atigeg

This house is in my top three of the year (the other two being Saws & Steam and the Forsaken). Rarely do we get a back walk through here. We refer to teams A and B as "Drunk Poe" and "Writing Poe" respectively, in reference to the portrayal in the first room. I'm sad to see Drunk Poe doesn't have his bottle lately. I love to see him swinging it around. At the end, my favorite insane Poe is Team B because he is the most active/threatening, but I love both of the casts overall. Now for some comments with spoilers, so don't read any further if you haven't been through it yet: I love that there are now two Virginias in the portrait room (there was only one at the beginning of the season, correct?) and that they don't only come out when the room goes dark after Poe's lamentation now. The first time they came out with the lights on scared the hell out of me because it was totally unexpected. Also, I noticed in the dancing room that one guy doesn't have his mechanical partner. I saw one person, assumed it was a fake and the scareactor was out sick. Got a hell of a shock when he suddenly jumped out and was in my face.

This was already my favorite scarezone of the year, but a Cats N Combs shout-out just cements it.

OT, but did this work for anyone for Cleaver? That's my all-time favorite cheese house, although I must admit I love chatting with H.R. He was doing some Charlie Sheen quotes at me last night ("Winning!") because we had a bunch of stuffed animals, so my husband randomly gave him a little red monkey.

Highly doubtful that it will be crowded. It rarely is on Halloween, and this year that's compounded by it being on a Monday.

Actually I didn't think Sunday was bad at all. Had six houses done without express, although that might just be because we used stay & scream. Did the other two with our Express passes, then did one more round and left. I did notice the times going up when we did our second go-round so the big crowd must have built up late.

So what exactly made it the best? We did the Ultimate at Busch and absolutely loved it, but that's probably because the house lines were two hours for standby and Cheetah Hunt was 130 minutes so a tour was the best way to go. Universal would have to go way beyond just seeing the houses to make their worth the $$.

So I guess no one has taken this tour. I ended up opting for the Ultimate at HowlOScream for my birthday gift instead. It's not like I won't get enough HHN this year. I'm still curious about what it's like though.

The irony (especially this year in Bloodengutz) is that A&D puts in things that cause people to pause/stop, like the bomb button this year, while Ops tries to keep them moving as they stop to play with the things that were purposely placed there for playing. After multiple visits, I still think this is a particularly good year ops-wise though.

The new show location is one of the worst decisions ever. It's bad enough getting around the park when it's crowded, but Thursday was a special hell thanks to all the people waiting for Death Drums early and the TMs keeping the spot clear (plus it was adjacent to Ghost Hunters, although that didn't seem to affect anything). Crowded, can-barely-find-space-to-walk event + show that draws a non-moving crowd = epic fail. It wasn't nearly so disruptive in the other spot.

the express line was 20 min for POE last night, comment most issued was when people saw the queue line was "Is this really Express??" (you couldn't see the depth of the normal queue, I would say it went back to the apartments)

I hate the period when it's still out because I wear transitioning glasses and they take forever to switch from sunglasses to normal. Thus I'm blind for at least half the house and have to hold my husband's shirt so I don't walk into a wall. I'm glad the Rockit is chewing up the crowds. I'm like the rest of you who won't wait more than 20 minutes, mainly because anything longer increases my odds of some douche lighting up next to me, because lord knows it's so polite to smoke your stink stick in a large, sardine-packed crowd where it's forbidden anyway. We have FFP+ with Express, but we save that until absolutely necessary. It always cracks me up to see people using EP when the park first opens and there's literally no wait. I view it as Darwinism. The more that do it, the less bodies that will be in front of me later, when I use mine at the time it's actually needed.

A note about the Forsaken: there is one spot where people walking go down a different (slanted) path than wheelchairs. It's just a short little piece, but you'll see something different depending on whether you roll through or walk through.

I can understand that the sticks might have caused problems, but I liked them because they were unique. I love chainsaws as much as the next horror fan, and I did kinda miss them, but I thought the sticks were way cool because it something I never saw before at a Halloween event. The only thing worse than not enough chainsaws is chainsaws randomly and haphazardly retrofitted in, whether they logically fit or not.

I noticed Sunday that the sticks were gone. Lame.

Only problem with the event was that the early-open houses seemed light on scareactors.

