Blizzrock13

This is outrageous. Everything I've heard today has made my skepticism *disappear*. Very much looking forward to this house.

Does the event have to have a central theme, the website extras, a cool story, a fun icon, etc. etc. etc. for me to go the event and enjoy it? Absolutely not! It has only a minor effect on me when I'm actually at the event. There, the house design and actors will make or break the event. So sure, it's "icing on the cake." But you know when that icing is really important? Now. Before the event, when it's the only thing to go on. It determines how fun the speculation period is. Compare the difference between checking all the Bloody Mary updates and the Legendary Truth site, to bland announcements over facebook informing you that such-and-such will have a house this year. I personally love these months before the event because I love that Universal goes the extra mile for its fans. I'll go to the event every year if I can, but I can easily skip anticipating the whole thing for months if all this "icing" that essentially defines the speculation period is deemed unnecessary. Let's look at a scenario that I find unlikely, but people seem to be fearing -- let's assume mostly IP houses for a few years. Plus, let's assume Universal just announces all their houses like this, year in and year out, and there was no overarching theme or extras for fans. The event itself would be absolutely fine, but we don't need to talk about it from June-September. We'd have the house and SZ lists, and a quick glance at the boards could tell you the probable locations. With no extras (and with IPs basically ensuring a "best of" house), there really isn't much else to say. I realize it's not Universal's priority to make sure fanboys check their site everyday; it doesn't help their profit margin one bit. But we're all here to be fans of the event, not Uni's business model. As a fan, I'd be very disappointed if this was the approach they decided to take. Even if the extras are a bomb this year, it won't bother me too much. It's just one year. But if it's a trend...that would be troublesome. All this being said, I'm not saying that this will actually happen. I have faith in Universal, and it's only July, after all. Oh. And can we stop with the "if you don't like it, don't go!" approach? Seriously.

I realize that there hasn't been a true overarching theme the vast majority of years, but Universal DOES usually have some sort of really general theme. In 2007, we had all these IP properties, but they were sold to us as circus sideshows. In 2009, we had the Universal Palace Theater tying things together. In 2010, you had a lot of familiar HHN ideas returning for one last hurrah (this didn't account for all the material, but 4 of the houses and 3 of the SZs were pretty closely tied to that idea). Last year, the houses were all pretty unrelated, but we were given the mini games and told that each house featured a wrong choice, put in the hands of Lady Luck. Are these great overarching stories? No. It's no Terra Cruentus, but it IS different than straight up saying "Look at this hodgepodge of IPs we scrounged up this year" and calling that a theme. The theme is still a pretty integral part of the event, even if it doesn't encompass anything and everything. Personally, I'd be pretty happy if Universal quit announcing these houses. Speculation's really no fun if someone just tells you the answers and then says "Ok! That's it! See you in October."

It's nice that we're being awkwardly "welcomed" to all these houses in their titles. One more, and we may have that overarching theme that everyone's been hoping for.

Aw, come on! I brought this up 20 pages ago and got nothing out of you all. I'm personally quite pleased with this idea, as it amounts to basically Original House #4.

I've heard a lot of people raving about how great the houses were this year. Personally, I thought the lineup was very solid. Quality all around. No stinkers -- the Thing got the fewest Top House votes here, but it certainly wasn't awful. But also, no truly great houses. The In Between was a really good house, but it -- like all the other houses -- could not provide consistent scares. I'm sure plenty of people DID get consistent scares, but ultimately that's beside the point for the question I'm leading up to. I've also heard people reference HHN 18 as having a poor lineup because of Reflections of Fear (even though between ST3, BC2, and DE, there were certainly very good houses present), which makes me wonder -- do people prefer years where the houses are all pretty solid (obviously, some houses are still pretty good, while others are just, shall we say, a little sub par?) or do they prefer years where you get 2-3 fantastic houses, 3-4 ok houses, and 1-2 bad houses?

I doubt HHN Hollywood will have the same 3 original houses that we do.

The whole "they can't run" line pretty much confirms Walking Dead's a go.

I left out my biggest one in my earlier post: Where Evil Hides.

