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instamatic

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  1. This review will be long with spoilers for the VIP portion, but I’ll keep the houses and scarezones short and mostly spoiler free.

    This Halloween season will be the busiest ever for us, so my mom, boyfriend, and I decided to try VIP this year since we most likely will not be making it back to HHNH. I woke with a killer head cold and hoped it would not put a damper on our evening. We got to the park around 3:45pm and hung around City Walk until about 5:00 since we weren’t able to check in until security was set up. Once security was up we checked in and received our wristbands, VIP lanyards, and the first tour time of 7:20pm.

    We were near the front for Opening Scaramonies, which I found dull, leaving not much promise for The Purge scarezone. In the end, I actually really enjoyed the scarezone. The Purge theme fit well, the actors were on their game, and the lead guy under the flame arches was entertaining.

    We headed straight for VIP Horror Lounge to grab a drink and check in for our tour. We snagged our first free beers and bottles of water, then took off with our guide, D.J.. He was a wonderful guide, full of little trivia nuggets, jokes, and lots of personality. He had asked my mother and I if we had any experiences with the paranormal and we definitely have (yes, I’m a believer) so he asked us to share our stories later in the evening when prompted. We boarded our private tram car and drove down onto the backlot, taking almost the same route the daytime tram tour takes. We watched a short video of Specs from Spectral Sightings (Insidious) warning us not to head to Amity because there was a violent spirit whose energy the team could not harness. Guess where we were headed?

    The backlot was in complete darkness, making it the perfect setting for D.J.’s ghost stories surrounding deaths, tragedies, and haunting around Universal’s historical lot. During these tellings my mom and I were asked to share our stories, so we did, adding a layer of anxiety for this group of young girls who were now obviously freaked out. We were taken to Old Mexico to watch the flood scene in complete darkness while D.J. told us the legend of La Llorona. Then the tram drove the short distance to Six Points Texas, where we were instructed to get off the tram and walk. Again, we were in complete darkness, it was hard to see anything at all. But we explored an area while D.J. told us of more ghost stories involving some of the most famous cowboys. Every shadow, every sound, every stray cat was a cause for concern over our impending doom. Our group stood in anticipation, waiting for that scary moment to come, but it never did. We were told to head back to the tram to continue our tour, but when we walked back the tram was gone. D.J. put on a show, trying to get a hold of our driver but he couldn’t. Conveniently we were right next to Amity, and when D.J. spotted the sign he said ”Well….we may as well, right?”

    Now here’s where a small hitch in our otherwise fabulous experience occurred. We began to walk the hill up to Amity when a lady in staff attire ran to our guide and explained they were having difficulties setting up our experience so we had to wait a bit. She was very quiet in her explanation, but I had been talking with D.J. so I was right next to him and could hear every detail she gave him. He played it off well, telling the group we needed clearance from Spectral Sightings and embellishing a bit on the severity of this violent spirit. We waited around in a dark alleyway for about 10 minutes until we were given the go ahead.

    Once again we trekked up the hill to Amity, and were greeted by a nervous girl from Spectral Sightings. She told us we weren’t supposed to come to that area, but since we were there she guessed it was ok and hoped her supervisor Sam wouldn’t be upset. She passed out Spectral Sightings cards to the whole group (the same cards given away if you gave the password at the Insidious maze), then went on to scan us with a makeshift device that resembled a 1970s Polaroid camera. She explained that the scan results in a number, and the lower your number is the more likely you are to come in direct contact with the paranormal. Mom and I knew we were screwed at this point. LOL. Other members of the group were scanned resulting in numbers like 63, 27, and 10. D.J. pointed my mom out to the lady, and when she was scanned the lady dropped the scanner (it was tethered to her neck) and stepped back. Mom had scanned at a 2, which was the lowest of the group and the lowest the lady had ever seen or heard of.

    We were taken to Sam at a house along the coast of Amity, the sets where Murder She Wrote was filmed. Sam played angry at first but then had the same ”Well since you’re already here...” attitude. Every part of this experience at the house was done with practical water effects as well as high definition projections that matched up to the house extremely well and looked excellent. The lights of the house flickered on and off, shadows of children playing were in the windows, a silhouette of the old lady spirit from Insidious appeared and disappeared in the windows, the door rattled every now and then. It was a bit silly, but well done and overall pretty cool.

