zombieman

I'm surpried you say this about HHN-O. I don't see a lot of that at all in UO. You want to see every single scareactor jump out and screm "Boo", just go to Howl O Scream...

You are correct. This was a Freddy - and used in the same manner. For La Llorona, this was one of three large puppet/animatronics at the end of the house. The still you see here is not that scary, but when you get hit three times in a row at the end by the progrssively more intense figures, it is truly impressive. I've been through so many houses in my life that I look at the reaction of the patrons as much as I look at the scenery. And these three rooms at the end got amazing responses. The scaryness cannot be evaluated by one pic.

Yes, there was a cloisonne. It was round and slightly larger and thicker than previous round coins. Then though "AMC Presents the Walking Dead" was supposed to be our "theme" (yeah, right...), the cloisonne has the catchphrase "Once you're inside, there is no way out" on one side, and the plain statement "Universal's Halloween Horror Nights 2012" on the other. Sadly, it's one of the most non-descript cloisonne of them all, with nothing but the year to serve as a reminder of what happened that year. If they had just written "The year with no Scarezones", people would instantly know which year it was referring to... But I digress.

I FINALLY completed my cloisonne collection - at least one coin from every year, from 1996-2012!! I still have a couple of oddball necklace/keychain cloisonne. I have no idea which years included those versions.... I know in 2001 they made a keychain version, and in 2005/2006/2007 they did necklace versions. Of all the cloisonne, my favorite is 2009. It is shaped like a movie ticket, which already makes it uniquely shaped. But here's the kicker - believe it or not, Universal actually misspelled the word "Halloween"... They call the event "HALLOWEFN HORROR NIGHTS". BY FAR, the most rate Cloisonne is 1996. Very first year they ever made them and there were a precious few made. Even until two years ago, I though 1997 (Eyegore) was the first year for cloisonne. 1996 cloisonne was quite large, thick, and round. Good luck finding one. In the 13 years I've been collection HHN memorabilia, I have seen exactly one - and I own it.

There are "media kits" and "media gifts". The kits were a folder that contained official press releases. These were usually few sheets Universal letterhead stapled together that explained what the event was about. These were sent to press at the time - TV, radio, news. They also included glossy 8x11 photos. The folder was always themed with that year's logo. They've been doing the media kits pretty much forever. The earliest one I have is from 1994. Media gifts were first started in 1997, as far as I know. These were handmade props sent to the press, with the intent of enticing when to come to a media day. It was purely personalized publicity. In the beginning, these accompanied the media kits. Nowadays, when bloggers can reach more eyes than radio and newspapers, the "media kit" is mostly a relic of the past. In fact, the 2004 media kit was the first year they included a CD. Today, the media gifts have become very stylized and often contain the press releases in an electronic form (i.e. the thumb drive buried in the brain of the 2012 media gift. Media gifts: 1997 (got it) - prosthetic eyeball on a pedestal. This is an honest to god prosthetic. The pedestal has a tag attached advertising the event. 1998 (need it) - 3-D wall hanging of the "primal scream" image used as that year's logo. This wall hanging is very solid and heavy. The image was very generic, though, and a cheap lightweight version is readily available at most Halloween shops. 1999 (need it) - I honestly have no idea what the media gift was this year. I have heard rumors it was based on mummy parts. 2000 (got it) - Jack in the box. It was a real, working musical box with J-A-C-K letters on the side. When you cranked it, the clown that pops out was shredded - clearly mangled by Jack. 2001 (got it) - Chainsaw. This toy chainsaw was bloodied up and delivered in a "crate" with straw in it. The chainsaw has a beaded metal chain that spins. There is also a chainsaw sound effect. 2002 (got it) - A real pocketwatch with chain. The thing is sizable (about 2" around). Pocketwatches are a clamshell. When opened, it reveals the watch and a picture of the Caretaker. 2003 (need it) - Film canister. Large (about 12" in diameter) film canister that contains pictures and trophies the Director collected. 2004 (got it) - Straitjacket. A fabric straitjacket. Although it is made from cheap materials and would never actually be able to restrain anyone, it is my favorite media gift, because each one was custom made. Each has the name of the "inmate" on it, and was personalized to the media agent it was being mailed to. If you were Jeff Jones and reported for the Orlando Sentinal, your straightjacket would have "J. J." stenciled on it, along with an inmate number. 2005 (got it) - Bloody eyeglasses and plate of cookies. The eyeglasses belonged to the Storyteller, icon from that year. Unfortunately, I don't have the cookies. 2006 (got it) - Snowglobe. For Sweet 16, the gift was a life-size plaster-cast hand holding a real snowglobe. The hand was missing a finger - which is floating in the globe. Red sparkly "snow" completed the picture. These were the ONLY media gift that was actually sold at the event for only a couple of nights. 2007 (need it) - Savaged teddy bear. This was a teddy that was shredded by Freddy and his friends. 2008 (got it) - Music Box. The music box owned by Mary Agana, who became the icon Bloody Mary. This was the first year Universal used smell as part of the gift. When you open the box, a heavy smell of rose perfume wafts out. Inside is a dried black rose, along with pictures. 2009 (got it) - Popcorn box. A popcorn box containing bloodied popcorn, with a real dictation recorder buried inside. 2010 (got it) - Branding Iron. A beautiful wooden box containing Fear's branding iron. This thing was hefty. 2011 (got it) - Chopped hand holding playing card. Reminiscent of the snowglobe hand, this one is latex and feels real. The severed hand is grasping a few strands of Lady Luck's red hair, along with two cards A-8 (the Dead Man's Hand). 2012 (got it) - Skull. Another heavily-scented gift, the skull has "skin" on it as well as hair. What is not evident is that you need do an autopsy on the skull in order to get to a thumb drive embedded int he folds of the "brain" inside. One needs to cut the skin and peel it back to expose the skull, which can then be opened to reveal the brain. 2013 (got it) - Severed head, with zipdrive stick in the eyeball 2014 (need it) - Not sure if they had an official media gift... 2015 (need it) - Severed arm from Jack, holding phone 2016 (need it) -- Not sure if they had an official media gify...