Ridiculous. Not that I disagree with what you're saying about how cool an overarching atmosphere is. I did love HHN18 and HHN15 for their distinctive feel. But to say that every year that DOESN'T is a let down is to deny Universal credit for the countless other things that go into an event. I don't agree that there haven't been scares in scarezones since 2008, and I think that most people feel similarly. Again, I agree that 2008 had the best zones, but I happen to think that the last two years have had some pretty cool streets (with a few duds as well, naturally). And since you phrased your comment "since 2005," where were these other years that came prior to 2005 that live up to this standard? No, the event doesn't "outdo" itself every year. But it always has the potential to. It's not on a downward trend. My favorite years are scattered all over the place. 2005, 2008, and 2010 -- respectively, the beginning, middle, and (close to) end of my years at horror nights. As far as the houses argument: Sure, the past had some great houses. Naturally, people who have been going for a long time might have more houses from their first 8-10 years going than, say, their last 2. That doesn't mean the more recent years are bad. Also -- do you realize how hard it is to compare a house that you love this year to a house that's been etched into your memory and coated with nostalgia for the last decade? Even so, if you head over to that Top 10 houses topic, you'll see plenty of recent houses like Catacombs, Hades, Dead Exposure, The In-Between, etc. etc. even on the vet's posts. But since you admit to that there have been good houses in recent years, I'm really confused as to what you're arguing. Good houses...tend to have something...people like about them? ...obviously.

Sorry, but has it been confirmed that P&T is the actual theme of the house? Couldn't it just be a loose tie-in, like Penn and Teller Present: [insert real house name here].? I feel like that makes the most sense, especially if the house is based around killer magicians (but not necessarily P&T themselves).

Where do they usually put them for this three month span? Do they ship them completely off property?

I suppose I get it. Some of the two-world clues we've been given for the houses this year haven't been all that intriguing. And there's a lot of uncertainty with what's going on with the streets. I understand, because a few years back I had some similar thoughts of my own. After 2007, I predicted that HHN would go downhill in the years to come. Universal clearly didn't put a lot of effort into the streets that year, and let's face it -- there wasn't much original content to be found in the Carnival of Carnage. I said it was laziness. I based this assumption off a mediocre 2006 and a partial let-down, partial success in 2007. You know what happened the next year? Universal put an incredible amount of effort into the scarezones. Into originality. Into everything. No other HHN for me has ever even come close. My point? This topic is absolutely ridiculous. We're looking at vague house clues, projecting our preemptive dissatisfaction onto the streets (which we still know nothing about), and then assuming that the result -- which exists only in our imaginations, mind you -- will create a downward, spiraling trend that eventually results in crappy scarezones on a yearly basis. black mask -- I respect your opinion, and you're absolutely right -- the forum's not only for blind fanboyism, but for honest critiques as well. And you should absolutely call Universal an asshole where warranted (I certainly have) XD. All I ask is that everyone relax a bit on the "sky is falling" posts. October is still 3 months away. The thing is, there are good years and bad years, for houses and zones. Personally, I liked the zones last year. 2008 and 2010 were better, yes, but I didn't see any big problems with them. Even if this year's don't pan out, I wouldn't worry. Universal likes making money, sure. But you know what helps with that? Reputation. And that tends to crumble when you neglect a major part of your event. In the grand scheme of things, the event is going to be absolutely fine. So let's chill, everyone.

I think HHN actually got a lot of negative feedback about the poor quality of their streets after 2007. I went four times that year, each with a different friend group (most were not hardcore fans) and every single one of them commented on how sub-par the streets were. Universal doesn't ignore the exit polls they ask you to take -- if something is universally seen as poor, they're going to try and find a reasonable way to fix it for next year. Notice the huge change in street quality seen the following year? Scarezones DO matter to most of us, and to the casual guest as well.

While I agree that movie houses aren't something to completely flip out over, I have to mention that while some houses may "borrow" or "rip off" themes, scenes or characters from assorted movies, I don't think that makes them "movie houses". Everything has an inspiration. Just because you can trace it back to its source material doesn't mean the end product didn't add a lot of its own originality into the mix. Body Collectors, as everyone knows, was based off a Buffy the Vampire episode. But it was incorporated into the Terra Cruentus storyline, and thus, we had a house whose background was entirely separate from the source material. Never having watched much Buffy myself, I'd still wager that most of the sets you saw in both the 2005 version and its 2008 sequel were unique from the show. So sure, a lot of houses borrow. But that's a lot different than say, Doomsday. Or Saw. Where everything -- the characters, the sets, the background, is all made to back up a movie. Not that movie houses are necessarily bad. A lot of my all time favorites are movie houses. Rather, I think they're simply less interesting (especially during this time of the year).

P&T without hesitation, for reasons that have already been said. Alice Cooper, again without hesitation, because I simply cannot bring myself to care about its existence.