    Then Sam called upon mom (Trish) and asked her to come front and center. He gave her a whacky spirit sensor device with a light indicator. She was asked to hold it up in front of her and scan the house, giving it a good shake each time she saw something, causing the device to recalibrate it. So she’s scanning the house and the silhouetted disappear and now you see the woman herself (still a projection) through the windows, slowly pacing the upstairs. A record scratched on and ”Tiptoe Through the Tulips” started playing, then stopped. Then the house caught fire and started burning, then went out and dark completely. The Darth Maul demon face appeared on the house and hissed ”Triiiiiissshhhhh”, and he burst through a window and crawled all over the whole house, then jumped off causing a spray of water to hit us all. Then the house returned to normal and you saw the old lady spirit peering from the middle window upstairs, the lights flickered off, we heard her coming downstairs as the porch light came on. After a moment of complete silence a scaractor dressed as the old lady spirit came at us from behind, scaring the crap out of everybody. Sam screamed at us to run and get out of there, so we briskly walked along the whole coast of Amity back to the tram as scaractors came running out of the old houses at us. Those final scares were so simple but so effective.

    We were back on the tram and taken to Dead on Arrival to experience The Walking Dead maze and SZ and Black Sabbath. Then once we finished that area we were back on our tram and taken to the Terror Tram. After the Terror Tram we took our final ride on our private tram car back up to where we started. We caught the 9:15 Bill and Ted show then went back to the VIP Horror Lounge to hit the buffet, get some more free drinks, and rejuvenate to finish out the rest of our night of mazes and rides.

    THE WALKING DEAD: DOA and NO SAFE HAVEN:

    DOA was great. It was much smaller than anticipated but the actors were on it and made so much out of so little. NO SAFE HAVEN was definitely an improvement over last year, but it wasn't scary at all. The sets were neat and it has one of the best animatronic scares I've seen. The scent was overbearing, it was all I could smell for about an hour after we left the maze.

    BLACK SABBATH:

    I liked this maze in one way and one way only. I got to hear some great music while looking at some interesting visuals. It wasn't scary, the flow was off for me, and I wore my 3D glasses for about 10 seconds before my eyes were killing me. I didn't HATE this maze, but it wasn't my favorite either. I did like the girl cut in half though, and the way her intestines moved around.

    TERROR TRAM:

    Yawn. There were a few added props but all in all it felt the same as previous years. I'm growing pretty bored with this attraction. I did have one cool thing happen though...I got to walk about half of it directly behing John Murdy and Eli Roth! I tried to get up to then and just say hi, but their security was like "John, we gotta cut off the Psycho house photo op and take Eli that way, people are recognizing him." So he ducked out of dodge. I understand it, but I also thought it was kind of a douche move. Hard to explain but the way Eli acted like a little girl afraid of something was disheartening to a fan of his work. John was very nice and you could tell he was just trying to accomodate his guests. But hey, it was cool seeing them in person.

    EVIL DEAD:

    This maze had me on edge from the moment I stood outside of the entrance. My scares don't come from people jumping out at me, but from loud sudden noises. A majority of this maze was walking through scenes met with a quiet-ish soundtrack of crackiling and whispers, then BAM crazy lous sound effects. It was scary in that sense. The set design wasn't entirely memorable save for a few rooms, but I did spend a lot of this maze freaking out about the soundtrack so maybe I wasn't entirely focused. I really enjoyed the makeup of the lady in the bathroom, and tongue cutting scene. The vomiting Mia wasn't working and just kind of sat there looking static and misplaced. The chainsaw through the mouth effect was fun. Overall I liked this maze. It scared me, it looked good, it got the job done.

