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Didn't get a great run on this one, but I thoroughly enjoyed HDD and thought the first room of TFP was kinda cool...the rest was terribly bland. I think they recreated the feeling of HDD's climactic kills that go straight into a serene room well. I had the exact same feeling in the house as I did while watching the film, where my brain would get confused as to whether I was supposed to be scared or not, and in the house having scares IN the rooms was great. They also got some really impressive sets in here: the opening tunnel and the parking garage felt more like SS or Parade house set material. Overall, probably my least favorite of the event, but isn't terrible. Will give it a few more runs just to give it a chance, we didn't get that many scares on out first run.

Woo! I'm back y'all. I've gone 1 and 1/3 nights so far, and I'd say 8/10 houses are great to fantastic. I haven't been feeling the zones this year that much, I feel like the crowds we have don't lend well to actual scary zones. I do enjoy Vamp, but it's more for the atmosphere than the atmosFEAR. No? Anyone? @sadbunny and I managed to hit every house on 9/15 without express (and a Carnival repeat!), so it's not that it's impossibly crowded, but it was pretty damn crowded opening weekend. I'll be posting my house and zone thoughts in their respective threads, and might do an opening weekend review or just hold off until I've done my other 6 nights. Good to be back!

This house is GREAT. Soooo intense and creative, on my second run I literally fell to my knees and had to crawl through one double-scare hallway. The sets are also great, while minimal. The train, catacombs, monkey cages, and Paris house sets all look great when you have the chance to calm down and focus (which I'll admit, is almost never). Definitely the most intense house of the event, honestly I'm surprised that there aren't major in-your-face warnings for epileptic guests. I'm very confused as to what the last room is trying to be, is it an homage to the original DE? Who are the characters in the room, more infected or people in quarantine? I can't tell. All in all, this is a fantastic house, and yet another contender for HotY IMO.

For me, this really felt like the last minute house it was, with minimal sets and very one-note scares. I didn't get the best run, but I've heard the cast has gotten quite good so I'm interested in giving this one more tries, although with the massive waits this one pulls in, I could see that being difficult. It does keep to the film really well, but I would've liked a rooftop and schoolhouse scene, maybe even with a random blonde Michael in there for fun. I do applaud them for the costume store scare, that is really well designed and got me and @sadbunny really well. I'd say this is one of the weakest houses at this year's event, but is still pretty good.

Can we just appreciate that you can get a shirt made with your favorite poster from this house like mad props to the person who thought of that.

This house is both fantastically fun and fantastically beautiful. The cast is great, the sets are great, the scares are creative and effective. Just a fantastic house, with usual short waits due to its location. I think the wolf animatronic is a too far back to be effectively scary, but it still looks pretty cool. Personally, the thick fog really added to the atmosphere of the scenes, really fit the halloween mood and was SO disorienting in the quarry scene, I loved it. I want to try and count how many Sams there actually are in this house, I could see around 10. Cudos to the shovel principal, he would get @sadbunny literally every run we did. This is definitely in the running for HotY.

Oh man, I make sure to do the secret VIP mazes every year, didn't know we could talk about them here Alright everyone, be on the lookout for the secret mazes. There's 3-5 of them most years and only for those willing to seek them out. You gotta 1) find them 2) know the secret password. The Canoe maze, the Yeti maze, and the Pirate maze are the longest running "VIP mazes." You won't see them on Youtube. Granted they are short, but probably the scariest 2 or 3 rooms you'll go through at KSF. Let us know if you find them!

I believe the exact message was "Open Door" - not "Open the Door". That is a message that appears when the coin door is not fully closed. The easter egg that no one seems to be talking about is one that is in the previews themselves. There is a preview for "Scarecrow: The Reaping" There is a preview for "Hive" BUT, did anyone notice.... There is a preview for "Hive 2"? Why? They didn't have to do that? They have 40 minutes of video for the queue; no need for this 90 second filler.... Why not Scarecrow 2, with some sort of campy tagline? I don't for a second think this was just a "why not?" thing to do.

I wouldn't doubt it. HOS has gone downhill in the past couple of years, as they have lost their main creative staff. It used to be very, very good. There were years it was even better than HHN (long ago). That was when they were doing real icons and very long houses. They need the right leadership to get back on track. It's currently no better than a Six Flags haunt.

I have been in Tent, SS, and Disaster Queue Houses and we didn't wear cloaks when we walked across the queue. This is my first IP house, and the first time I have had to be cloaked to walk to a house.

No bottle opener or playing cards (that I've purchased every year they've had). No vinyl figures other than tiny Stranger Things ones you can get at Target and regular Funko Pops. The Killer Klowns shirt is REALLY nice. The shop on the corner of the Finnegan side street / Transformers / Killer Klowns had some Stranger Things stickers I didn't see anywhere else (including the Tribute Store).

It's a miracle! Finally got the embed to work... Killer Klowns from Outer Space 1 Killer Klowns from Outer Space 2 Killer Klowns from Outer Space 3 Chucky's Revenge 1 Chucky's Revenge 2 The Harvest Twisted Traditions

By that logic I demand a ghostbusters comedy house next year.

