jmorri26

Hey guys, I read through many reviews before going myself and thought I'd throw my thoughts into the hat. We just got back after going one night with Express on Saturday. We had a group of 5 and I was known for being the easy target/ easily frightened of the group. We've all been to a few years in the past including last year, so my review is off of that. I'll talk about each house then scarezone in order we went to them. I WILL post a few spoilers, so be warned if you haven't been yet. Houses: Hallow'd Past: We hit this 2 times (once right at opening with no line and once later with Express) and overall, its a fun house. No big complains. There is so much to look at it really helped to go through a second time knowing when I had time to look around. The Body Collectors stole the show here as everyone, both times, stopped dead to watch them rip the spine out. My big problem here though- there's 2 perfect holes to pop through and scare the living hell out of people while they're watching the spine and both times, no one was ever there. This house had a lot of dead time to look at things but also a lot of spots people should have been but weren't. The Icons in it were nice but whoever was doing Jack on ours both times was lacking. Just standing in the dark. This house has so much to see though it really was good. Catacombs: This was easily the scariest house for me. I actually loved this house. There was so many scareactors and all were into their characters both times (We did this twice.) No complains here. It was a really solid, on the ball house. The best part though is the screaming body in the 1st big turn. Both times he got us! Would have loved a musty dead smell in here. That would have been perfect. Havoc: This house scared the hell out of our group for the people in front of me. Me, I got nothing. I saw the scared but none we directed to me. Sad to say, this left me without much of an opinion about this house. It was loud, flashy and fairly intense, just would have liked more scares. This was ranked scariest by others in my group though so just hope for good timing. Orfanage: So many had negative reviews of this and I can't say I totally agree. It was fairly empty of actors and both Cindys we saw were just...standing there. Not waiting to jump, not moving. Just standing. The "fire in a house?" Oh please! That was beyond silly walking by a window and seeing a firebar in front of you spitting out some fire. Too much hype for, well, nothing. There could have been much more of a burnt wood smell. I got a sniff once or so in the early part of the house. Overall, they scared us a few times but this house just kind of fell in the middle for me. Zombiegeddon- Another house I was looking forward to. Another house no one tried to scare us! I liked the layout, but in too much was there either deadtime or actors just standing there in chains or whatever looking zombielike. The float crash was lost of everyone, myself included and I never got a sense the zombies "broke out" The pacing felt off. Pychoscareapy: Eh...I thought this would be a blast. I really did. Went in excited and then nothing! There was very few scareactors in our walkthrough and the ones there were just standing there. No jumping at us, nothing. The highlight of this house- the red button- WASN'T WORKING! We got to it all excited and everyone started to hit it but nothing. So there was a long hallway of just quiet, nothingness. This was probably the biggest disappointment for me of the night and I know others on here liked it. I just never saw any scareactors to know one way or another. Hades: This looked nice, I'll give it that. The medusas everyone talked about? Never saw em. This was our rush house with security yelling constantly to keep moving. The empty throne, as everyone else said, was a big letdown. My husband got scared a good few times in here but I didn't get much. This was kind of forgettable too, to be honest. Legendary Truth: I was psyched to go in here. The facade- awesome. Once inside I saw the ghost on the floor but it moves consistently slow with what a person walks through in the houses, so my mom up front got to see it beautifully but for me and the rest of us- nothing. The bit I saw walking in looked cool though, just would have liked to see it better myself. The transparent wall was great and the actor behind it got a few of us good. The hall with the actor on a rope flying left to right was probably my favorite effect all night. It was perfect for me time wise and caught everyone off guard to see a guy fling by unexpectedly! I missed the chair. It got the guys in front of us so I got to see him reset to chair mode. The theming of this house was phenomenal. All the rooms, windows, etc were great. I actually liked the light up masks they wore, though others in the group thought they looked cheesy. To whoever compared them to Spectromagic- dead on! This was my favorite house, I just wish I got a few more of the big things when I went through. Scarezones 20 years of Fear: Great setup and design. The cryptkeeper got me good when I wasn't paying attention and I really enjoyed the few