Tobias

Just read a couple fun things from someone working ops in the house. The transformation scene is supposedly quite cool. Finally, that picture of the wolf that's sending people head over heels?

To follow up on that, I've been reading that AWIL may be having some installation issues that'll hopefully be cleared up by Wednesday.

Just because the barn is to the side, doesn't mean you're not able to go through it. It's pretty much in the exact same spot the Skoolhouse was in 08'.

Various reports of the media event are mentioning the backstory is guests are being new hires for the facility, so it's pretty much marketing having a slip.

Don't know if I'll be able to go yet, but I can still post this none the less. 1. An American Werewolf in London - First horror film I ever saw, still my favorite werewolf film of all time, an' this is clearly a passion project for A&D with this being their third time in trying to do it. 2. Resident Evil : Escape from Raccoon City - If this was going to be based on the movies, this would be near the bottom. So it was a freakin' awesome surprise hearing this is based on the 2nd and 3rd games. That alone shot this way up my list, and hearing they'll be trying things like a Paused room? Sign. Me. Up. 3. Cabin in the Woods - I enjoyed the hell out of the film, so it's pretty easy for me to be excited for this. I look forward to the Merman, Unicorn and Werewolf (Favorite bipedal werewolf in a long time) and I'm eager to see what familiar faces return in the end. 4. La Llorona - Hollywood knocked this out of the park with the two years it was a house, so I'm intruiged to see how Orlando does it. I just hope it has the same great atmosphere and the same punch Hollywood was able to give it. I can see they're doing the horse head La Llorona's, so that's a good sign. 5. Afterlife : Death's Vengeance - I'm fairly intruiged with this one, should be pretty good if it can pack the same scary punch that The InBetween pulled off. 6,7. Havoc : Derailed and Evil Dead (Can't really decide where to place these two, but I have a couple concerns with each) - Havoc is a tricky beast, the setting/sets of the first one wasn't special since it was just the set's of the Spawning...however it was memorable solely because of the talent. On one side it's good because the talent made the best out of what they were given, but on the other side...with that being the main reason it was good, all those in the sequel house have mighty big shoes to fill. Now the new setting will probably be a step above the first, however it's still really going to come down to the talent. I wish everyone the best of luck on that. As for Evil Dead, while I did like the remake/reboot...I don't think it'll translate into the kind of house I'll enjoy. I'm not a big fan of houses where you're more watching what's happening to others, and it doesn't feel like you're a part of it. Since the film is about people mutilating themselves and their friends, unfortunately it's rather fitting for the kind of house I'm not a fan of. 8. The Walking Dead - Not really a big fan of TWD, and I wasn't really impressed by what I saw in the walkthrough videos of last year. Hopefully with it in the Parade building and the new settings it'll be a improvement. One thing I will give this IP, at least this probably helped bring back the themed scare zones. An' while I may not agree with TWD being all the zones, it's still an' big improvement over a few graves and blue lights.

There is no GP house, a GP house would be a massive headache for everyone involved. (GP = General Public) RE is going to be announced as a surprise for the general public. They think the event is going to get seven houses like last year, so the event is going to drop a 8th house of a well known IP on them to catch them off guard.

A lot of things were confirmed for the house. -Slaughtered Lamb will be the facade -It'll feature Piccadilly Circus, the Porno Theater, the Underground -The werewolf is a articulated puppet (Understandable considering it's a quadraped werewolf and not a bipedal one like CITW's) -They went to original audio scource materials for things like the howl. An of course it'll feature Elmer Bernstein's score and songs like Blue Moon and Bad Moon Rising. Overall, I'm really excited for it since AWIL was my first horror film. An' this is also a big passion project for A&D considering this is the third time they've tried to realize it.

^ RE is going to be announced last as a "surprise" for the GP, while the next house to be announced will be American Werewolf in London.

Pretty much, that and as we all know there are eight house permits. Unless a permit dissapears, they're getting eight houses no matter what.

While we all knew TWD was going to return, but it also being the entire street experience is a surprise...in the worst way possible. What's the point of this whole "Evil Takes Root" if all the streets are TWD?

Yeah, with the hint tweet of "Truth or Dare", they're starting with Cabin in the Woods.

AWIL could be a good choice, but I have a feeling they'll be announcing one of the more recent IP's like Evil Dead, Cabin in the Woods to drum up easy hype. Could also be the Walking Dead, though I'm not as confident with that one being announced first....though it's still possible considering that was a factor of the big crowds last year and they can put the "Back by popular demand!" spin on it.

That reminds me, how many of Ifrit's clues were proven correct last year?

"I'm, uh, the famous balloon theif" ... "A naked American man stole my balloons" Sounds like Amierican Werewolf in London to me.

If AWiL was to be in both parks last year, then it fits surprisingly well due to the situations that happened. - In Orlando, they had a AWiL house all fully planned as a soundstage house. However, at the last minute they had Silent Hill dropped onto them and that house replaced AWiL. - Around the same time in Hollywood, the maze codenamed "AMOK" was shelved last minute and replaced by TCM. Naturally the main question is why AMOK was shelved at the last minute. If you look at it that "AMOK" was AWiL for HW, it fits the situation. They had to shelve it last minute because Orlando had to shelve theirs due to Silent Hill being dropped on them last minute. Can't exactly do a shared IP thing when only one park can put it up.

