Mae

I'm sorry, what did you say? Heh... 26 nights this year? Man, that's a lot. They could switch the 'exterior' theme around a couple of times. Not the houses or the overall theme, but, like the movie "Clue", have a selection of styles and circulate them randomly. I'll have to dwell on that a little more before I can voice my idea. Mae Men should be like Kleenex; soft, strong, and disposable.

Easy there, Grumpy!! You just need to go with the right people; screamers. You need someone with a shriek that would break glass in your group. It's even better if it's a guy. It makes even the most hackneyed storyline and hoakey effects worthwhile just to see the screamer dance, duck, run, even collapse! I highly recommend the use of screamers in all groups. I wonder if I should start a business renting screamers out during the event.... Hmmmm... Mae

I'd be down for it, even tho I tire of the crowds in that area. The whole of Central Park was used best in 2000 and 2008, say I, and they just haven't managed to create the right effect most of the years I have been. Oh, and since this is Universal and they love taking shots at Disney, how cool would it be to have a Tree of Death to mirror their Tree of Lifein the Animal Kingdom? Instead of animals they could have zombies, aliens, monsters, a smattering of scream queens and their slasher/stalkers, and HHN icons. If I could sculpt I'd do one myself. Alas, I must only dream... Mae

And then there is the Tree of the Dead from Sleepy Hollow... I wonder if they will have a 'big honking Evil Tree' as the enterance to the park? Or perhaps in the area The Arrival and Carnival of Carnage shows occupied. I am so ready for this year. I need some serious scares to relieve some stress. Mae

Those are some of the best pictures I've ever seen! They would be amazing. And scary. Mae

Oh, I just had a thought! Perhaps, if the Rat Lady has a room in a house (as we seem to have been informed) will she be in the floor again? I remember that, vividly, from my first year. It's an awesome effect that I would love to see revisited. Mae

The Hallow, 2008, and some might consider the Dracula and Wolf Man stories mythology. The way Dracula was presented last year, especially. It went back to Stoker's novel for many of their ideas. Mae

There is plenty of room for speculation. The scarezone only featured 3 official icons; the rest were either a canceled icon or supporting characters. If we take Shadows of the Past at face value there will be no Eddie, no Director, no Elsa or Bloody Mary. That puts over half of HHN history out of the running. There are other clues, too, that throw a different kind of shadow. The Rat Lady, to my knowledge, has never had a house to herself, so I'm pretty comfortable with the list being of scenes not houses. If she has a scene and she is named as herself, then why disguise other room names with 'codes'? I am burning with curiosity, and I LOVE reading everyone's ideas. This is part of the fun of HHN and having forums to co-conspire with other junkies has made HHN even more fun for me. Let's continue our speculation! Nothing is concrete until the event begins!!! Mae

Ah yes!! Personally, I think it's brilliant. God of Nightmares, controlling the persons who became the stuff of mass nightmares...working with or against Hades bringing in the armies of the underworld... Mae ETA: Or, I suppose, he could have actually 'become' those persons and done the horrible deeds himself...he is a god, after all.

Just found this while doing some maintenance research (I was worried my memory of Hypnos was not as clear as it used to be!) Hmmm.... The Family Tree of Hypnos Father: Erebus, the deity of Darkness Mother: Nyx, the deity of the Night. Wife: Pasithea, the deity of hallucinations Sons: ◦Morpheus: The Winged God of Dreams, able to take any human form in dreams. ◦Phobetor: He was the one who created the scary dreams. He was the personification of nightmare, taking the form of huge and scary animals. ◦Phantasus: He was the one creating the fake and illusional dreams, and had no animus form. ◦Ikelos: He was the one creating the true dreams, making them more realistic. And the link for anyone who's curious. Mae

Perhaps not the frat boys, but maybe Grecian heroes in little more than a short toga... Sorry, the chauvinist in me got loose. In all seriousness, the Greek god of sleep and dreams (nightmares?) was Hypnos. Could he be the 'root' we've been wondering about? Mae

