slagmaat lead us to the many beautiful details of this 3,000+ set and some of the pretty neat throwbacks that older LEGO fans will enjoy.
As mentioned in their press release, the LEGO Haunted House (10273) is the first set LEGO set that officially drops the Creator Expert branding in favor of the 18+ reclassification. LEGO believes that this will make similar advanced sets more readily identifiable as something belonging to the adult fan base of LEGO.
And the LEGO Haunted House places all the check marks on an AFOL’s LEGO nostalgic sweet spots. The fairground themed park ride is loaded of references to older LEGO sets such as the Adventurers theme from 1998, the Alpha Team from early 2000, and of course from the classic Castle theme. For those unfamiliar with these LEGO themes, you may head over to Brickset for more info.
To bring all these references into one fun-filled set is short of amazing. I particularly like the idea of how the designers placed an easter egg for Bat Lord from the Fright Knights subtheme. The specially printed, subtle 2×3 flat tile is a pretty neat reference to the LEGO Castle Bat Lord (6007) set, with its set number printed on the said tile in Roman numerals.
Apart from these pretty near references, the LEGO Haunted House is also loaded with play features as any funhouse should be. Its main play feature is its functional drop-down elevator. It’s a pretty challenging task that the LEGO designers managed to pull-off. To make it more realistic, the elevator ride must accelerate while going down, and to eventually slow its drop as it reaches the bottom. The elevator function can either be operated manually or outfitted with an optional LEGO Power-App motor.
And of course, the LEGO Haunted House will not be that spooky without that illuminated portrait of Samuel Von Barron using a light brick. This and other fun details are revealed once you open the set and explore every room of the funhouse.
The LEGO Haunted House (10273) comes in at 3,231 pieces and is expected to retail for $249.99. It is slated for an early release for LEGO VIP members on May 20, and to the rest of the world on June 1, 2020. Head over to LEGO Shop@Home for more details, and while you’re at it you may want to include this set to your LEGO wishlist as well.
So what do you think of this latest LEGO 18+ set? Are you OK with the LEGO Creator Expert re-branding? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