    INSIDIOUS:

    Let me start by saying I wasn't a big fan of the film. I found it to be a huge rip on Poltergeist and the demon was laughable. That said, this maze was my favorite of the night. I walked out of this maze shaking and covered in sweat. I got every scare in every room, the music freaked me out, the kid stuff freaked me out, the stupid demon freaked me out...halfway through it I just wanted out. LOL. I don't know how I could find the film so incredibly lame and the maze so scary, but I did. MAJOR kudos to every person who works on or in this maze because it is a definite hit. Loved it!

    EL CUCUY:

    I liked Danny Trejo's voice and El Cucuy's lair. Otherwise this maze was just okay. The scare factor wasn't there, there seemed to be alot of transition areas and unused space. I don't speak Spanish so some of the narration was lost on me. The under the bed scare was fun, but the rest of the maze just fell flat.

    We didn't waste our time in HoH so I have nothing for that.

    THE PURGE:

    Better than I expected. Actors were aggressive and on point.The theme fit well to the environment.

    CHUCKY:

    Walked through this twice and only saw Chucky once, and no other actors. Completely dead and lacking both times we went through.

    FRENCH CLOWNS:

    Rolled my eyes at the thought of more clowns, but I actually really enjoyed this zone. Our lounge was in this zone so I spent a fair amount of time watching the crowds pass through and the actors did a great job. The props were ok but the character designs were wonderful.

    SCARECROWZ:

    As a whole this SZ was terrible. No fog, no ambient lighting, 3 stilt walking scarecrowz you can usually see from a mile away...just bad. HOWEVER, I did get a scare in this zone. I was walking past a trash can and one snuck up behind me and banged on the can and yelled in my ear. As I said earlier, sudden loud noises get to me so it freaked me out. Was a little peeved that my ear rang for the next 20 minutes, but eh, what can you do?

    BILL AND TED:

    Let's just say that the theater was only half full, and half of that crowd left 10 minutes into this stinker of a show. We stuck through to the end in hopes that it would get better. But it never did. The show went nowhere, the ending was abrupt and didn't even complete the storyline, there were hardly any jokes, and the musical numbers never seemed to end.

    We had a really great night! We managed to stay away from what little crowds there were and we got alot of stuff done at least once but mostly twice throughout the evening. It's hard to say if we'd splurge for VIP again, but it was a new experience that had to be tried at least once.

    • Like 1
  2. Ive heard, RE is pretty much confirmed...

    On other topic, Which resort is best at HHN ive been to Orlando past 4 years and Hollywood really has my attention this year, what you guys recommend me?

    Disclaimer: I grew up going to Hollywood's event and I've only been to Orlando once (2011), so my word may not be the best.

    Orlando and Hollywood really seem like two different beasts.

    Based on the one year I attended I really preferred the originality of HHNO's houses as HHNH is always so IP heavy. HHNO has better scarezones as far as theming and scares go, but the layout of the park doesn't lend itself to them as well as HHNH.

    HHNH has a more agressive cast in their mazes, the Bill & Ted show is much funnier, and the Terror Tram is AWESOME. This year will be exciting as they're putting two of our mazes and a scarezone down on the backlot for the first time ever. I can't wait to see how that pans out.

    I really couldn't say which resort is better since I have a fondness for both. I'm excited for both coasts' lineups this year. It will be cool to see how HHNO pulls off La Llarona since that was an epic maze over here. I got some really great scares in that maze and watched numerous other guests leaving the house bright red with tears. It will be also be neat to see CitW and AWiL since we're not getting those. I'm hoping HHNH will turn it up and bring it in El Cucuy, Insidious, and Black Sabbath.

  3. Mazes like La Llorona and El Cucuy make a lot of sense here in Los Angeles as our demographic is heavily Hispanic.

    I was surprised to find out that Orlando was getting a La Llorona house, but then again I'm not very familiar with the demographic in Orlando.

    If the maze does migrate to Orlando, I also can see them going with a generalized Boogeyman house and not one specifically based on the El Cucuy legend.

    • Like 1
  4. The rock legend themed houses seem to go over really well here in LA.

    The music scene out here is HUGE though, so maybe its the appropriate market.

    I LOVE AC, but was disappointed in both houses we got.

    The soundtrack was fabulous but the scares just weren't there for me.