chainsaw guys blending in with the crowd. They'd turn their chainsaws on and suddenly scare everyone- this was really effective. This felt very sparse in actors though. The few we saw were constantly posing for pictures. It was ridiculous. The treeguy was easily the best one and he couldn't even stand up so many were jumping over to pose for pictures. This was a reoccurring problem all night I saw. The scareactors never got to scare because they had to do pictures. Fear Revealed: Went through 2 times and only once was Fear there. Fear looked...dumb. Up close the skin and things wasn't bad, but its just a dude on stilts guys. This scarezone put a bad taste in all of our mouths. Jack couldn't even walk out his tent and was just sitting there with chance while a zillion cameras pointed at him. It felt like a weird version of a zoo watching animals in cages while the hoards take pictures. The storyteller walked up to us and proceeded to TALK TO US! Not in a scary way, mind you. She was just talking like we were buddies. I was on edge convinced she was going to do something. Nope. She never left either. I finally said thank, have a good night and we left. No clue what that was about. The other icons were trolling around doing pictures. Fears minions were too busy doing their little weird interpretive dances to scare too. Overall this just felt sad. Cindy was the only redeeming factor. She chased everyone down full speed. Halfway down the pumpkin walk, we turned and she was still following us. Go Cindy! Zombie Gras- Another photo-op! What the hell guys. Put the cameras away and enjoy yourself! Not enough actors here. A few were funny though. NONE tried to scare, just wandering like zombies. He wasn't scary, but the best guy there is the one human on the float scared throwing beads to zombies. He kept yelling to us and got us to laugh a few times. Saws n steam- Coolest looking. The guy on the tall part yelling to the crowds was nice but this suffered from again, just not enough scareactors. With mroe people in it, it would have been fun but we just walked through and saw 3 guys in the corners. Cool costumes though. The Coven- If I had to summarize this scarezone in a sentence: Busty witches trying to look pouty in the dark. This I was excited for actually having read many good (and bad) reviews. The witches huts, no one was ever in to try and scare with. The witches were just bleached blonde bimbos standing around taking pictures with drunk guys. There was one in a hag mask walking around but never scaring. The puritans on the fires were not there the 3 times we checked that night. Nothing! I saw the wires above and heard people say in reviews witches were flying overhead- not on our night. This was more photos and more nothingness. Esquerto Muerte- Looked cool, but more pictures. Everyone wanted a picture (with flash, idiots) of the scareactors. There wasn't many of them there either. Overall, the houses had a lot of actors so scare possibility was high. I had a few duds but chauk that up more to bad timing than anything. These were not the best houses weve seen of HHN though, in fact they felt uninspired compared to years past. The scarezones, all of them, were a joke. The pictures have to stop. It ruined the entire night and actors can't do their thing. They need to grow a pair and not pose for every picture. Oh, and there was a Jack photo area! If they want to offer pictures taking, thats the way to do it. Not in the zones itself. The zones were completely uninspired short of 20 years of fear. On top of that, the majority of the park was empty. Huge chunks of land had nothing and the park felt incredibly underutilized. For spending a year coming up with this stuff, I gotta wonder how much of that time A&D spends with their fingers up their noses talking about how great they are. This year did NOT feel like the caliber of event people have come to expect. I didn't do the shows. No desire. I didn't encounter many drunks either. Lots of line smokers and douche bag kids trying to scare people in line, but thats to be expected. The alcohol was silly showing ID to get a wristband but then still having to show ID each time you got a drink? Why? The only bad drunk I saw was a 15 year old or so girl sitting across 2 stalls in a bathroom crying because she couldn't puke. A cop came to get her out ha! The glowy flashy things were a bit excessive this year. A few houses they were asked to turn them off but no one seemed to listen. The wedding thing we narrowly missed and went saturday but this is just a thought- we all pay a lot of money to go to these events. I don't know about you (because this wedding launched the new HHN themed wedding packages universal is starting!) but I'm not too keep on every year now having a house or area where a couple goth kids a night want to get hitched at HHN and holding up houses and things so they can do so. This just feels like the cash cow is about to keel over from being overmilked. I love HHN but we all said it, having been years prior and having wonderful experiences each time, if things keep up like this, we might just not make the trip to come back.

