agalloch
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Posts posted by agalloch
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Cody - use of IP is use of IP, no matter the scale. I am fully aware that Body Collectors were INSPIRED from Buffy, but their role in the show is COMPLETELY different than it is in the house. If they are using an IP to INSPIRE a house, that's totally fine. But to have it ACTUALLY exist is boring.
And, like I said an IP is an IP - the trend shows increasing use of IP, particulary to the SCALE of its use as well.
How can you say the event has gone down since the "mid-teen" years when youdidn't start attending until 14.
Because of everything I've already said in the "is gone" list. It's still factual, all that I wrote is actually gone.
And the best thing from 2007 was Psychoscarepy, then NOES, then a HUGE drop off in the rest especially with the lack of genuien scare zones. Every other house is very average that year.
Come on man. I know it's your opinion but there are GLARING flaws with the house. It's lacking actors, the puppets are visible from a mile away, certain sets (eg: Circus) are VERY fake looking, a feeling of emptiness, etc.
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Juno - thanks for sharing your experience. I remember the glowing cowboy as well haha! I remember the barn, but then the rest is a bit foggy for me. The scarezones were also fantastic.
Did you go to HHN 15? If so, what are your thoughts (even if brief, I'm curious) on that, and how do the events compare to these more recent yeras? Personally, I think the former yeras are far bettter.
And, YES! Any "dark comedy" houses automatically win themselves to me. Leave it to Cleaver is BRILLIANT.
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No, an opinion is an opinion. A fact can be wrong, and he's not stating it as fact.
Even if the house was empty you will see exactly where the werewolves are before they lunge. How can you seriously not think that's not a design flaw?
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Unlike original mazes, where they aren't told what color blood is.
Yes, exactly right. I've been through plenty of mazes with varying colors of blood. Seriously though, you're making a joke out of what I said, but you get my point.
Last time I will say it. There is no (generally) guesswork involved in an IP house. It's (generally) already pre-created. This means it is generally easier to construct, especially when liberties are taken.
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My point is that there is no guesswork, it's already done for them. I prefaced that comment by saying how ridiculous it was but it still proves my point.
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Legacy - I agree, I mean HHN does use IPs in the past. But from what I've heard it's not as much IP usage as it is restrictions on how creative / adult it can be.
And ferox - you took what I said and spun it wildly.
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I love the show and I have liked what HHN has done the last couple years (well maybe just this year) but its time get back to what HHN knows how to do.
Can we start a grass roots campaign for Uni to bring back the old-school scare zones and shit? PLEASE????!
With you on that man. Wish people would check the 15 or 18 website and feel how awesome it was. Or the secrets in the other older websites.
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No, you couldn't have. That's an absolute fact, and once again you've betrayed your ignorance by saying something like this. You'd spend five minutes noting down everything you see in a single SHOT. They don't just watch the movie and then throw it all together from memory; they need to look at each scene from every angle provided and take pictures and notes on every piece of it in order to replicate it as well as they can. In 5 minutes you've had probably forgotten what the wallpaper in David's hospital room looked like, let alone everything else.
They took the notable scenes from the movie, literally leaving nothing else relevant out. I watched the movie once and knew exactly what scenes would be included way before the event started. Why write it down? Hell, put the movie in your computer, open it with VLC, and press the hotkey'd button on your keyboard to take screenshots from the movie in each relevant scene. This process takes, what, 2 hours? Come on man, it isn't rocket science. And no, I know exactly how the wall looked in the hospital without having to look back at the movie even off the top of my head.
I did not talk about attendance or profits. And, trust me, it's clear that's the motivating factor. However, as I said originally, at this point people attend because it is the thing to do. I go every year (though, spend less days/money than previously) because I want to continue my streak of going. Its popularity will support its continue good attendance (though, where are we getting numbers of money and attendance for the event? Is it speculation because I've never seen it?). However, realize that the event BOOMED because of its mid-teens years. Back then very few people were commenting about how poor the event is, how it isn't scary, etc. Everyone I know personally that went this year was pretty damn disappointed.
Look at a lot of companies. They do something amazingly well, stop focusing on the product and care about profits, quality diminishes, people leave, then they go, "What happened?" It's going to happen here. Howl-o-Scream does its houses, for what budget it has, 10x better comparatively.
Hope you realize that A&D, from what I've heard, is generally pretty pissed off about the restrictions getting put on them.
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hunnyIvr, thanks much for posting an honest review of the streets. You are objective and are sharing (at this point) factual statements about the zones.
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I'm not blindly defending the event. I realize that there are better haunts out there, and as I said before I too believe that a lot of the risk taking has been watered down to non-existent in recent years.
But YOU have to realize that a lot of those things you are saying are hard to refute because they may have actually been your experience, which apparently sucked. Where as someone else could have gotten scared really easily, or not figured out a certain trick, or had actors get super close to them.
A fair point. But imagine if those people who find this year scary how they would react to a genuinely more intense event?
Moreover, I still hold firm to my last paragraph in the other post being gospel.