    I grew up listening to Black Sabbath because my mom is such a huge fan.

    I'm interested to see what Murdy does with their music, but I don't have high expectations for the house at all.

    I'm anxiously awaiting HHNOs full site review!!! I can't wait to go this year :)

    • Like 1
  5. The plans I've heard is that zones will exists and recreate scenes from the show. So, expect something like the tank in New York, that sort of thing.

    And I've also heard that Chainsaws WILL return, but will be "Survivors."

    Chainsaws were the "survivors" for our Terror Tram last year and it was very effective. I got a few really great scares from them. They even ganged up on me as a hoarde and caused me to run for the first time ever at a Halloween event.

    But HHNH's Terror Tram is much more contained than a general street experience, so what proved to be quite successful here may be a complete failure in Orlando.

    It seems like your TWD maze was worse than ours last year, but ours was still pretty bad. I think it was due to overkill at our event as TWD was spread over two major attractions instead of focusing all of the creative effort into one killer house or attraction.

    I have hopes that HHNH will up their game this year, and I'm very excited to see HHNO's on October 3!

    I just hope that ED and TWD are the only two experiences that both coasts are sharing, or else HHN will be repetitive for me this year. LOL

  6. All I really want from HHNO this year is as many original houses as possible.

    I've only had the pleasure of visiting HHNO once, in 2011, so I don't know a whole lot more about it than what I've read on these boards.

    I'm from LA so I've been attending HHNH since I was a kid in '97, pre and post hiatus.

    I know we've had original houses before, but none of them were memorable except for Monsterquarium and La Llorona. What I really remember from our event is Freddy, Leatherface, Chucky, etc. My familiarity with these characters and their stories kills the scares for me a bit, last year's TCM maze being the exception. So imagine my delight when I see that the year I finally go bicoastal there's only one IP based house, especially since it ended up being 1000x better than our version of it. The only house that let me down the whole night was Saws 'N Steam. I honestly didn't get the story and there was a major lack of actors when I went through, but the rest of the houses were amazing. I got major scares in Nevermore and Nightingales, and the 3D in The Inn Between played so well with the actors and scares. I just loved it all.

    Lurking the boards last year I was pretty surprised to see you guys ended up with alot of the same mazes as us. We had TWD (which was just ok as the TWD Terror Tram experience outshined it), Silent Hill, Alice Cooper Goes To Hell, a sequel to Welcome to My Nightmare (which you ended up with), and a classic monster house that was shameful at best (you guys are super lucky you got your cool tribute house and not our craptastic dubstep one).

    Seeing that makes me nervous there will be a lack of original houses this year and that half of your event will be extremely similar to ours.

    Whether it was simply better, or because it was my first time, HHN 21 topped any of the HHNs I've been to growing up. Except for '97 as that was my first and I will always hold the nightmares it caused a six year old me dear.

    • Like 1
  7. BiB was more dreadful, but TSITL held it's own. It did it's job of scaring the crap out of me, and it's the only maze of the night that I saw people leaving in tears. I didn't mention this in the review, but the girl in front of me left the house three rooms in to it. She took a wrong turn and the blackout was like "Go this way m'am." and she was like "No, I have to get out of here. I'm too scared to see the rest. I want out of here." So the blackout escorted her out. The pause caused a huge gap between me and the couple in front of her, and I think that added to the scare. I was the first to enter a room and I was alone pretty much because my mom and boyfriend were hanging back.

  8. ^I did WANT to like it. I went in to it ready to give it a fair chance, but it sucked :( They didn't change anything really since the last time I had been in HOH. The music didn't match the atmosphere (if you can call flashing disco lights followed by complete darkness atmosphere) and the characters looked lame. DJ Franky looked even worse than his concept art. I'm sure there's an audience for this maze, but it just didn't work for me personally.

    I was totally on break then. That must be it!

    Why'd you leave me hanging man? It's all your fault! :P

  9. I went on opening night with my boyfriend and mom. We tried FOTL passes for the first time and I have to say I will never do opening night without it again. It was worth every penny for us. We enjoyed having time to take in the event instead of running around only to get stuck in hour or longer wait times.

