Tobias
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Posts posted by Tobias
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59 minutes ago, dykealiscious said:
Great there's 2 more stupid movies I need to watch. Bloomshouse....really?
Well with Truth or Dare, watch with the mindset that it's a comedy and it's decent. (There's a scene with a character on a roof which is downright hilarious for all the wrong reasons.) Now for Unfriended...I'd go with Zombieman's suggestion of not watching it so it'll just come off as a original.
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44 minutes ago, HHN Pro said:
I say it goes in the old Parade Building. Don't @ me.
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
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On 7/13/2018 at 10:50 AM, WESKER69 said:
except for Halloween... unless it gets thrown into Blumhouse 2.0
Considering what rumors are going around for Blumhouse, don't go looking for Halloween in there...or any good property for the matter if the rumors end up true.
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An' yup, I knew exactly how this was gonna' turn out from your Orlando review. The moment you praised Scarecrows for it's seamless transition/no blank hallways, I knew HW was going to be quite the eye opener for you.
Now a couple things to add, one of the factors of the mazes being blank disasters is budget issues. Apparently when they wanted to put in a extra maze, it would put them over budget, so in order to make it fit, they slashed the budgets for all the mazes. (Though also not surprisingly, there's word going about HW is realizing that was a mistake.)
Also, I do have to give this slight thing to Happy Death Day in Blumhouse. Since the film is a horror "Groundhog Day", it does make sense for the rooms (and slasher) to repeat. (That's all I give it though, as it would've benifited if they actually had some kill scenes/no blank walls etc.)
As for the Titans of Terror maze, while it's the least worst of the bunch, I'd still ding it hard for opening with a wonderful concept with the home haunt...but not ending with it. Seriously, if this was in Orlando, they would've ended the house with you returning to the bedroom and showing the aftermath with all the titans. It's a concept they've done plenty of times before with Dead Exposure, the In-Between etc. HW on the other hand did yet another black hallway group box scare, that's a waste of a good theme.
An' you're not alone in your opinion, I've seen plenty of reviews from HW vets who feel this year was a downright flop. Word of mouth has been doing it's thing since the event is not getting as packed/sold out as it usually would be around this time of year. Conversely, Knott's is doing gangbusters since positive word of mouth is doing it's thing for them.
Either way, things do need to change for HW. Since if you're charging top dollar to get in, you better be giving something akin to Orlando, Knott's or HHN Japan or Singapore. Blank walls do not cut it for a place touted for it's detail.
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Nice review, Zombieman!
On 9/26/2017 at 5:37 PM, zombieman said:I'm looking forward to see what Hollywood has done with The Shining, Ash, and AHS. I expect Hollywood to have a completely different take on The Shining (their Exorcist was much better than Orlando's). I think I will end up liking Hollywood's AHS because they will have a full house to use for one season. I don't have high hopes for Saw, although I'm intrigued by the whole "you are in the trap" thing. And I cannot imagine Hollywood screwing up Blumhouse any more than Orlando did. But then again, Hollywood has two opportunities to do so.
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.
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(As a preface, I can only go off pictures and videos of the event. However there are those who attended who share the same thoughts.)
Good thing you brought this thread back, mazethinker. Since honestly, this is a weak year. An' there's a lot to say.
Mazes (Overall): Enough with the black hallways/rooms etc., they're so prevalant throughout the event it's not even funny. Some might say they're "transitions", but for me it's a lazy cop out when it's used all over the place and in multiple cases it breaks the flow of the maze. An' when I look over at Orlando's houses which use the same IP and they seamlessly transition from scene to scene without any black hallways...HW has no excuse for theirs.
On top of that, put some variety in the scares. I've personally felt Horror Nights relies a bit too much on trigger scares, but here it's a bit worse because there's a lot of "box" scares. Someone standing in a "box/window", often with a blackout curtain and popping/leaning forward from that. (More often then not, it's in a black hall/room.) Not to mention it's the same ol' strobe and sound effect for every one. Switch it up, have scares with no strobe or sound effect, or have scares with just a sound effect so it doesn't have the giveaway strobe. With all the mazes having black hallways/rooms, and a whole lotta' box scares, they all feel the same.
Finally the finales...or in this case the -lack- of finales. Most of the mazes don't have a defined ending, there's no themed room to end on a particular note or impact, most just take the lazy route with a black hallway/room with box scares. Seriously, just of last year we had some great finales. Krampus's happy purgatory, Freddy vs Jason's changing victory, and Halloweens amazingly surreal finale. This year there's really none of that, the only two that get close is the Shining or Saw, but that's it.
As for the mazes on their own...
The Shining : This one mainly needs the black hallways trimmed, and I'd change up the mask/morphsuit of the old woman since trying to do the more rotted appearance doesn't quite look right. Orlando's does more of a nude appearance and for me it looked better. Also speaking of Orlando, they found a way to have the elevator spray blood, so I'd have used the same effect in this and not a friggin' projection.Ash vs Evil Dead : This one suffers the most from the black hallways/rooms, so all of that has got to be trimmed. Also, I would've incorperated more of the humor into it, since I was really hoping to see a Ashy Slashy puppet and I didn't see him anywhere. (Unlike Orlando where he's used quite nicely in the finale.)