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And while I do agree that maybe it's not as free with the scares as it used to be (I.E you're "risktaking,) to flat out say that the event has no scares at all is bull. Maybe not for you, because apparently you're just impervious to everything. But half the stuff you're saying is opinion, as is what others (including myself.) Opinions are great that way. Everyone is allowed to have them.
Honestly, nearly everything I wrote in that last paragraph is factually gone. I'm open to people calling it out if I am not correct.
The event is honestly not scary anymore. Makeup is hilariously terrible, actors are way too distant from you, the dummiest are extremely fake looking so you know which are real, misdirection and boo doors are obvious from a mile away, mirror tricks are terribly done, when there is SO much loud noise in a house any trigger'd sound is just drowned out (and repetitive), major scares are visible from a mile away, scarezones are non-existent at this point (go to HoS, even with less large sets in their zones they do a magnificent job still scaring people), actors do not have the intensity they used to, etc.
Honest to god, people blindly defend this event. Re-read my last paragraph - the event's peak is passed. Sure, SOME things are more elaborate, but that does NOT mean it makes a better haunt NOR does it make it scarier.
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I remember the smell of hay as I walked past the dead-talking cowboy in the ranch facade of Ghost Town. I remember the seductive woman dancing on the bed in Castle Vampyr, and the smell of incense. I remember the ominous, dripping wax of Horror in Wax with the side-show-ish facade.
EDIT: Even Hellgate Prison, hearing the warden speaking and seeing the search light, walking in and having prisoners verbally abuse you. In Deadtropilis, their best zombie house ever, you smelled vomit.
And as Joe Tourist wrote, "Universal does an excellent job in setting up the atmosphere for the evening." This is why I keep emphasizing how GREAT the event used to be.
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It's NOT a simple matter of "Just take all this stuff and throw it in there." Before you can even do anything, you need to spend hours of research on the source property to find good content to take, then even more hours and dozens or hundreds of photographs (or screenshots in the case of games and films/television shows) so you can properly reference every single detail down to the wallpaper and set dressing. Once you actually have your references, you need to find identical or close-to-identical props, set dressing, paint, wallpaper, and carpet to properly replicate the scenes.
Hours of research? I could have figured out how I wanted everything to look in AWIL within five minutes. The pacing of that house is absolutely common sense - I mean, they literally followed each notable part of the movie in order. When I went through CITW and AWIL, a lot of the set pieces / rooms were completely off and took a ton of liberties. So, they aren't creating to follow the original that precisely. So let's see, they have media of each room (pre-made in the movie), have an idea of where things should be (relatively - major pieces are about positioning, everything else is taken with liberty), and then they throw it together. For their original houses, the same process occurs AND there are even more details. Heck, take a look at the wine bottles in La Llorona and look at its label.
Why would they post a video of me saying, "A highly disappointing year - and if the trend continues, the event will continue to fall," ? Selectively choosing for promoting it.
From what I heard, only John Landis (sp) made sure the house was perfect. So they had three years to perfect it. Original content has a few months to imagine, design, visualize, construct, test, modify, and complete. Otherwise, most IPs (from what I know) are pretty hands off.
And FYI, Dead End, Legendary Truth, and a million other original houses are FAR more detailed than IPs. And, details do NOT make a haunt. Catacombs and the original Body Collectors worked EXTREMELY well. Why? The damn idea was brutal, it was adult, it was morbid. The execution of those ideas were flawless. I still hear the coughing of the dead in Catacombs. I still see the Body Collectors ripping up the humans. It was the STORY, THE IDEA, and (even if less detailed) the EXECUTION that nailed it.
Like I said a million times - this event is NOWHERE near what it used to be. It is not adult anymore, it is for teenagers. Scares are absolutely gone, atmosphere is gone, originality is basically gone, risk-taking is gone, marketing and cohesion are gone, smells are gone, scantily clad women or male scareactors talking trash are gone (eg: Hellgate Prison), scare zones are gone, even the parade (which I don't want back) is gone, scare actors actually talking to you instead of using triggers are gone, icons are gone, queue videos are gone, scare zone music that is memorable is gone [pro-tip: Midnight Syndicate / Nox Arcana are memorable soundscapes that fit. I couldn't tell you a single piece of music used this year besides Blue Moon], scareactors inviting you in or talking to you are gone, scares are completely obvious now, eerie commercials are gone (check out HHN 12/13 comercials versus today, night and day difference), website is gone, etc.
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Good review! I agree with a lot of your points.
And you're on point about AWIL - no actor in the beginning - and the house does feel a bit bare.
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ferox, really? Creating original houses is comparatively far easier. I don't get why this isn't even a discussion. They show you in the movies/shows/games how a scene should look, then they recreate it. There is NOTHING to think about. They rip the source audio, lighting, etc and just pop it in. It takes a lot of work, sure, but it's NOT near the level that an original house takes where they have nothing to go off of.