I didn't think that was 3-d; wasn't their 3-d house the Third Dementia, or something like that? I like 3-d houses generally, and Jack's in 2007 is definitely up in my favorite 5. I thought about where they could use those effects and thought maybe a house for Bloody Mary? If we 'go through the looking-glass' they could use 3-d for a trip into her world. I wish there was a less 'day-glo' way of making the 3-d. Sigh. Any sign of an update? Mae

OMG a pirate theme would give me such joy!!! I like the voodoo idea, too. They could work together, quite nicely, in fact. Those pesky Pirates of the Caribbean were named thusly because there really were a plethora of pirates there during the 17th century. Jean Lafite called New Orleans home, his little shack is still there, as a working bar and the oldest building in the French Quarter. The only problem I could foresee is the negative indications associated with voodoo. Practitioners have been trying for years to make their religion less frightening to the masses and they would not appreciate a 'scare' house being marketed to the masses. Still, it would be a gorgeous house to see. Mae

That would be cheating! I've gotten into the idea of icon dolls. I know others have taken another sort of doll and modded to make icons but I'm not that talented. Mae

I always thought they tasted kind of funny... I would also like to see some new sorts of souvenirs; house specific shirts, posters, maybe even dolls of our icons...Living Dead Dolls could do them! Mae

Ooooo! I like that! What a fun commercial that would be; a little pale hand turns the handle of the box until it's just about to pop out...then pans up to see Cindy smiling. The box opens and she ducks out of frame for a moment, then returns with the remains of the 'jack' in her mouth. And it's bleeding. Mae

Thank you! Brainstorming is fun! Another of my favorite speculations is Cindy killing Jack and unifying all of the souls of the children he murdered. They take over the event and all of the houses and scarezones are their devious and deadly 'playdates'. Mae

I just had a thought! (Terrifying, I know) I scrap, well, I used to when I had a life, and there is a certain sort of artistry that makes a good page/album. You don't just use one big page and paste pictures on it; you cut out little pieces of decorations, painstakingly punch die-kits(cutting tools that punch out letters & shapes on whatever paper you want), punch out tag holes, document, color, emboss....it's a surprising amount of work. My point is that you cut things up to make other things, better things (a la Frankenstein); what if they are going to cut-up our icons and reassemble them? Not just ideas or characters from the past, but new and terrible creations made from the icons themselves? There's some obvious choices for this, Jack/Eddie, Director/Usher and Cindy/Albert Caine are nearly immediately come to mind. I've considered some others could be Jack/Cindy (I find this idea chilling.), Mary/Director (She recorded her 'sessions'-why not film them? There was an old projector in her office.), Caine/Jack(The clown got rid of the bodies somehow), Cindy/Mary/TerraQueen, Director/Jack.... Mae

I would love to see the entire park filled with scarezones. HHN 18 came the closest for me, and the interaction between The Skoolkids and the Asylum dwellers was perfect and priceless. Make the scarezones huge, have them spill into each other, even into the queues and maybe the houses. HoS has the roaming hoards...I'd love to see that sort of randomness in HHN again. (Ah, the days of the Lizzie Borden Ladies Brigade) I would even welcome a certain level of 'chaos' if it meant that scareactors could come up to us in unexpected places. Maybe not while eating or in line for the bathroom (tho that would be AWESOME) but those beer huts and mobile souveneir carts? Fair freakin' game! Mae

I'm the world's worst at speculation, but the thing that comes to mind for me with all these tree references is the tree in Sleepy Hollow; more than spooky , an actual doorway to Hell. There were several gorgeous-and ghastly- references to the Headless Horseman in 2008 and the scene in Sleepy Hollow when the Horseman leaps from the tree after our heroes find a cache of heads in the roots is amazing. I'm not sure how it could happen in person, but how cool would it be if our past icons came from the tree, through the remnants of their victims? Daydreaming again. Mae

"This is indeed a disturbing universe..." Egads, that would make my YEAR!!! Mae

Oh, did you know that there is a limit to the number of smileys allowed on the forums? I didn't. And for good measure, Mae ps