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In case anyone missed it, Murdy confirmed something coming on Monday. Should be Blumhouse for both coasts.

This is an event for EVERYBODY. Not just you, me, and the thousand or so people on these forum who pour over the details and anazyle every tweet and every frame of video released. It's for thousands and thousands of people who attend, many for one night, who come in with no understanding of the crazy backstories for the event. What do you think is more rewarding to them? Something they are familiar with and can "live the movie" as is the point of a movie-based themepark, or something awesome but that is really hard to figure out. Why does this house have cowboys and ghosts? Why are Penn and Teller nuked? Why does this building have lots of water and Nine Inch Nails blasting? I thought this was supposed to be an Alice in Wonderland house, why are we in an asylum? Why are there monster nurses in a war? Etc. If you go in knowing the back story, sure, the originals are fun...but EVERYBODY knows the backstories from the movies. Look at in reverse, if you had never seen a Saw movie, the previous house (and I'm assuming this year's house) would make zero sense. What the hell is that thing on that lady's head? Why is there a puppet on a tricycle? Why did this idiot crawl into a room full of barbed wire? Ash vs Evil Dead is the same thing....why doesn't this guy have hand? Why would a chainsaw and a shotgun be his choices of weapons, that's stupid! (you'd have to have watched the show or movies to understand that Ash being a moron is part of the story and the charm...without context it looks stupid) What the hell is up with this puppet? How is a puppet scary? etc, etc, etc (don't want to spoil anything from the series, but you get my point). A known property enhances the experience for most people. There are obviously exceptions, but it's certainly true. A house that takes 3 minutes to walk through has exactly 3 minutes of context for you to figure it out unless you pour over the website, tweets, forums, etc, etc, etc. Maybe you have a one paragraph synopsis if you read the blog. A movie-based house has at least 90min worth of context before you even walk through the door so you go in understanding the storyline and get to live it. A movie themepark with almost NOTHING original in it (is there anything original in the park now other than Rip Rocket? Dueling Dragons is closing and also somehow considered Potter-related now, everything is IP based) has a seasonal event...it SHOULD be movie based. It would be like Sea World having an event based on lions and tigers or Disney World having an event with Looneytoons characters. This isn't settling, it's evolving. It's living up to the (perceived) mission statement of a Movie Theme Park that has active TV studios on property. It's a success story that the event is so well respected in the industry that people who are VERY protective of their IPs are willing to let a theme park take over their babies and create a fluid and evolving experience.

I strongly dislike this hhn merchandise theming this year. I feel like it an late Ed Hardy theme. I enjoy the real event and storyline of the areas. I hope there is some hidden merch.

Kind of, but the name "Hive" makes me think there might be more to it. Hive makes me think of something more like worker bees. They mindlessly get on with the task at hand, ignoring everything and everyone. It's the queen that sends signals to them to do things. So I'm imagining these vampires are going to be more feral, more animalistic and less autonomous than the type two description. Ever play "The last of us"? They had lots of different kinds of zombies to get around, including ones that were blind and relied entirely on sound. I'm thinking that might be a good fit for Hive - vampires that are more animalistic, more decayed, etc. The rumours going around were that it would be a completely different take on vampires, so trying to think a little outside the box on this one.

This is one of the best posts I've read on here. Pretty eye opening actually and I've come to the conclusion of what I'm really trying to get across. I want THEME PARKS to dictate what ends up being popular. I want more Pirates of the Caribbean stories where a film was created because of the ride. I want the theme park and entertainment designers to be the next creators of material that the general public will want to see more of; no matter the medium. However, in that same breath, I'm realizing that may not happen for awhile, based on the amount of funding necessary to build that world, without knowing if consumers will grab ahold of it or not. However, I guess it can't be worse than making a $200million box office flop, so maybe there is money out there for those types of investments. Thanks for the patience that let me figure out what point it is I was trying to make.

I get what you're saying, but there isn't a single situation where this combination of weapons isn't amazing

Screen grabs from the video

That blog post for the merchandise was really lame & so into itself as if what they've got is mind blowingly awesome. I liked it better when they talked less & showed more merch pictures. This skull & roses "theme" they are going for is terrible. So i'm trying to figure out how they went from "Titans of Terror" to this. The ONLY interesting thing that caught my attention was the mention of possible "Academy of Villains" merchandise. If they really are going to have a shirt, I'll need one of those sent my way. Also, if they don't have a shirt for Bill & Ted this year, that will be a huge mistake on their part (kinda like last year & NOT having one for the show's 25th anniversary). But yea, if by some miracle they have one... i'll need that too.

Great logic! So Howl o scream at Busch Gardens should have only houses based off beer, zoos, and Rollercoasters, while Knotts Berry Farm should have houses based on cows. I've been going since it was Fright Nights minus a couple of years (yes I'm old) and have watched it evolve. Original content built the event for 15 years and IPs did not. Yes, there was a couple of houses here and there but they most certainly were not the driving force that made the event what it is today. Today it's only about money and not content. We all love scare zones and houses but the event was much more than that. The themes, the overall atmosphere was of a scary Halloween event. I akin it to movies being made... Original content or endless remakes. Remaking a house so I can live the movies is not original or scary no matter how anyone spins it.