Tobias

A slight little correction, the Meat Market zone is not listed as New on the website since it was in the event last year. Anyways, so that announcement just came and went, now did it? Bit of a shame since HoS can usually draw ones attention away from HHN now and then with a unique theme/house etc. Unfortunately it looks like this is not one of those years. For the new houses, Insomnia is another asylum house...with a angle of twisted doctors which sounds a bit like Deconstruction/Reconstruction. So chances are it'll be gory...but nothing new there that's going to turn heads. As for Simon's Slaughterhouse, well it's another slaughterhouse/cannibal house. But oooh, this one's going to be INTENSE. So much so that they recommend it for 17 and up! But there's no mention of signing waivers, so there's probably no touching or doing any neat things done in houses like Alone or the Experiment...so they're probably pushing that the scares are going to be so intense that'll it justify having a age recommendation like that, and that Never. Friggin'. Works. On top of that, well so much for Demented Dimensions as it's gone after a year. (Apparently Williamsburg is getting a Demented Dimensions.) All in all, I got a feeling this'll be a off year for HoS.

Considering Aiello himself confirmed Trick 'r Treat is in Parade... https://twitter.com/Michael_Aiello/status/996939591356731392 ...and he confirms Carnival Graveyard is in a SS.... https://twitter.com/Michael_Aiello/status/1022225927160430600

Nice review, Zombieman! I'm definitely looking forward to your Orlando/Hollywood comparison, since there is plenty to talk about Hollywood this year. An' I've got a good feeling how it'll go considering what you said about Scarecrow and the IP counterparts.

Yeah, one has to take the biggest grain of salt with scare zones at the moment due to Irma butting in. (After all, AoV's stage needs to be built back up again before they can perform.) Now if there's still nothing out a couple weeks later, then there's problem. But until then, give them time and all the zones will be up 100%.

Looking all around, this is the most anticipated scare zone for a lot of people. I can totally understand why, the theme is great and it does feel like a sequel/successor to Vamp '55, which was a straight-up fun scare zone. So I'm not looking forward to the eventual disspointed reviews from this. The theme may be great, but did they have to put it in one of the worst locations? San Fran is way too small, especially when you add in the crashed spaceship and military truck. It's just gonna' be a bottleneck, with no room for the actors to really play in. This type of theme was made for New York or Hollywood, locations with plenty of space for the aliens to run amok, not only that they could've gone bigger and more elaborate with the props. For me it just feels like a fantastic theme is gonna' be totally wasted in it's location.

For the most part, the houses and whatnot should be fine. I mean, it's not like they're doing anything involving corn this ye-... ... Yanno', you ever get the feeling that Universal might be a tad cursed with growing corn?

A while back there was word it was one of the options for a backup plan house, though thankfully it looks like they went "NOPE" on that and did the vampire theme backup instead.

Either/or, or neither. The only house we know that'll probably be the claustrophobic one is the Catacombs/Gothic crossover, and that's in a soundstage.

It all depends on personal preference and what angle you look at it. For me if you look at website, The Terra Throne show, the overall Terra Cruentus story which interwove all the scare zones and almost all the houses into it...it was fantastic! (Both the Rat Run and Storyteller are the wonky parts of that, Rat Run didn't fit into anything and Storyteller was shoehorned into the event.) For me where things fall apart are the houses themselves, it was not the best of line ups in execution. There were two Top houses. Body Collectors - A HHN Classic and easily the best house that year. 'Nuff said. Demon Cantina - A solid HHN interpretation of From Dusk Til Dawn. Then you got a middle of the road house. Where Evil Hides - This is where the Storyteller was shoehorned into, didn't really make much of a impact there. The house was alright, it wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. Then it starts going downhill fast. The Skool - Neat concept, however with the "children" being in makeup, it was easy to see they were just short actors and not kids. This really didn't work and they didn't get it right until 2008's Skoolhouse zone. Blood Ruins - This one got slammed pretty hard as generic and forgettable, some people even proclaimed this as the worst around though I wouldn't go that far. Especially due to... Cold, Blind, Terror - Once again they tried doing a "Pitch Black" house, and just like 2001's Pitch Black...it didn't work. This house wasn't cold, you wern't blind going through it and it was not scary whatsoever. It had foam in it, but that was about it. Without a doubt this was one of the worst HHN houses in history. Then you have one wild card house. Terror Mines - This was the most daring house with the introduction of the helmet flashlight concept, and out of the two houses they tried this on this was clearly the better one. However it was very hit or miss depending weather you had the helmet or not...and if you didn't have the helmet it depended on whoever was wearing it. It really was a love/hate kind of house. Though I think this would be perfect as a upcharge house so everyone could experience it with the helmet as they should. So two Top houses, a middle of the road house, three bad houses and one that could swing in either direction. Then you got the oddball Rat Run. It wasn't the best of line ups, especially compared to the previous year of 14 which had a very solid house line up with only one unanimous dud. (Disorientum)

Some quick non-spoilery notes from all the various tweets and such out there. - AHS and Ghost Town are getting the biggest praises, Tomb of the Ancients not too far behind. - Seeing good things from Lunatics 3D, people are finding it better the last years Alice. - As for the Exorcist, the vibe is a lot more positive then Hollywood's version. The effects are apparently great. - Definite praise going around for the Academy of Villians show. - The lowest marks at the moment are for Krampus. It has the looks, but it's lacking scares/missing something. (Part of me wants to say the Shrek venue just isn't good, since Alice did have some wonky rooms which really didn't allow for scares in them.) Scare zone-wise, it's looking pretty good amongst the event. No real negative marks on any of them. (The only complaint I've seen is Dead Man's Warf is too small.)