I think I've reached the point in my HHN career that I've come to understand that the idea of a house isn't everything. A lot of the houses that had me super excited going in disappointed, and visa versa. However, I have no problem with people being negative here if they're not a fan of the house ideas. It's all we have to go on, after all, and if people can be positive with just the ideas to go on, naturally people should be able to be negative as well. I do think people should relax and not worry too much, however. We really don't know a lot yet and, well, really we won't know how things are until employee preview time. As for me, I do have to admit these concepts as a whole leave a lot to be desired. There are a few I'm pretty excited about. The gargoyles house seems really promising. I'm told TWD is a fantastic tv show. The victorian house sounds like there could be some really impressive sets. But on the whole, these themes seem a bit lacking. The Penn&Teller house could be ok, but without knowing more about how A&D will spin it, it's hard for me to view it as much of a factor. Alice Cooper seemed like it made an ok house @ USH, but I really couldn't care much less about the real Alice Cooper, and honestly it seems like a weak subject matter to me (as if it's created just as a cash in, when we could easily design something similar and more original that wasn't based on a rock star). The dead exposure-ish house really leaves me nothing to go on. So I await more details. But really, when it comes down to it, I'm not fretting too much over these house themes. There's some good, and bad, like every year, and the design and actors will be the deciding factor. Similarly, one less house doesn't make me worried. It's a shame, but hey, maybe that just means more actors for the streets, more actors for the other houses, or just slightly longer houses in general. Here's a few things that ARE on my mind: 1) Crowds and spacing -- Obviously with one less house, that means longer lines for the remaining 7 houses. Will Universal do anything to make up for this? Open more rides, have more shows? Also: the house spacing is currently really screwed up. Instead of having the pretty much perfect spacing that we had in previous years, we now have 4 houses up front, and then a pretty skimpy population around the rest of the park (if you're looking at a map, it's one on the top half, one on the right hand side, and one on the bottom half. That's a lot of park for 3 houses, instead of the usual 5). 2) Roaming Zones -- This is really what scares me. I have faith that Universal will do a pretty good job handling everything else, but as soon as someone mentioned the possibility of roaming zones returning I felt like hitting my head on the table. 2007's attempt at this really stands out as one of the biggest disappointments I've ever seen in my 7 years attending. Few set pieces, fewer actors, and little in the way of lighting led to an almost negligible halloween atmosphere across the park (except for the Central Park area). It felt like you were just walking around USF at night on any normal evening. They barely even turned down the lights. It was a shame too -- that year had the best house lineup of any year I've ever seen. But it'll never be regarded as one of the best years because of the failure that was roaming zones. The reasons for this are simple enough to understand. Actors play off each other and off their environment for scares. HHN can't pay to have large quantities of actors all over the park -- so naturally, the first issue is that the actors get too spread out and they're just too easy to see coming. HHN also can't pay to theme the whole park, so they attempt to theme it a little all over the place, the end result being that it is themed properly no where. Lacking set pieces, lighting, etc., a scareactor's job becomes a lot harder.

Well sure. But "smart" and "hilarious" aren't exactly what I'd be looking for in house material. I guess the problem I'm having is that I can't really see how this translates into a house. I feel like it'd be an awesome show, to be sure, but house? Hmmm.

I did enjoy Zombiegeddon. One of the only humor houses I've ever enjoyed. I heard a lot of people on various HHN boards hated 2006's version of Psychopath, but I absolutely adored it. The cast was absolutely phenomenal both times I went in. I got nailed in every room. It was never really a scary house, mostly because the sets were always more strange and trippy than they were frightening. But I don't need to be terrified if I'm having that much fun.

My own experience was pretty similar. I used to hate haunted houses and getting scared, but somehow one of my friends convinced me to go that year. I'd skimmed the website a time or two, but snce I wasn't really looking forward to it all that much, I didn't remember much of what was on it. Luckily, my friend had heard that BC was the best house that year and we made an effort to get in. And man, was it something. My perceptions are doubtless a little colored by my HHN-inexperience at the time (I was scared MUCH more easily the first two years I went), but still, this house gave me chills walking into. The entrance had that cold, lifeless voice (you can still hear it on the HHN15 website's house page) dictating instructions for body part removal. In short, BC had everything -- tons of scares, cool distraction tactics (spine girl, anyone? + body bags, hanging heads, strobes....) and of course the gentlemen's costumes were fantastic. Unfortunately, I only got one walkthrough. I can see that. See, the problem with helmet houses is that they disproportionately allocate scares towards the front of the conga line (or, more specifically, the guy with the hat), and the other 15 or so people get robbed. I was near the back of the line on my walkthrough. Every actor headed for the guy with the hat, so I was able to see where they all were in advance. I walked through almost unimpeded. I got one scare. For some reason one of the actors was laying on the floor, and I almost stepped on his face. As my foot was coming down he screamed with more terror in his voice than any guest I've ever heard. The really shocking thing is, I was a young-un' for HHN16. And DoT and PUTS still somehow managed to stand out as two of the least scary and poorly themed/designed houses I've ever seen EVEN WITH that additional terror in my system.

Every year, it seems like Universal creates a SZ with a ton of fog, and then mistakenly scales it back. It's too bad, because both of the last two years had zones that were absolutely terrifying when they were flooded with fog, and were only pretty cool when they're toned down. Canyon of the Dark Souls was absolutely awesome this year when visibility was reduced. The actors were already blending into the walls so well, and the flamethrowers @ the zone's entrances were so distracting, that the fog just made scares unbelievably easy to come by.

