[Creeper's Slightly Late Review of Halloween Horror Nights 21]

Awesome review, Creeper!! Thank you leaving out the frequently used...."well, I woke up at 6AM and brushed my teeth, ate breakfast, and from this point I shall tell you what mundane things I did for the next 12 hours leading up the event" description. Your review is balanced and thoughtful. This year we were initially planning to do both events but settled on Hollywood. This retrospect for Orlando's event will keep my interest into one day attending. By the way, did attending two days satisfy your stay? Or would one day be enough to take in the full event?

[HHN Hollywood 2012 Wishful Thinking]

Even if Trick R Treat does not get the green light for 2012, why not get back to basics and create a "Halloween-Themed" event? I would like to see the October holiday represented in themed scarezones, mazes, and general environments. Scarecrows, Jack-O-Lanterns, Witches, diverse costumes, all in the HHN style of horror. With La Llorona, Alice Cooper, and Vampyre from 2010, Universal proved it could effectively expand on original or adapted ideas.

["The Thing" BOMBS at the box office]

It appears that the formula for "Winter-Themed" horror pictures is a risky endeavor for studios to play with from the outset; domestic receipts have not fared well:

Whiteout: (Bad Box Office-10 Million with 35 Million budget), Kate Beckensale and Tom Skerrit should have been enough to carry this one out of the snowbank. Somewhat resembles The Thing but with a serial killer instead of assimilating alien.

X-Files-I Want to Believe (20 Million with 30 Million budget): Winter themed "one off" XFiles story involving creepy transplant surguries. The snowy, mostly nighttime environment made this film creepy. Not many of us showed up to watch it in theaters.

Let Me In/Let the Right One In (Together, the films only brought in a little over 14 Million): Both had great winter atmospheres and engaging stories. Too bad the box office did not "Let Anyone In".

Dreamcatcher (The film domestically failed to meet half of its 68 Million dollar budget); Great cast, great story source, great director, great winter locales= really bad movie?

[Maze & Scarezone of the Year!]

Tough choices, which makes this probably the best experience that I had at HHN since 2009. Many of the past mazes were specific to "Personal" horror charactors and their respective environments like Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Harry Warden, Michael Myers, etc. Each HHN 2011 maze seemed to be bigger in scope and more diverse. Its hard for me to vote for a specific maze or scarezone. If hard pressed, maybe I will vote for one in each category.

[HHNH Creations]

I must say, either John Murdy and the Universal Halloween Horror Nights Creative Team taps into these extremely imaginitive ideas, or this bunch needs to get with a group of investors to open up their own scare attraction . Yowser!

["The Thing" BOMBS at the box office]

Yikes, estimates are in (and they're hardly ever wrong): $8.7 million. The film will be LUCKY if it matches the 82 film's $19.6 million in it's domestic run (adjusted for inflation is 43 million which it has zero chance in making).

I wonder if any of the people they shuttle on the Terror Trams they show the trailer to or even the people who go through the maze actually bothered to see this movie.

I feel bad for seeing the first show and only shelling out $5.50 for admission. The film is entertaining and had me thinking about how they successfully tied in many elements of Carpenter's version. The Norwegians were great as an ensemble; Winstead OK, Edgerton’s character was weak. The ending, ouch.

The HHN maze certainly lived up to depicting the events of the film!

[The Major Motion Pictures - The Thing & Hostel [Comparison Reviews]]

I will probably be on the fence with both of these properties and in relationship with their mazes. The Thing maze had elements that I now go back to after seeing the movie and can appreciate the faithfulness to the 2011 film's source material. Would loved to have seen the maze more connected with The Thing '82. While I have seen both Hostel's, I never did have a fondness to the new generation of "torture porn" and basically found the films fun but forgettable (Same goes to the Saw or Scream series). However, Hostel's maze did create the perfect atmosphere for scares and scareactor interactions and the line was incredibly managed by time and groups. Hostel (the attraction) produced a direct, high level interactive experience that I did not receive as much in the other mazes.