I'm going saturday but I can tell you a peeve before even being there from what I've seen and heard thus far- am I the only one who doesn't like that Fear Revealed is a giant photo-op? It wastes a great scarezone to have Jack, Caretaker, etc just posing for pictures with everyone all night and never getting to do much. I kind of feel like cameras just need to be put away for the whole event and just enjoy yourself, but if you taking your pictures steals from the experience for everyone else, it kind of ruins it, no?

I actually totally agree with Rob. Another thing you're not considering- you've stood in those lines and pushed along to the guy with the scanner so you know what its like, even in express. There was a long line of frustrated people behind you and even if you were polite about it, by you insisting to him that other houses allowed it etc, you were wasting his/other people in lines time and I'm sure his only concern at the time was that some one was in line holding things up that shouldn't be and he wanted you gone so he could keep things moving. He was doing his job. By you not just agreeing and leaving when he said to, he was entitled to change his tone with you to get you moving. If you were a few people back in that line and saw some people holding things up with the employee, even for just a minute, you know you wouldn't appreciate it.

Ok, so if the button is in PS, where is it? Sounds pretty clearly visible as many have noticed it.

JWFearman, did you do the Behind the Screams tour? How was it?

I heard there was one in Hades and I've seen a few articles about the opening weekend say theres one in each house...not sure. Maybe that's not true.

Hi all, From what I've read of reviews so far at least a few houses (possibly all) have the red buttons in them. I thought it would be nice to get a list going of where in the houses they are for others going to be on the look out.

Anyone have a clue why they aren't selling the blood sipper cup on the merch site? Everything else is up. That was the one thing I was looking forward to!

Im pretty surprised- I'm going the weekend of the 15th and the onsite hotels are totally booked up. There was plenty of free rooms last year even after we got there.

And where can I get my badge lol

Ha! Actually their faces are strangely similar....

Agreed. Dr. Jimmy, you've been beyond helpful every step of the way in the investigation. And thank you, Dreamstalker for keeping everyone on track.

Bowties AND fezzes are cool. But yes, that answer struck me more than the others because it was very quick, as you said, but also very "thanks for the help. we didn't think of that" The only other time I thought they sounded that way was when asked about Thorncastle. She quickly replied no we don't know where he is but if you do, please let us know. They were very dodgy on the subject of the portametus being pieced together. They said yes, we did the work for them and yes they wanted us to but didn't want to take the responsibility for what happened and were unclear if they knew what would happen.

I think you're dead on. The answers weren't in the actual things they said but more what they moved away from talking about. I'm still laughing about the sending Steerington off on a luxurious boat fishing trip!

You know being an easily jumpy screaming female I got targeted pretty much everywhere I moved but was absolutely convinced last year if I forced a big dumb toothy smile on my face in houses, I'd be avoided a bit more and surprisingly it worked. I could be scared to all hell but with a big smile I guess at quick glance I seemed to be enjoying it and like I wouldn't scream. It was interesting to see the Dracula house last year, being predominantly women scareactors, all the men with us got zoned in on. I walked through that house without a single scare! A side question to go with that- what are those of you that are scareactors opinions of people (mostly guys Id assume) who are way into your scares? You know, guys smiling and laughing and going "Wow you look awesome!" My husband and friends did that, not in a taunting way or anything, and scareactors seemed annoyed by this and quickly move on.