Pretty much the same this year as in years past. I've seen some drunks this year, but none causing trouble. So far, I prefer them to the douche who crushed my toes twice, ripping the skin off on one foot, because he and the bimbos in his group kept running backwards (he stopped after I kicked him good & hard the second time; I figured it was only fair to share the intense pain). Some people turn into assclowns when you add booze, but many more are natural-born assclowns, and cutting back on liquor wouldn't stop them.

Well yeah, overall house...but I didn't say scareactors/scenes!

Has anyone booked the Arcane Insights tour? Does anyone have an opinion on whether it's going to be worth the money? My birthday falls on one of the dates, and I'm going back and forth on it because $225 a head for my husband and myself really pains me. I'd love to do the event with someone from creative, but I do get many chances to hear from them at media events etc. since I'm a writer. We've already done Unmasking the Horror, and we have FFP Express passes so front-of-the-line to the houses isn't as big of a deal as it would be without that. But still, the idea appeals to me because I do love UTH. I'm really back and forth on this, and I imagine I need to book soon if I decide on it since they're so limited.

God, I love this house. One of you trapped me with your chainsaw last night (early in the evening), and my husband just traipsed right along, not even realizing that I wasn't behind him. Such an awesome, intense house. It has special effects, but also old school scares which is what I really come to the event for.

Ops are low key and doing a great job this year. I've seen overenthusiasm no more than twice so far and haven't experienced "move along, move along" at all. I've seen a couple waving their flashlights, but in a low key way that is actually useful for guidance rather than making you feel rushed.

Saws & Steam, you're my favorite house of the year, but no fair trapping me in a room with a chainsaw! I thought Saw was the best Jaws queue house ever, but my opinion is rapidly changing this year.

Several shout-outs from last night (alas, I don't know the times): Winter's Night: It's amazing how scary a well-placed hand in front of my face can be when it totally comes out of nowhere. So simple, yet one of my best scares of the night. Forsaken: Usually not so scary for me because those eyes are a dead giveaway, but good job to the scareactor in the ship scene who saw me looking away and got in the perfect position to scare the snot out of me when I turned back around. The Thing: Very, very creepy to get called out by name..."Barb....Barb..." Holidays: Presidents, you rock! Saws N Steam: You all rock too! Nevermore: Love the ravens. Grown Evil: During the day I thought, "This isn't scary!" At night, I had my best scarezone scare here when who-knows-what popped out of nowhere. My little stuffed toy ended up wearing my lemonade. I wore my old-school Vault shirt and was amazed at the reactions it still draws. Tonight's attire will either be Nightmares or Howl-O-Scream. Keep up the great work! Looking forward to the rest of the season.

It's was my husband's third time at HHN this year and my first...I've reported on his opinions thus far, so finally, here is my own house review: http://exm.nr/qhN3ZY

Corrected based on 17 visits Winter's Night The Forsaken 5:45 - 6:30 A 6:30 - 7:15 B 7:15 - 8:00 A 8:00 - 8:45 B 8:45 - 9:30 A 9:30 - 10:15 B 10:15 - 11:00 A 11:00 - 11:45 B Saws and Steam The In Between The Thing 6:00 - 6:45 A 6:45 - 7:30 B 7:30 - 8:15 A 8:15 - 9:00 B 9:00 - 9:45 A 9:45 - 10:30 B 10:30 - 11:15 A 11:15 - 12:00 B Nightingale H.R. BloodeNGutz Nevermore 6:30 - 7:15 A 7:15 - 8:00 B 8:00 - 8:45 A 8:45 - 9:30 B 9:30 - 10:15 A 10:15 - 11:00 B 11:00 - 11:45 A 11:45 - 12:30 B

Haven't seen this house yet, but I have high hopes for it (and as a child of the 60s/70s, I'd love to see them do an acid-trippy H R Puffnstuff house in the future...Sid & Marty Kroft shows were downright scary). I loved Home for the Holidays, and although Cleaver did nothing for me at the beginning of the event, it was my favorite by the end. I loved Sam Meetz and got some quality scares in the last part of that house. I've always been a fan of holiday mashups, probably starting when I was a kid and fell in love with the Rankin-Bass "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." To see that sort of thing gone very wrong, combined with a cheesy horror show host (I grew up with Svengoolie in Chicago) appeals to me on many levels.