["The Thing" BOMBS at the box office]

DTH316...you used the word "Giddy", the pinnacle of vernaculars!! Regardless of how well it does at the box office, I hope HHN continues with its endeavor to create mazes based on upcoming properties. With the amount of time it takes to get the rights, plan, design, and finalize mazes, I don't think their intial thoughts would be "I hope this thing does not tank at the box office"! Thousands of people per night get a chance to experience the movie itself while in the maze.....its difficult to achieve that in any way out side of attending at the theater. Yes, I had my reservations about the maze because of who directed the original (I do apprectate most of John Carpenter's work). After a second time through the maze, my interests peaked with seeing the new film. The comparisons above are appreciated.

["The Thing" BOMBS at the box office]

I celebrated the opening of The Thing last night by watching John Carpenter's The Thing on Encore HD May just pop in my obsolete HD-DVD version and documentary tonight. Darn you Blu-Ray!! This may be one of those movies that confused enough people not to show up in masses: Same title of an almost 30 year old movie? Pre-quel? Sequel? Remake? No John Carpenter. First time director at the helm. Promise of a return to practical FX only to be replaced by CGI, and ....NO SHINY VAMPIRE TWEENS (bleh) .

I don't remember too many films that reached cult status after bombing at the box office that succeeded in a second life. Myself, I prefer the smaller films,as they seem to capture character development and succeed at story telling. I still have hope for this version at the box office/bluray/dvd sales and will contribute to its run tomorrow. By the way, does the prequel have any of the "feel" of Carpenter's version?

[Team Trick 'r' Treat 2012]

Trick R Treat screeeaams of a proper settting at Halloween Horror Nights!! Reading your posts makes it easy to visualize its potential. If Terror Tram were re-routed in the future, I see the different story lines as part of the walk through leading up to the Halloween Carnival scarezone somewhere on the backlot (especially if "Westeria Lane" was available). Three of the settings in the film are homes (Principals House, Mr. Kreeg's, and the opening scene). I know, logistics would make this difficult. New York Street/entrance could also be used as the TRT carnival scare zone.

[HHN 2011: Souled Out]

Last Sunday was a sellout, as noted on the portable sign just outside of CityWalk. As we waited to get through security, the Universal employee that announced updates by microphone stated that if you were in line for tickets, proceed to the ticket office to the left of the entrance. He then quickly reversed his announcement and noted that the event sold out for the evening and only tickets were available for future nights. And yes, the greatest terror about Terror Tram on Sunday, was the HUMONGOUS line trying to work it's way through the backlot.

[Zombieman's 9/30 review]

Zombieman, Thanks for the review....last month, I had debated on FOTL or VIP for my trip out to HHN. Decided to try VIP for the first time, read your review just prior to going, and was "giddy with excitement" up to and through the event!!

[Universal HHN 2011 Review by AsylumSB]

Thanks for the feedback and "welcome mat"! The level of detail in the posts, especially reviews, and interest in the topics is impressive.

[Universal HHN 2011 Review by AsylumSB]

Very rarely do I interact with internet fan sites or boards but I do appreciate the level of involvement and courtesy at HNN. I mainly use sites such as this to obtain information that peaks my Halloween and horror interests. I guess it is time to come in from the dark to put in my $3.50 (tough economic times) worth regarding my recent trip to HHN Hollywood this past weekend. All of your reviews kept my interest leading up to the visit; hopefully I can add to the worthiness of HNN.

A quick rundown leading up to HHN X. My wife and I attended the event from Arizona via San Diego (long story). This is our third year in a row after years of inquiring into out of state events as Arizona seldom has Halloween events to matches the ambience or “spectacle” as Universal. Let me say that as a “non-local”, HHN makes it worthwhile enough to plan for out of state attendance every year. This year was no exception. Here are some “awards” that I offer for the event:

Best Imaginative Maze: Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare

Great music mix throughout the maze, incredible images with almost a “horror-themed Alice in Wonderland” vibe. The Naughty Nurse room had patrons running for their lives to the next room!! Like most of the mazes, I felt the pacing was slow which allowed for a good glance at the detail of the maze but limited on surprise scares. Have been immersed in Alice Cooper since I was young so this was a treat!!

Most “Personal” Maze: Eli Roth’s Hostel: Hunting Season

From the time we entered this maze, including my wife receiving sarcastic taunting by the Elite girls, Hostel felt like we were the only ones going from room-to-room, thus making it more realistic. The attendant at the line had spaced out the entrance in groups and timed the entry of each one. The result? We ended up literally all alone with the scare actors in almost each room who interacted with us directly, even splitting my wife and I up a few occasions by walking between us to set up a scare from behind! If only the other mazes were managed similar to this but I understand some of the maze layouts and the sell-out for the evening may make this difficult.