    I'm not really good at the whole rating system thing, so I'm just going to tell you what we did and what we thought of it. Also, I apologize if it's too long.

    We were at the front for the opening scaremonies, which was a first for us. We're usually back by the go gos. It was a fun thing to experience but we couldn't really hear any of what was said, so we kind of just went with it and ran with the crowd when the rope was dropped. We went straight to the Eyegores in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Alice. After about a half an hour of watching people being interviewed we saw him. We cheered him on, he waved, we snapped a pic, then he disappeared into the theater and we went along out merry way to the Terror Tram. It was almost dark out so we ambled around the scarezones for a bit until it was dark enough for us to enjoy TT.

    TERROR TRAM: INVADED BY THE WALKING DEAD

    My boyfriend has been a fan of the graphic novel series for a long time and he got my mom and I into the show, so we were all excited to see what was in store for us. The attraction was a walk on so we opted to save our FOTL usage for later in the night. All I can say about our first run through this years TT is WOW! We had an absolute blast! The first half as we wound our way through Bates Motel and up the gravelly slope of death was fairly yawn worthy. I got a bit startled by a "tree person" as I like to call them, but that was about it. Once we made it to Dale's RV though, things started to get really fun. The actors were on point, the sets were great to look at, and the make up looked cool in the dark. We opted to wait two minutes for the Psycho house photo op and got some fun pictures. The War of the Worlds section blew me away. I was a big fan of the way Walkers were blending in with the crowd by walking paces ahead, then turning around to attack at a given moment. I had a great scare in the last walled section before loading back on the tram. Walkers surrounded me and chased me a little bit. All I saw was walkers so I ran screaming and laughing. Then when I calmed down I turned to talk to my mom only to see every single survivor standing behind me, revving the chainsaws when I had turned completely around. It scared the shit out of me....and I loved it.

    Next we went down to the lower lot. We had never been on Jurassic Park in the Dark before so we went on that. I think I expected it to be different than it was, as I didn't realize that some strobes and Guns and Roses at the end were the only changes, but I still had fun. Then we went on Transformers just cause we had FOTL and we could skip the 65 minute wait. Same thing with the Mummy and skipping that 30 minute wait. Finally we made our way to Silent Hill, which was the first time we truly appreciated our FOTL since the line was over an hour long.

    WELCOME TO SILENT HILL

    My only knoweledge of the SH franchise is watching the movie, which I found to have neat elements but overall it was boring and went on forever. My mom and boyfriend had no familiarity with it what so ever, so we all expected to not think much of this maze. We actually ended up enjoying it alot. We got a poster from the mailman after giving him the password, which was fun because the GP was interested in how I knew about it, so thanks HNN. ^_^ I didn't get scared or even startled once in this maze. I was a bit freaked out by the god awful noise that no armed, all skin and ribs creature made at me. It was the worst noise in the world and it gave me chills, so kudos to him/her. The shit smell in the bathroom was cringeworthy, and the nurses played their part well. Overall, I loved looking at the creatures and sets in this maze, but it just didn't do it for me in the scare department.

    Then we moved on across the way to Texas Chainsaw, again loving that we could pass up the 80 minute line.

    TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE SAW IS THE LAW

    Dumb name, AMAZING maze. I haven't read alot of reviews yet so I don't know what kind of reaction it's getting, but it was my favorite of the night. As we were walking towards the house we saw four different girls leaving the house crying and breathing ridiculously heavy, so we knew it was going to be good. I got really lucky in that I got every scare in every room. I honestly can't say much for the set design as I spent this whole maze screaming and jumping away from Leatherface and family. I remember alot of animal hides, alot of blue flashing lights, and the dinner scene. I only remember the dinner scene cause grandpa got real flirty with me and it cracked me up so much that I forgot it was a distraction tactic that left me terrified when Leatherface came at me. This maze was alot different than how I remember TCM:BIB being, but it was still on par and I loved it just as much if not more!

    SILENT HILL SCAREZONE

    Boring. Lacking. Sirens were cool. That's about it.