Hello Boils and Ghouls, JW here. "Who's JW?" Well, for a long time I was a die-hard obsessed HHN fan who modded here and also on the Vault. I've been going to HHN since '91 and only missed last year and 2004. Not that any of that matters, it's not like you get some kind of trophy for going to a Halloween event, but it is a tidbit about myself Long story short, I got fed up with the whole thing and did HOS last year... Yeah it pretty much sucked. Everyone told me how amazing last year was so I came back with the caveat that I pay the exorbitant price for Express so I wouldn't be stressed out and boy did that pay off. I cannot stress enough how much you need express if you plan to go one time or, like me, being in a large crowd of sweaty people makes you physically ill and and also makes your eyes twitch. You will wait 65-125 min a house. Statistically this puts you, at best, 650 min which is more time than the event is pen in a single night. Anyhoo. it was great. It was amazing weather for the first time in... 10 years? The express allowed me to do 14 houses in 8 hours (4 done during AP party and before the queues got too large). I wasn't stressed. I had a great time and enjoyed nearly every house. So kudos Universal. Great houses, great experience. The crowds are insane but what exactly can be done about that? Raise the price? I will go into my "in-depth" review of each house at this point so spoilers. TLDR/ JW like! Spoilers ahead. Now to see if I can remember the houses: Trick R' Treat Walk on 1st, 80 min 2nd 8 of 10 Pros: Beautiful house. Really captured what I expected a Trick R' Treat house would be. Amazing details and little touches. Cons: Minor but this my favorite Halloween movie of all time. Focused a little too much on the end battle. Continuity was strange and jumped around. Started with essentially he end and ended with the middle. INSANE SHARED QUEUE with Seeds. Seeds Of Extinction Walk on 1st, 50 min 2nd 10 of 10 Pros: I believe it was my favorite of the night. Great claustrophobic house. Scareactors blend in really well. Beautiful immersion. Great scares. Just wonderful. Cons: 2 days till pretty much the entire extinction of humanity seemed... extreme. INSANE SHARED QUEUE with Trick R' Treat. Dead Exposure 10 min first, 65 min 2nd 8 of 10 Pros: Really felt like the original. Monkey puppet best scare for me of the night. Cons: Hard to navigate the strobes were very disorienting so I couldn't judge how close I was to the guy in front of me. I may owe him dinner now. Slaughter Cinema 15 min 1st 65 2nd 7 of 10 Pros: Felt like Blood N Guts meets Silver Screams. Some unique scare tactics. Comedy house. GIANT critter! Cons: I dunno just kind of falls flat for me. Some interesting sets but I just won't latch to this one. BNG and Silver Screams did it so well it doesn't feel like it hit that mark. Not bad just not my favorite. Blum House 55 min 4 of 10 This was not interesting to me in the least. First house I used my express and glad I did. Would not do this one again. Poltergeist 75 min 9 of 10 Pros: Great facade, great scare, unique rooms, good scares. Funko Doorway Spectre. Dimensional womb.GIANT SKUll! Cons: A little slow to start with strange continuity but the back half more than made up for it. Scary Tales 70 min 9 of 10 Pros: Great addition to the ST franchise. Inventive new angles. Honestly competes with ST II IMHO and it was one of my all time favorites. Cons: A bit too much light. Carnival Graveyard: 60 min 7 of 10 Pros: Awesome Facade. Immersive unique sets. Inventive scares. Cons: Wasn't what I was expecting. Too much gore. Felt this should be more like Gothic (read as beautiful and spooky) and less like a generic killer house. Stranger Things: 120 min 10 of 10 Beautifully executed. Amazing sets (glowing portal was amazing). Great costumes. Great animatronics. Great use of an IP. Guarantee this will be back. Halloween:. 65 min 8 of 10 Pros: Surprisingly, good. Not a fan of Halloween but it was well done. Some neat ideas implemented Cons: Just kind of starts. No facade. Some of the acting was disingenuous. Meyers either held the knife really close to his body or like Jim Carrey in the knife skit. I'll write about the scare zones later. I didn't see the show.

You wouldn't. Trust me.

The exit marathon

The First Purge section looks like absolute garbage however the Happy Death Day part looks pretty good and legit and follows the story pretty well, was impressed with that. Should’ve just been a full on Happy Death Day house.

I wish that they would fix that problem for Slaughter sinema and DE P 0 I hate that they put both exits together, and then people don't walk or get out of the exit line and want to stop in front the where it lets out and want to talk for 30 mins about their plans.

Top Notch "fun" house. The film ideas are all very interesting and I could see either of them becoming fleshed out into their own full blown house concept (especially the Swamp Yeti and the Midnight Snack 2 sections) Lots of funs, and the scareactors seem to be having a blast with what they know is a very silly concept overall. Also it smells like popcorn when you go in. How cool is that?

Absolutely incredible house and the best one I did tonight. 5/5 I always look forward to reading your reviews. This really is a magnificent house. Not to immediately counter what I said above but after doing this house your comment makes perfect sense. I personally really liked it but understand how you can look at a house, see that it's incredibly well done (and will likely get HOTY) but at the same time feel that it does nothing for you on a scare level due to the subject material.

Oh now this is a really weird cup to sell! Going to cause a lot of confusion. I mean, when you go to the ticket page on the site, they have THREE different "Frequent Fear" passes. Do they require you to show a FFP ticket to buy the cup? Do they require you to show a FFP pass to refill the cup? Do they have a "Peasant Pass" cup good only that night? One of the Frequent Fear Passes is an Ultimate FFP, so technically ALL nights are FFP nights. Nah, this isn't going to be confusing at all. This is beyond dumb. Sell a souvenir cup good for one night and one good for all nights. No confusion.

So what are we going to call the new location? New Parade Building... Parade Building v2.0?

It is really funny hearing some of the things that the guests in line (Seeds of Extinction) think that we are all cloaked leaving the house during cast change. We have heard Harry Potter (Dementors) a lot. Some just are confused as to who we are supposed to be.

I so wish the Fast and Furious ride ended up with an animatronic the same size as Kong but with a giant Vin Diesel head saying Familia over and over.... Familia, La Familia La familia