Best “Atmospheric” Maze: La Llorona

With the façade and church scene in the beginning, this maze had a horror event written all over it! Awesome use of lighting, living statues, costumes, and props made this maze a winner, even in light of the “scare” zone from last year. Every time I passed the through scare zone in 2010, it felt like a bad family reunion. La Llorona would show off her baby to people passing by, even conversing with them. Not scary. This year, the maze, story line, and especially scare actors made this an awesome attraction.

Best “Fun House” Attraction: Wolfman: The Curse of Talbot Hall

Yes, it is the dreaded HOH overlay, but the ready made “Classic Monsters” vibe gets me in a nostalgic and amped-up mood. As a kid, one of my first tastes of horror was from watching Saturday afternoon reruns of Universal monster films. To this day, I am still intrigued by the talents of Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney (to name only a few). I thought last year’s Vampyre themed maze was the sleeper hit of HHN 2010 mazes. Walking through the queue into the maze and gazing at classic props makes this a worthwhile event. The scare actors were effective, both as victims and different transformations of the Wolfman, and it was good to hear the audio overlay of Anthony Hopkins. The Wolfman at the end of the maze was at the “fresh” corpse eating an appendage and rubbing his belly. This is probably the only maze where I did not mind laughing on the way out.

Best “Horror Movie” Maze: The Thing

It took me twice to enjoy this maze. The first time around, I must have missed 75-80% of the scares or puppetry. My wife said that I ran through the maze like a banshee. I told her that the future ghost of John Carpenter was chasing me out of the attraction because it will no way match the sophistication, feeling of isolation and suspicion of the director’s original, pre-post (?) prequel version. Kidding aside (sort of), I repeated the maze and enjoyed artistry of the scare actors and puppeteers. The façade and tractor scare was awesome!

The Rob Zombie maze was still fun to walk through and the “Tiny” scare actor was very agile on stilts and played the character for scares. Last year, the same character seemed to be more in-line with the movie version. The Terror Tram closed early at 9pm, and there was a huuuugeee log jam throughout the entire walk. I do love the backlot and would not mind either the same layout for next year or something totally different. I did not catch the tram video because we were on the VIP experience that ended directly at the beginning of the TT walkthrough.

To mimic Zombieman’s review, there are plenty of reasons for purchasing the HHN VIP Experience: the unlimited food and non-alcoholic drinks, valet parking, HHN staff were awesome at check-in and throughout the evening, the tram that included the regular (but at night) Kong 3D, JAWS, Flash Flood and stop just outside of Stage 28. Then, the highlight, we were dropped off at the “BTTF Clock Tower/Town square” set to wander and listen to the guide talk about strange happenings on the set and the previous fire that missed it. HHN/Universal merchandise was 25% off! There is actually a different mindset with both the VIP and FOTL (which we did in ‘09 and ‘10). With FOTL or following a game plan mentioned by DTH316 and the others, the focus was on completing everything, repeating desired attractions, and stopping to eat. With the VIP, we frequently visited the Vampire Blood Lounge, finished all the mazes and rides, and enjoyed the ambience of the event. This is the first year we decided to forego Bill and Ted’s and opted to repeat a few additional mazes. Oh, and for the first time ever, we bought a Lard Lad Big Doughnut from the Simpson’s area. I now feel like a Lard Lad.

And the scare zones……I admire the environments and the scare actors are always involved in their roles. Freaks was fun. Klownz started off with the great opening “scaremony” and did not let up the entire night. I have seen all the Scream films and consider Ghostface to be a second-tier horror icon. For some reason, I am always waiting for Ghostface to do a pratfall or some clumsy physical mishap. Reminds me of the killer in Student Bodies. Zombieville gave me a smile on my face; as we walked through the zone for the last time, one of the “younger” zombies stated “Hey Mom and Dad, its me your son”. I am so used to George Romero style of zombies that this through me off enough to think about it the rest of the night!

Outside of the line management for most of the mazes, Halloween Horror Nights 2011 was very memorable event. I look forward to next year. John Murdy, Scareactors, and crew……great job!!