If you mean being incredibly repetitive, a bunch of black hallways with the exact same scare put into them and way too many static figures put in it...then yes, they did pull it off. Orlando has a chance to seriously outdo Hollywood like they did with Evil Dead and AWIL.

It was a outdoor chainlink maze in the former boneyard area of the studios (Now the music plaza), they had Jack up on a raised center platform with a megaphone to heckle people. An' on the outside of the maze was a couple GAT's to set of water, air blasts and have a door in the maze move. That was pretty much it, and quite frankly it was a bit of a odd addition. (Certainly didn't help 15's line up, that's for sure.) The only pictures I've seen of it are here. http://www.themeparkreview.com/orlando2005/halloween/hhn/hhn1.htm

Admittedly Escape Rooms are really fun, however a good escape room is usually a hour long or more. Since the Repository's escape room finale is 10 minutes, that's downright tiny. An' depending how observant/active one is, they'll probably breeze through it in less then 10. It feels like this experience is more to show off the augmented/VR, when they really should be going full bore because they already tested and showed off the techonolgy with the past couple Legendary Truth events.

So a article recently came out that essentially breaks down the entire experience. For those who don't wanna' know anything about it, this article is Spoiler Territory. However the article does give you a better idea what to expect, and a certain part of it could go by really quickly depending how observant/active you are during the experience. http://www.digitaltrends.com/virtual-reality/universal-studios-vr-repository/

Well I thank you for giving your reasoning, even though personally I wouldn't look into the quality of a event by a simple piece of marketing. After all while the billboard and website was great no doubt, you would think a highly imaginative year like that wouldn't have a turd like Reflections of Fear. An' for me that's a knock on the overall quality of the event. Imaginative? Yes. But being clever about connecting everything to a main story doesn't equate to the houses being amazing. Quite the contrary since most of the houses for 15 we're pretty weak compared to other years around that time. Also, there were 7 houses that year. (Body Collectors, Demon Cantina, Terror Mines, Where Evil Hides (I don't count the ADA accessable route as a extra house.), The Skool, Blood Ruins and Cold, Blind, Terror.) ...unless you're counting that chain link maze that was in the Boneyard. Which quite frankly doesn't help the house line up if you consider that a house.

So in your opinion, the billboard reflects on the quality of the event. Ok, let's rewind to 2008. Bloody Mary. Where the billboards were giant mirrors with Bloody Mary herself and bloody writing which got the ire of some concernipated mother. How did that billboard "reflect" on the events quality? Since overall it was on the mixed side. It was definitely a year for scare zones, but not everything was firing on all cylinders for the houses. An' since the billboards were primarily (and often solely) focused on Blood Mary, did it also reflect that the quality of the the event had a massive black eye in the form of Reflections of Fear, one of the worst houses in Horror Nights history?

It's completely possible when it didn't get the go-ahead by higher ups til the last minute, remember A&D can do what they want to come up with something, but unless the higher ups greenlight the experience/house to be built...their hands are tied.

Not a typo, chances are it got approved a bit late in the process.

Yeah, I would temper expectations for this. This is a upcharge/VR experience, it is by no means a extreme house (or really a "house" in a general sense.) It's not going to be that big, according to Legacy it's essentially going into whatever space AHS won't be using in the SS. An' since it's a VR experience, most of it is going to be black walls/objects that the VR will project onto. The only things that'll have any detail, paint, finish on them will be whatever you see before or after you take the headset off. I'm also in the boat that the upcharge is more to keep the lines/crowds in check, this kind of experience has to be low capacity for it to work (Note- Low Capacity doesn't nessicarily equal "extreme") and the lines would be astronomically stupid if this was free/cheap.

While people would like if it's in a soundstage and cold, it's best accepting that's probably not gonna' happen. An' to be fair, how many houses with a winter/arctic theme were actually cold? I don't recall hearing Psychoscareapy: Home for the Holidays or 2011's Thing were cold. Cold Blind Terror sure as heck wasn't since nothing in that house fit the name. The last house I can remember hearing being cold was Winter's Night in SS 22. An' the Exorcist is going in that one, where I think we can all agree that bedroom needs to be cold since it's a distinctive element of the movie. The priority for Krampus is the creature effects/puppets, much more so then the overall temperature of the house. Yes, it would be nice if it was cold. But the one place that can be legitimately cold is already taken for a IP that honestly needs it a lot more. (That and Hollywood's Krampus ain't going to be cold either, they don't have a SS this year.)

Neither! That should make it a bit easier on where it's going. (An' where it was supposed to be in 2010.)

I had to spoil myself since I won't be at the event this year, but you weren't kidding when you said this is the year of great transitions!

Part of me thinks they haven't even attempted AHS after the last time they attempted it. Either way for anyone who's thinking about AHS, remember this...a couple years ago HHN tried to get a AHS house. However they ran into some serious creative differences with that IP, which lead to it getting scrapped and replaced with Evil Dead. Several things would have to budge in order for AHS to happen, and considering the egos of some behind AHS I don't see them budging. As mentioned way earlier one of the only possible ways AHS could happen would be in the form of a extreme house, and even then that's a bit of a stretch. (Yes, this year the event had a extreme house in mind before it got cut via budget...but they had Hellgate Prison in mind, not AHS.)

Well one thing's for certain, this just got exciting. Sure the event has had to shuffle/shelve houses before for one reason or another, but a kerfluffle with a IP this late in the game? This is quite a curveball, though as a particular candymaker said "The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last!"

^ Yeah, this is actually pretty strange as Hollywood is clearly teasing a maze announcement...yet over on Orlando's side there's no indication that a house announcement is happening today. Even though all the rumors are pointing to them sharing Insidious this year.