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I spent 2 weeks in Orlando at the start of the season, just for HHN. I live near USH and went there several times as well for HHN. I felt it was a so-so year for Orlando and another poor year for Hollywood, which is stuck on a terrible downward trajectory. My end of season rankings are (Best to Worst): Slaughter Sinema 2 Goblin’s Feast Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Legacy of Leatherface (HOLLYWOOD) Insidious: The Further (ORLANDO) SMALL BUT DISTINCT GAP Monstruos 2: The Nightmares of Latin America (HOLLYWOOD) Major Sweets Candy Factory Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (ORLANDO) Dead Exposure: Death Valley (HOLLYWOOD) Terror Tram (HOLLYWOOD) A Quiet Place (ORLANDO) A Quiet Place (HOLLYWOOD) Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines (ORLANDO) MASSIVE QUALITY CHASM Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America (ORLANDO) Triplets of Terror Insidious: The Further (HOLLYWOOD) Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (HOLLYWOOD) Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines (HOLLYWOOD) The Museum: Deadly Exhibits The Weeknd: Nightmare Trilogy (HOLLYWOOD) The top 4 were outstanding I went into the event feeling Slaughter Sinema would be a no-brainer, and it was. The fact that next 3 are on top really surprised me. Goblins was the setpiece showstopper, and just blew me away. I could not visit without doing it once or twice. Not a fan of IP, but Hollywood knocked it out of the park with TCM. Totally unique presentation. Unique story. Relentless actors. Copious detail throughout the house. You'd think you were in Orlando. Orlando's Insidious was perfect for what it was trying to do. Its intensity matched TCM beat for beat. It was this year's Poltergeist. Monstrous is a Hollywood thing. Orlando just doesn't get it. This house brought back El Cucuy and introduced two more nightmares. Great job - another Orlando quality presentation. Major sweets - best use of F&F, and a really fun house Ghostbusters in Orlando had massive sets and paced the movie very well. I had not seen the movie going in and it made me want to see it. Dead Exposure was Hollywood's foray into the franchise and I think they did it justice. It had a Patient Zero feel to it, but they did not do a Black and White presentation. It was full color throughout. Terror Tram in Hollywood was much better than prior years. Think Orlando's Blumhouse zone, but each booth being a whole set where an act was performed (each of the quality of the Brazen Bull at Torture Faire). Both coasts did a decent job with Quiet Place. Now mid-way through Dec, they get mixed in my mind. I liked Orlando's more, but each had their moments. Biggest problem was no way to hide the scares of the monsters. Universal Monsters was a disappointment, but less so in Orlando. One thing that bugged the hell out of me was that Orlando made Bride Black. Why? Do that anywhere else (Darkest Deal was one of my faves; Oddfellow cast as Black was perfectly fine as we had not met him before). But don't change an IP character just because you want to be progressive... From here on out the events hit the skids... Orlando mucked up Monstrous by rearranging the order of the monsters, and by making seemingly reskinning the Chupacabra house. Triplets of Terror was an overcomplicated mess of a story. We are to believe three 9-year olds are able to go into hiding in the sewers for 10 years and survive on their own? And successfully repeat it five more times? The killers we finally meet in present day are 49 year olds? Gimme a break... Hollywood's Insidious house was very small and cramped yet very long. Only a few "rooms". Mostly black hallways. Unlike Orlando which presented each part of the story in succession, this was a mish mash throughout. Hollywood's Ghostbusters was relegated to a tent, and it showed. Mostly consisted of largish rooms connected by black hallways. None of the rooms were nearly as grand as Orlando's. Hollywood's Universal Monsters had nice sets, but tons of black hallways. Voice lines were repeated on 5 second loops, so conga lines meant hearing the same lines repeated throughout the house. House was notoriously under-staffed. The Museum should never have opened. The only good part was the fact it had the "From Egypt" box in front of the house, mentioned in the Slaughter Sinema preview... It felt like it was supposed to be an IP house that fell through and got quickly re-dressed. The Museum was by far the worst house of the year....until I went to The Weeknd house. The 2022 house was really good. This was