I agree that I think fire will be in the Orfanage (they flat out said its about a burned up orphanage and it just fits) I think though, they're not going to delve that deeply into Greek Mythology as you went into. At it's core, if one was to try and make a Hades the mass of people would see and easily recognize, I'd think they'd focus on the 5 rivers since many people can recognize images of Charon in his boat, the river Styx, etc. I think they'll do a Cerberus, since many recognize the 3 headed monstrous dog. And while you're right that the fire and brimstone type hell most people think of with Hades isn't going on down following the Greeks, its what the majority of people think of when you say Hades. Even the logo they creates had hints of firey light cast on the stone. So I do think there will be a firey, hell like element to it but not to the extent that people expect little guys with pitchforks and horns to be running around.

But something clean burning like propane or butane wouldn't put off smoke.

I would think they would do firebars like they use in film. They're easy to control and would give lots of spread fire effects (I say relatively easy to control but that is how the set of The Thing burned partially down!) I doubt we're looking at big firebursts like in scarezones. Just something where you see it and feel the heat. If need be they could put them behind glass or something we wouldn't notice so its actually out of harms way. That seems more likely. Or even maybe similar to the fire type effects in The Mummy ride (the ceiling of fire) that effect seems very easily contained and controlled and puts off a ton of heat.

If you didn't actually listen to the conference, those bullet points above are very disjointed and hard to follow for some and missing lots of info. Most others sources who did real write ups on it were much clearer- http://www.examiner.com/orlando-resort-in-orlando/universal-creative-directors-mike-aiello-and-tj-mannereno-answer-the-burning-questions-of-hhn-20 http://www.insidethemagic.net/2010/08/interview-more-halloween-horror-nights-2010-details-emerge-from-universal-orlandos-designers/ http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/features_orlando/2010/08/halloween-horror-nights-plans-face-fear-at-universal-studios.html http://www.examiner.com/theme-parks-in-orlando/universal-orlando-holds-halloween-horror-nights-conference-call-creative-minds-share-their-thoughts Just a few I saw offhand. There's been some great write ups on HNN as well if you dig around.

Nah I'm starting to think no because they said after seeing what people were tihnking it would be they were enjoying that we all were thinking the wrong one. Everyone has assumed zombiegeddon.

You know, especially after their conference chat I think if there was one underutilized element I'm hoping gets a bigger role this year, and it sounds like they seem open to more this year, its adding more immersive elements. They mentioned fire in a house, which sounds great. Do more things like sprays with water and dripping, foam (Treak and Foon type foam), smoke, air (a few houses have had air blow on you hard) low lying fog. All these things they've had before and in my experience at least, those things get a massive wow out of audiences and people seemed to remember and be drawn to things they felt they were moving through like that. Containment last year wasn't an earth shaking scarezone, but walking through green lit up fog is, well...fun. Clearly they seem to be doing a good bit of blacklight for the Day of the Dead styled zone and I get the impression from the Dogs of War house we could get a good bit of fog and things. I just remember catching the picture they posted on the past section a few weeks ago of Treak and Foon and going "man, I hope they push for this sort of thing again" Just a thought I had after hearing them.

Yes, and the website for the general public can be found...where there are Nights of Halloween Horror. ha!

Rock on, BSquare. You raise a great point. HHN is by no means cheap and Universal's customers have the right to expect more for their bucks they shell out for it. Some for many many years. I agree spot on with you. I'm very excited for this year and will follow along eagerly til I go, but for the way they presented it as something so unlike HHNs before...it was basically the same. Too much fanfare on their part before the release I think.

I had that thought too (the whole after Z-day thing...Shaun of the Dead. They had them last year but it would be fun!) If I think campy I get more of a Land of the Dead vibe where all the zombies are chained up for pictures and fighting for money and things. More goofy like you're saying. I agree though. I hope it goes this way. Also after watching the video of Fear posted on the site, can I just say I'm loving having and actual monster for an icon (can we count him as an icon yet? SuperIcon?) All the others are essentially creepy looking humans and I like that this year will be a true monster. Sets a great tone.

To what others have said of Bloody Mary in the past and as I have heard it, the rights to use that name/character are no longer in Universal's hands. Hence her exclusion.