I believe I mentioned this before on one of the threads, but I'm totally fine with both events sharing a particular IP...as long as it's a IP that both parks wish to do. Orlando has shown before that they can make a great IP house if it's one they wanted to do. Though as mentioned, unfortunately last year was a great example of what you get when they're forced a IP they didn't want. (Walking Dead, Silent Hill etc.) It's nice, but not as good as a IP they want or a original house. (Penn & Teller, Gothic, Dead End etc.) Part of me feels a shared IP this year is American Werewolf in London, which would be totally fine since we all know that was fully planned and ready to go in Orlando before Silent Hill was dropped on them. (It also seemed like it was planned in HW as well, but had to be replaced by TCM when Orlando had to shelve AWiL.)

I think the main issue with the Storyteller was she was created by Hollywood and forcably shoehorned into that year's event, so I feel WEH was pretty much created as something to slap her in. An' amusingly enough, that house was in the former Nickelodeon soundstage...a bit far away from IOA and the whole Terra Crutentus realm. I think that was A&D's way of saying "Fine, we'll have her. But she ain't getting near what we created." Which would make sense considering while the Storyteller was used in all the marketing, she was nowhere found in IOA.

^ I'll add that for some houses don't need a fully elaborate/detailed facade to be a good one. Sometimes a simplistic facade works really well. (The Hallow, Nevermore) The way I see it, no matter where they put a house...they're going to put in a quality house. An' speaking of house venues, I wonder where they're going to put a 8th house with all the changes that are going on. Is it possible for the Disaster queue to go back to hosting two houses? Or will they be using a new venue which they've had in mind before like Curious George? (I was going to mention the possibility of the Parade building hosting two houses, but I think that topic was done in by the Superstar Parade adding to the float count that needs storage.)

Oi, AMC was not nice to Orlando at all. An' as a crazy as it sounds that AMC didn't want it bloody/scary...I can actually believe that knowing how much of a pain studios have been to Knott's with licensed mazes. (Case in point, in 07' they had "Beowulf : Labyrinth Into Darkness". The studio exces were literally telling all the actors not to scare people.)

I stand corrected, however this doesn't change the fact that having TWD, Silent Hill and AC dropped onto Orlando's event was not the best of ideas.

^ This, thisthisthisthis THIS!!! Wesker really nails it on the head, with this kind of show it comes down to writer & director. You really can't blame the films/pop icons they parody since a good script can make any of them work, I've seen gut-bustingly hilarious shows from references/film I don't care for. Heck, Hollywood's B&T this year did great with a lot of the same parodies that Orlando had. Once again, it comes down to the writer & director making them work. No matter the quality of the show, B&T is as much as a staple of HHN as The Hanging is to Knott's Scary Farm. If the show wasn't there, something would be missing. I'll also second the shocking lack of shows in the park for the event, a event this big shouldn't have one garunteed show. Compare this to Knott's who last year had a whopping NINE shows. The more shows a park has, the better the crowds can be diverted.

I can imagine last year was fairly crazy for A&D in terms of last minute changes/additions. (The synergy between both events, the loss of the Xena building for Transformers.) As for the whole icon/no icon discussion, I will agree that HHN doesn't need one. However, when it's done right I find it quite nice. For me I feel some of the strongest websites have come from years with icons, though I will say if they don't have a icon...I seriously hope they make the website like 2004's since that was a great website for a year with no icon. Just don't do the bare-bones site of last year.

Looking at what happened last year, this is what I'd like to see. 1. Drop the synergy Seriously, I think the attempted synergy between both Hollywood and Orlando hurt more then it helped. If both parks want to do a shared event theme, that's fine. However forcing certain themes and houses on a event which had other plans in mind (Orlando) brings up this issue. 2. Let A&D do the IP's they want Looking at the footage from both Hollywood and Orlando, it was rather obvious that Hollywood wanted to do houses like TWD, Silent Hill and Alice Cooper. Orlando on the other hand, not so much. As much as I like Silent Hill, I was bummed to hear Orlando had to shelve a American Werewolf in London house to make room for SH. Thinking about it, I honestly feel a AWiL house would have been better then SH. Orlando has shown they can make a great IP/Inspired-by house, but it has to be one they want. Forcing it on them like what happened last year, it'll be a decent house....but not as good as a original house, Inspired-by or a IP they have the passion to do. 3. Bring back the set scarezones Orlando was another example that shows Roaming Hordes on their own is a nice idea on paper, but not the best in execution. One of the biggest issues with soley Roaming Hordes is the sheer lack of parkwide atmosphere, blue lights and a couple graveyard pieces are nothing compared to what the park has done in the past. Set scarezones help quite a bit with the atmosphere, and personally I'd like to see a return of the really grand scarezones that they've done in the past. (Though don't do the budget cuts that plagued 2011's "blink and you'll miss them" zones) What I'd also like to see is a mix of set scarezones and a couple hordes to fill in the other areas of the park, if I recall 2008 did that fairly well with both set scarezones as well as both the Chainsaw and Zombie Drill teams. 4. A meatier website Last year's website was barebones to say the least, it was hard to get hyped up for the event when they just casually announced everything via facebook and had the most simplistic pages and such for each house. I've always enjoyed the build up of previous years with the evolving websites, it always kept me coming back day after day to see if anything new popped up. Last year however, not so much. There really wasn't anything to keep me focused on it, so I truly hope this years site is a whole lot meatier. The bare bones approach is just really lame since we all know how good it can be.

To put it simply, both Hollywood and Orlando have different creative teams. They go their own way with whatever they have, even if it's a shared IP or one used by the other event from a previous year.