dismal. Also notoriously under-staffed, it relied on static figures in all but the first room, so if it was under-staffed, there were zero scares. Black hallways were everywhere. Lazy John Murdy. Hollywood has got serious issues. Crowds this year were not big. Yes, there were 2 hour waits at times, but only at certain times and for certain houses. The houses were clumped into three regions, so you would see big waits at one clump and small waits in the others, then the crowd would move to another clump. Here is the reality for ANY night of that event: Insidious wait time was always well over an hour, any time of the night; Ghostbusters (directly next to Insidious) was usually a 5 minute wait. TCM wait time was always over an hour; Weeknd (same clump) was usually a 5 minute wait Dead Exposure/Monsters clump was always between 10 and 40 min. Quiet Place/Monstrous2 clump was always between 10 and 50 min They had a Purge show - which was utterly unchanged from 2023... No other entertainment - not even Death Eaters this year. Oh God...they DID have a "Late Night with Chucky" show... A tame version of the Insult show of long ago or even the Chucky show at Orlando. This was "presented by SyFy" (SyFy canceled the TV show a week into the event). Ouch! Go ahead and watch one of the Chucky HHN shows on YouTube. I DARE YOU to make it to the end.,.. People tried to leave mid show and couldn't because it was in a theater. It made Jabbawockeez look like Shakespeare... Hollywood's food offerings for HHN are dismal. Regular items with a themed name. Orlando's HHN food item offerings are legendary. The best park haunt of 2024 for me was Knotts Scary Farm - I should be a bucket list item for anyone living in Orlando. More affordable than HHN, more houses than HHN Hollywood, each one nearly HHN Orlando quality. Every one an original story. So here's the thing - We all know Orlando throws a shit-ton of cash behind it's event (well, except in the same years they are spending $4 billion on a new park). They have all new houses every year. Visit a house or miss it forever. Hollywood does pretty much the same thing, except on a shoestring budget. So you may have 8 "new themes" but very little budget behind each one. You therefore have crap houses for the most part. They have been living on what used to be a good reputation, and used to sell out almost every night. Not amymore. Knotts on the other hand... They used to have a crappy reputation. They had at least 10 mazes a year, each of which were pretty much like HHN Hollywood houses today. Lots of plywood and dark hallways. They kept those houses up for 5-6 years and brought like 3 new ones per year. They have tweaked this business model in the past seven years - to great success. Today, they have 10 houses. They retire 2 hours per year and add 2 new ones per year. BUT they throw all the money into those two new houses. The result is that they have rotated out all low budget stuff and now have uber quality houses. So in 2024 you have 10 Orlando-quality houses (one is a stinker that they are retiring at the end of this year). In fact, in 2022 and 2023 they retired 2 quality houses at end of those years, and replaced them with even better houses. The result is Knotts at the top of its game now, offers better rides and excellent quality shows at a very good price point. If you buy their equivalent of an Express Pass, you can use it unlimited times to get into the houses, and each entry is truly a walk-on. They have so much to do, it's really hard to do it all in one night - not because of the waits, but because of the sheer amount of stuff. If you went to Knotts once every 4-5 years it would be all-new to you. They are definitely stealing business from HHN Hollywood - and rightly so. I am looking forward to Hollywood's response. If I was in charge there I would let John Murdy go, and try to bring in Patrick Braillard or Jon Cooke to fill the massive void that is HHN Creative. The mindset in Hollywood is stagnant, and needs fresh blood. I mean, the HHN lead doesn't even live in the country and the quality has not been affected by his remote leadership. While that sounds positive I suggest that the quality was so low it couldn't get worse even with no resident leadership. Sorry, but Universal needs to wake up and deal with this. John, it's time to hang it up, and head into that long black endless hallway you built. So my final ranking is: 1. Knotts - best overall event (this year) 2. Universal Orlando - Only lower because it was a "meh" year. 2019, 2021 or 2022 would have ranked #1 3. ANY mall haunt 4. Universal Hollywood - Overpriced, overhyped dreck