    At this point it was about 10:30pm so we made our way back up to do TT again, this time using our pass. It was lame the second time around. I don't know what happened but it seeemed like all the actors were on break. It was slightly disappointing, but we had such a great time the first time around that we weren't upset about it. We went to rest our feet at Bill and Ted's.

    BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE

    I never have been a fan of this show, but I really enjoyed it this year. The storyline was fun, the jokes were clever and actually funny this year, and I liked the references to the B & T films. I could've done without the musical numbers, but that's personal preference. It was way better than the Hanging Games we saw at Knott's the following night, but that's for a different review. I'd give this years show a thumbs up!

    We were still feeling a bit lazy and it started getting chilly so we grabbed some hot drinks and sat in Witches and watched the actors work their magic. When we were done with our drinks we went to finish off the rest of the mazes we hadn't seen. We started with Alice Cooper Goes to Hell in 3D.

    Alice Cooper Goes to Hell in 3D

    I was excited to see this maze as I love Alice and heard great things about the 3D. I have to say I was disappointed in the 3D. While my mom thought it looked really good, I couldn't see anything but blurred color walking with my 3D glasses on. I took my glasses off once I got to Eve on the bridge because I couldn't take it anymore. I liked this maze. It wasn't scary and I didn't utilize it's featured technology, but it was fun. It was colorful but dark, sinister but funny. It was a good time.

    La Llorona: La Cazadora de los Niños

    I never made it into last year's version of La Llorona, so I had no idea what to expect. I really liked this maze alot. I got startled in it only once, but it was superbly creepy and it left me feeling quite uneasy. I liked that alot more than just getting scared, laughing it off and moving on. I'm not hispanic so I didn't grow up with this legend, but by just knowing the basics and experiencing Universal's spin on it, I can understand how La Llorona and her legend terrifies children. It was a maze well executed in design and spirit. The uneasy feeling stuck with me, and I really liked that I was able to be affected in that manner.

    THE WALKING DEAD: DEAD INSIDE

    Let me take a second to point out how extremely unorganized some of the queues were when it came to FOTL. This maze in particular had the A star sign with an arrow pointed at the queue, so we went in and ended up at an exit somehow, so we went back and the guy working the line told us we had to go on the opposite end of the maze and enter by the Flintstones midway. Then when we got in the right place the guy who scanned our tickets led our group right past the entrance of the maze and we ended up in a break room watching walkers drink coffee and water...so the start to this maze wasn't exactly terrific <_< FINALLY we ended up where we needed to be and made our way into the maze. While I enjoyed the sets and make up in this maze, it didn't live up to my expectations. I was waiting for this house to blow me away and it just didn't. I liked the nods to the show, such as bicylcle girl and the well zombie. The scares weren't there and Hershel's barn scene was particularly disappointing. It wasn't a bad maze, but it wasn't fanastic either. My boyfriend actually really loved it. It was his favorite of the night. Maybe I was just irritated that it took us 10 minutes to get in the damn thing because we were led in the wrong direction again and again :lol:

    UNIVERSAL MONSTERS REMIX

    I wasted enough time going through this horrible house, so I won't waste any time reviewing it.

    Overall we had a great night filled with laughter, screams, and great company. We got to see everything and because we weren't stuck in lines all night we had time to walk around and enoy taking in the atmosfear.

    My list of the event from best to worst is:

    -Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Saw is the Law

    -Terror Tram: Invaded by the Walking Dead

    -La Llorona: La Cazadora de los Niños

    -Welcome to Silent Hill

    -The Walking Dead: Dead Inside

    -Alice Cooper Goes to Hell in 3D

    -Universal Monsters Remix

  10. 7) Smile or laugh at the scareactors

    8) Release stress by SCREAMING (not sure if you scream already now)

    These two worked really well for my friend who is prone to panic attacks. I know that's not really the same as your phobia, but walking around and smiling while taking in the scenery helped him not be freaked out by the masks and scares. When a scare got to him he just screamed then laughed it off. A night we thought would be a total disaster ended up being fun and enjoyable.

    Good luck!

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