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That's exactly how I feel about the event now. I've been going since almost the beginning and their is a MAJOR difference in the intensity. I have to say that it has lost its feel. Seems like a lot of people here have not experienced the earlier years so they can't compare it. It seemed more "adult" themed, less of a party environment like it is now. The music from Midnight Syndicate. The feeling of just walking in the entrance of the park was unsettling. They would cut off the lines when wentering the houses instead of having one slow moving conga line like it is now. The scares and houses were much more intense. Where did all of that go?
It's absolutely gone. Once the creative team built it to a household name in Florida, even outside of it, management/marketing started to milk it for what its worth. And, sadly, they're starting to hear the feedback for how terrible its getting. Look at last year's feedback - completely trashed it. And, this year, if you go on Facebook generally you'll see a lot more comments about needing the event to be original, scary, less IP, and more original zones.
Completely agree with you. And you'll hear, "Rose colored glasses," thrown around but it isn't that. There are a NUMBER of changes that are gone. Hell, want the ultimate proof the event is less adult now? It used to have girls scantily clad dancing seductively in certain zones, and in the houses (remember Castle Vampyr - the girl on the bed?)
It's gone. It's not HHN anymore. If anything, it's a toned down HHN-Hollywood.
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HHN doesn't own the rights to the IPs either, until the get the rights to use that IP that year. That's why people say things like "The New Line Deal" or talked about Universal's history with Sony when Evil Dead was being speculated on. Or why Jimmy talked about the problems with getting the rights to do AWIL as a maze. Did you think Universal just owns the rights to all of the IPs they use without having to acquire them by asking the production companies?
So...if IP houses are easy and draw in crowds, why don't more haunts use them?
Sorry if I was being unclear. Universal, unlike local haunts, has the ability to negotiate for these far more than they ever can. It'd be like if I asked to borrow your house for a movie VS Disney coming in and asking to borrow it - who would you give it to?
Exactly right. And with very preliminary rumors saying next year is going to be IP heavy again, odds are I'm not even going. I can do a road trip for the total cost for me to get to HHN and hit up houses that are far more with the halloween, haunt spirit than HHN has been in the last few years. Seriously, HHN 18 ( scare zone creativity ), HHN 15 ( story, bold steps, ambiance ), and HHN 14 ( houses, scale, innovation ) are the epitome of HHN. Nothing came close since, nothing.
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There is an art to faithfully recreating a movie's sets and characters in a way that make sense for a HHN style attraction. It's not the same kind of challenge as making an original house, but it's certainly a challenge of the same caliber. If IP mazes were really easier to make than originals, don't you think that more haunts would be doing them? It clearly brings people into the gates, so if it's so easy to do it why do a minority of haunts even bother to try?
Because those haunts do not own the rights to those IPs. Simple answer.
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Not at all. In fact I agree with many of your points.
BTW it says you are 14... that would put you at.... 5 for HHN 14? How much of that do you remember? Just curious as that is a very young age to go to HHN.
I'm 25, just filled out a random BS birthday when making the account. So, I was probably, what, 15 or 16 going to HHN 14? I remember a great deal of it.
Thanks for agreeing
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It's his opinion. Relax. Go out for a jog or something.
An opinion can be wrong. Proof: The werewolves were visible a mile away. Design flaw in the house. And that's only one.
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That's right guys. Because if we don't agree apparently we are causing drama.
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Mr. I hate IP's.... -.- lol
Dead Space or Bioshock would be AMAZING if executed well.
You already experienced the game, why recreate it, seriously? Bioshock is successful because of its dialogue and story which cannot be recreated at all in real life. Dead Space was done - Interstellar Terror, and people were mixed on it.
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army - it isn't an opinion, it's very accurate.
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This house was flawless from start to finish. There was seriously not one damn thing wrong in here. We were told on the Unmasking tour that A&D has tried numerous times to bring the movie to life and how it was shot down each time by John Landis. You could tell that they really perfected it this time. From the Slaughtered Lamb beginning, complete with the audio from that actual scene in the movie ("Hey! What's that star on the wall for?!" "You... made me MISS!"), to the Blue Moon ending, phenomenal the whole way through. It was legit stepping into the film, as the rooms were very well done in sequence with no awkward transitioning whatsoever.Those wolves were terrifying and it impressed me how quickly they were able to reset.. maybe 2, 3 seconds and they were roaring again. The sets were incredibly detailed, the scares were there and they were very well done (the trick door that opens backwards in the living room was pretty brilliant and major props to the girls working the bus scare.. I screamed because I could not believe how far they lunged out of that window. They have to have some really ugly bruises at this point). This just might be my favorite house that I have been through.. I just can't remember enough of Winter's Night to knock it off of that top spot so we'll just call it a tie I guess.
Absolutely was NOT flawless from start to finish. You are kidding me if you would even pretend to say that.
American Werewolf in London
in Haunted Houses
Posted
The moors is extremely visible if you have decent eyes - moreover, how constant the lights went off made you fully aware of where it was. The movie theater basically didn't move comparatively and was a non-threat. The subway is flawed (so, not a 10/10 house), and the alleyway wolf is VERY common sense it'll appear there because the rest of the alley (assuming the cop doesn't pop out to shoot the werewolf that is going off) has nothing in it and the wolf, in the story and house, was not taken care of yet.