Insidious : This is one of the few which I'll let the black hallways/rooms slide, since the further itself is darkness and fog. I wish this had more of a finale like the previous incarnation, and speaking of which. This year doesn't have the aweome above scares the previous version had, so I would've had those in as well.
Titans of Terror : The main thing I would add/change, is give this the finale it deserves. It starts perfectly with the home haunt and the kid going into a dream, but unfortunately the maze never returns to the house. Instead it just does a black hallway with box scares of all the titans, that's just lazy. The best way to end that maze is return to the house, with all the titans attacking in there. The only other thing I would change is giving different scenes for Leatherface & crew, since the very same scenes are used in the Terror Tram.
Scare Zones
Hell O Ween - This zone needs better theming, not wheeled in displays where it looked like they took a bunch of props from a warehouse, slapped them together and called it a day.
Toxic Tunnel - Why do they keep trying to make this tunnel a "scare zone"? It just doesn't work. I'd put in some lights and music and leave it at that.
Urban Inferno - While I was excited at the concept and the idea of making this a gauntlet of sorts, this unfortunately feels thrown together like Hell o Ween. Put in better props, bring in the flame tower, take out the slower orchastral music and blast heavy metal a la' Welcome to Hell. They've got some cool demons in there, but they should be able to run amok.
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While I can only go off of videos posted, this honestly looks like a weak/off year. The main thing that sticks out to me are the sheer number of black/unthemed hallways, corners and rooms throughout -all- the mazes, the sheer number of "box" scares and lack of variety of other scares, and the lack of finales in the mazes. Heck, not even the facades are as good as previous years.
Yeah, I agree this year wasn't going to top 2016 which had some solid fun mazes like Freddy vs Jason, Krampus and Halloween: Hell Comes to Haddonfield. But sheesh, this year jumped off a cliff.
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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%.
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35 minutes ago, dereksdominance said:
Also the scarezones as a whole are not as fantastic and detailed as I hoped so maybe they will tweak some things to make them a bit more impressive?
To be honest I really don't know how they could tweak either Hell O Ween or Toxic Tunnel. TT is essentially a giant line, and they probably need the lights in their due to safety reasons. It's really hard making that a scare zone at all. As for HoW, maybe if they replaced the current props with better ones, but once again they're legit hampered by construction.
An' thanks to someone putting up a walkthrough of Blumhouse, I got a couple observations of that. From what I could see, it's a mixed bag. Purge is alright since it's a mini version of last years gauntlet, Happy Death Day is...there. It looks to have a nice little end room, but most of it is pretty generic. As for Sinister, I'm on the dissapointed side. Since it looks like the biggest setpiece for that part of the maze is from Sinister 2 (Which I hated), and the scene they choose didn't work for me in the movie, and it sure as hell doesn't work in a maze setting either.
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Some general observations via twitter/instagram etc.
Scarezones
Urban Inferno - This is probably going to be the best of the three by default.
Toxic Tunnel - It's exactly the same as the Purge Tunnel from last year, so it's a instant whiff right there.
Hell O Ween - The costumes are nice, but this zone looks to be hampered by construction. I'm not a fan of the props they put in for it either.
Opening Scaramonies - For anyone that's doing VIP/Early Entry, you can afford to miss this. Just watch a YT video of it since it's really subdued compared to previous years, you're not missing anything to be honest.
The Shining - Thankfully the masks for Jack are WAY better then the masks used in the Exorcist last year, I was legit worried they would look like the Priests but thankfully that's not the case.
Finally, is it just me, or are the facades this year on the small/lackluster side? They're lacking a wow factor that Freddy vs. Jason, Krampus and Exorcist had.
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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.
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2 hours ago, hhnhart said:
Yay Hhn is 6 days away!! But... where the hell are upper deck scarezone props?? I mean the event is 6 days away!! That's my fav part before the event, seeing scarezone props! Also, are we not having a fire tower?
For this year the upper deck scarezone props are going to be wheeled in/out every night, so the only time there's going to be pics of them are during the event.
As for the fire tower, well I hope it's down in Urban Inferno since that would be the most appropriate zone for it. (Not to mention the fire tower debuted in the Welcome to Hell scarezone.)
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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-...
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Yanno', you ever get the feeling that Universal might be a tad cursed with growing corn?
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21 hours ago, StraightEdge said:
I was really hoping for one or a few more properties in the Blumhouse of Horrors. But I'm looking forward to Sinister. I really liked the first film, haven't seen the second... YET. I'll make sure to do that now.
Being one who also really enjoyed the first Sinister, only watch the second one if you wanna' laugh. Since it's nothing but hot garbage that falls into every sequel trap.
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Looks like they were able to trademark regular names, so no need to create a name with "Z".
Also, I have no idea why anyone is even suggesting there's two IP zones, especially when Murdy tweeted this...
Add in the rumors of Blumhouse utilizing French Street, and Baker Street being used for TWDA, the idea of two IP zones this year does not hold up.