My first year was 2005, and I haven't missed a year since. Top 10 Houses: 1. A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dreamwalkers (2007) -- Scares no matter how many runs through. Creative sets, brilliant pacing. Best ever. 2. Scary Tales: Once Upon a Nightmare (2008) -- Beautiful sets with creative scares. Goldielocks stands as my favorite scene of all time. 3. Body Collectors (2005) -- The house that made me forever an HHN fan. 4. Hades: Gates of Ruin (2010) -- Claustrophobic and relentlessly intense. The medusa scares + the mirror hallway were unbelievable. 5. Body Collectors II: Collections of the Past (2008) -- Absolutely beautiful environment. Scares were perfectly placed and man, were they intense. 6. The Thing: Assimilation (2007) -- Wonderfully unique, loud, and exciting. Puppet scares in an out-of-control action movie environment. 7. Catacombs: Black Death Rising (2010) -- Unnerving and packed to the brim with scares. One of, if not the, best themed tent houses ever. 8. Dead Exposure (2008) -- The scariest house ever + best finale ever. The only thing that keeps it from the top 5 is a few deadzones in its 2nd half. 9. The In-Between (2011) -- I was floored by the 3D. So many rooms that were just so cool to walk through. Damn good cast too. 10. PsychoPath: The Return of Norman Bates (2006) -- Say what you will about the theming, the cast was so incredible that this one was the gem of 2006. Bottom 5 Houses: 5. Vampyr: Bloodbath (2007) -- Did ANYONE like this house? 4. Jack's Funhouse in Clown-o-Vision (2007) -- Fart noises and actors that were standing in plain sight, wrongly believing themselves to be camouflaged. 3. Reflections of Fear (2008) -- The biggest let down in HHN history. Bad everything. 2. People Under the Stairs: Under Construction (2006) -- Was there ANYTHING in here besides errant pieces of wood? 1. Dungeon of Terror: Retold (2006) -- Let's never speak of this awful, awful house again.

This is the analysis of this house that I've been looking for. I've been trying to express why it doesn't hit home like the 2007 version, and this is why. Not a bad house, by any means, of course. I still like it quite a bit, but Assimilation was like stepping into a living environment. I'm still going once more -- hopefully on halloween night -- but after 3 nights, here are my rankings. 1. The In Between (Unbelievable 3D, Great actor energy, and its hard as hell to see some of the demons before they get you; mild flaw: middle portions are more wicked cool than scary). 2. Saws n Steam (Nerve-racking, truly cool looking sets, and I <3 the waterfall scare. When the tunnels get really filled w/ steam, watch out; again, hit or miss scares) 3. Nightingales (Scariest atmosphere, great costume design, and some damn cool scares; flaw: scares are hit or miss, depending on the cast) 4. Nevermore (Beautiful sets. Creepy as hell. A lot of variety in the scenes and characters; I never seem to get scared in here, but I do love walking through). 5. The Forsaken (Wonderfully original, good effects, great finale. However, aside from the finale, the designers did the actors no favors in giving them good hiding places -- e.g. the courtyard scene). 6. The Thing (Voorhees analysis fits. I like the sets, and some of the costumes are cool, but it just doesn't have the atmosphere that the original did. Solid effort.) 7. Winter's Night (Gorgeous to look at, but the atmosphere isn't nearly as scary as some of the others.) 8. H.R. Bloodengutz (Just not my thing. I thought it was funny the first time, but that kind of wore off. Few scares and I'm not enamored with the sets.) I'm not floored by any house this year. Nothing is as good as Hades or Catacombs last year, in my opinion, because nothing's really seemed to deliver the scares for me this year. However, its a very solid house list. I like all the houses, and that's a rarity for me. Usually after I get down to number 3 or 4 in my rankings I have more criticisms than compliments, but not so this year.

I'm very surprised to see 7 with so many votes. I thought it was mediocre at best. The best zone was Canyon of the Dark Souls easily. The cramped atmosphere, the fog, the actors, everything was on the ball. The canyon itself is more daunting than it appears during the day, especially when parts of it are completely indistinguishable from the actors themselves. People were getting annihilated in here the last time I went. Very impressive. Gotta also give an honorable mention footnote to Acid Assault. The "ash" falling from the sky and the crumbling buildings are both very cool effects, and there's a lot of nice set pieces in the streets. The actors are full of energy. Very atmospheric.

Nightingales has my vote for the moment. It's the one house i left saying "Wow. ...wow." But it still has plenty of room for improvement, as do all the houses. Right now it's a four-house race for me between: Nightingales The Thing The In Between Nevermore Any of these houses could end up the year's best, depending on the actors. They certainly all have AWESOME sets.