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10 minutes ago, HorrorNightsFan13 said:
Nothing is official yet. I would love to believe that the Titans are truly coming as a maze because that seems like the best case scenario for that maze. But there is so much information going around about Uber Fan and I have no idea what it will be. Hoping it's Titans though
While info has been bouncing around all over, one current word is Titans is -not- a maze. An' I'm more willing to believe that then the revolving door of rumors on what Uber Fan is.
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54 minutes ago, hunnylvr said:
However, at least it's not The Walking Dead for the millionth time. I have yet to hear a rumor that that overused crap pile is returning.
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.
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9 minutes ago, wow said:
Sorry I got them confused; So do you think the Vampire maze or the Scarecrow maze is gonna be the claustrophobic one?
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.
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On 10/6/2016 at 11:52 AM, YourPallbearer said:
I thought 15 was considered an exceptional year?
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)
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13 minutes ago, Arsik_22 said:
Exorcist - I enjoyed our version a lot more opening weekend than I originally did, but Orlando's version makes ours look like a joke. Their effects and transitions rooms are freaking awesome, I had goosebumps throughout the maze. I don't know if a maze has ever done that to me.
Yeah, from what I've seen of videos, Orlando did do a better job overall. To be really blunt Hollywood has nothing like Orlando's opening scene. (Techincally they kinda' do, but it's nowhere on the scale of Orlando's.) Not to mention Orlando's version actually has a ending.
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1 hour ago, foodstampsFTW said:
Eh, idk how bright the houses will be that early. It sucks that because Uni has such a bad crowd issue that they have to run the event from 5 to 2 just to not cheat the customers.
From some of the videos I've seen that took place right at the start of the event, I think the maze that's going to suffer the most from brightness will be the Exorcist. A lot of light leaks through and it makes the black halls downright useless until it's night. So it's really in a nasty Catch-22 as you gotta' see it at night for the best effect, but it's constantly slammed unless you hit it right at the start.
Speaking of videos, considering I'm unable to attend the event I can only view things by videos, but here's my general thoughts of things from a outsider.
AHS - Don't care for the facade, but the house looks quite nice. I would happily take this over any TWD maze anyday.
Krampus - That definitely looks like a straight-up fun maze, great sound design, great costumes. It's also kinda' hilarious watching videos of people going the wrong way in the opening room when it's pumped full of fog. Though I have to give this a little knock on the Jack in the Box Jester, now I don't object to them to using that particular gag (Hell I was expecting them to.) But for some reason it looks off, it could possibly be due to the positioning of the actress where being on her front with one foot in the mouth and one foot out which looks awkward and doesn't sell the effect. (Also, it doesn't help FvJ uses the same effect AND sells it better.)
Halloween: Hell Comes to Haddonfield - This looks like another solid Halloween maze, but let's talk about that ending. It's certainly off kilter, moreso then the mirror maze from last year...but I like it! An' I love the soundtrack they use for that part.
TCM: Blood Brothers - While it's no Back in Business, it's certainly looks a step above Saw is the Law. Which personally makes me happy since I picked this one as my Dark Horse Maze! I certainly approve of ChopTop being in this maze, I like the "Trippy Hippy" room and the ending is pretty neat as well. Not bad at all for something which might have been a last minute change/addition.
Freddy Vs Jason - Just like the other houses this one looks pretty solid, definitely one of the better facades for this year as well.
The Exorcist - Had to save this maze for last, and I can totally see why this one is polorizing. Now I get what Murdy is doing with the black hallways, those are where the main scares are coming from. So they can be more theatrical with the Regan rooms and have them more close to the movie without having to try injecting a scare into them. It's understandable, and I can see why people would like it. I however, not a big fan. A big reason being most of the Regan rooms look to be the weakest parts of the maze. It started strong with the room going Poltergeist, however the following rooms just wern't as impressive. The other rooms seemed to focus on one thing, and that one thing can't hold up the room. The biggest offender is certainly that head turning Regan which came off as a hokey haunt prop. Add in a good amount of Regan's which didn't need to be manniquins whatsoever, a Father wearing a mask and a "ending" which looks more like it just runs out of rooms instead of having a definitive ending, and that's why it doesn't exactly work out for me. For everyone else your milage may vary.
Terror Tram - Hey now, this Terror Tram looks good! But oy, those shipping containers are a catch-22 in providing scares...but also mass congestion.
The Purge scarezones - I gotta' say they look fun, it's a welcome change of pace.
Overall, it looks to be a nice solid year!
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4 hours ago, foodstampsFTW said:
No, not a single person on attendance. Idk, someone on another forum said that someone else said that they like it and it was somewhat horror themed
Keyword "somewhat". It's probably not like AoV in Orlando which is Horror/Asylum themed the whole way through.
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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.)
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5 minutes ago, Freak said:
^You know you're in for a good event if even the Terror Tram is good.
Agreed! Though from the sounds of it the Terror Tram has a bit of a Catch-22. Because of the tight quarters of the shipping container sections, it does provide full-on scares. Though at the same time, those shipping containers WILL be choke points for the crowd.
Howl-O-Scream 2018 - Tampa
in General Howl-O-Scream - Tampa
Posted
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.