I have one - actually in the original box - with the very rare full media kit. Not for sale, but the chainsaw comes up on Ebay about every other year. The real deal has an actual beaded chain on it. Make sure the one you buy has the chain and that it works.

As of this writing, the only tours left are Unmasking: 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 31st Arcane Insights: 26th I took BOTH tours on the 12th, after having attended the event for the first time of the year on the 11th. I have taken the UTH tour as long as HHN has offered it. It has increased in price over the years and now tops out at almost $60. Nevertheless, it is still a great value. The walkthrough of the three houses (was only two the first years) is always presented with the rich backstories that you would otherwise never learn. What is especially great is that over the years, they have adjusted the tour lighting in the SS houses knowing that people would be taking and posting tons of photos. The lighting is now camera-friendly, so that photos look show-quality when posted. Another perk of the UTH tour is that park admission is not required. In fact, if you take the 1:30 tour, you will be allowed to stay in the park for the 90 minutes between tour end and start of HHN. So you essentially get a "stay and Scream" pass for FREE. In that time, you can easily fit in a couple of rides that won't be open for HHN. When you get let out of the "holding pen" for HHN, you can make a beeline to the SS houses and see them each two times before people start filtering into the event. This was the first year I took the Arcane Insights tour. I gotta say that at $230 - NOT INCLUDING ADMISSION, this is way too steep a price for what you get. They do throw in valet parking ($30 value), but that doesn't begin to offset the cost. What you DO get is several hours of TJs time. To me, that was great. $230 great? No. But still great. I went into it thinking it would be kind of like a night time UTH tour. Of course, there would be no lights on house tour. I did think there would be some thorough descriptions of the backstories and effects, but then I realized "how are they going to do that in a packed park?" What they do is: * Take you to a "quiet" area and tell you about the house you are going to enter. You get a super abbreviated backstory. * Go through the house. TJ goes with you, and the actors are even more intense than normal. But of course there's no stopping along the way to talk about what you are seeing. * Go to another nearby "quiet" area where TJ fields some questions about the house. * Go to the next house. Thankfully, the the trip through the SS houses is one after another, avoiding the endless queues. Likewise with the tent houses. At some point, you think to yourself: How is this tour going to last 6 full hours? There's just 7 houses and no shows. We've been spending about 20 minutes tops per house. The 6 hours consists of: a SINGLE VIP trip through each house A 20 minute break (no snacks or drinks included for your $230) A second 20 minute break (again, no snacks or drinks included) An hour sit down with TJ at Lombard's. You get bottled water but no snacks. You also get a "goodie bag" filled with about 25 cents worth of crap from your local Party City. They could have really done something neat like a pin or coin or something collectible. The tour ends with priority seating at the 12:30 B&T show, which TJ attends with you. This is optional, as you can leave if you like. NO rides or other shows are included in the tour. At the Q&A TJ will field any question you have and will not duck anything. He won't necessarily answer your questions, but he won't give you happy-speak. TJ will stay and chat as long as you like after the show as well. He really does make himself fully available to you - great guy, and an excellent face for the event. What would make this VIP tour a good deal: * Allow you to use the VIP glowstick as an Express pass for houses. They allow you to use it for rides (except RRR coaster). So, you can use it for the rides that already have no lines. Thanks a lot. I honestly don't see what the big deal is about letting you use it at the houses. First of all, you spent over $200. Secondly, there's only about 90 minutes to use it. How many houses can you even get to in that time? It's not going to hurt anyone to let you use it. * Include park admission - OR at least move the AI tour to a Thursday, so people with FF can go. * Include some sort of snack or water during the tour - this costs Universal nothing. * Give some sort of discount (15% or 20%) on HHN merchandise at the stores. This would cost them almost nothing. I want to go back to the ONE trip through the houses again. One of the things we learned on the UTH tour is that some scareactor cast changes can take a decent amount of time to complete. As a result, it's entirely possible that you might be unlucky enough to go through the house and miss several scareactors. You would THINK that a $230 VIP tour would be timed so as to avoid a cast change. You would be wrong. In Alice, there were several people missing. TJ told us afterward that it was a shame that some were not there, and told us what we would have seen. Would this have made you happy, had this been your only exposure to HHN for the entire year? Fortunately, I was able to see all of the houses the night before. But NOT having the ability to Express my way back into the house after the tour meant I could maybe choose one house to see. I know the tour can't keep going through the same house again and again until everyone is happy, but it would have been nice had they timed it so that the full cast was in place for all houses. I will most likely never do the AI tour again unless they really increase the value, but will be happy to do the UTH tour again. Thinking about this again, this would be my dream AI tour, worth the money. It essentially adds the UTH tour to the AI tour: * Start at 1:30 with an Unmasking tour. TJ wouldn't even need to be present for this part, but it would be great. * Go to Lombards for a 90 minute "TJ time" while everyone else is in the holding pen. * Do the VIP tour of the houses with TJ * End the tour about 90 minutes earlier because the TJ time happened earlier. Tour would end at about 11:00 * Have 3 hours to use your VIP necklace as an unlimited Express pass (rides and houses) If it was like this, I wouldn't mind that I had to pay park admission. I would be ecstatic if this sort of tour existed. Not to save me money; it would end up totaling about the same as what I spent. It would just make me feel as if I got me full money's worth, but all I really would have gotten is the unlimited Express privilege.

I flew out to HHN on the 11th and 12th. On the way out of the house I could not find my HNN shirt to save my life, so I took my Vault shirt. Quite a number of scareactors looked at me with disgust and muttered to me "the Vault is dead". It's amazing how everyone said the exact same thing. I can't believe you all came up with this by coincidence. Did you guys talk about doing this in case you saw Vault shirts? This happened on the streets the Iniquitus Beasts Vampires Prisoners and in the houses Alice: Alice, taunters P&T: Elvis, Clowns HoH: last room Thankfully, no one broke character in the other houses as it would have made no sense there. Some did look and shake their heads, though.

Props to Alice in the last room, as well as a few other actors who saw me wearing my old Vault shirt and said to me "the Vault is dead..."

On the Arcane Insights tour, TJ confirmed that there were only the three "button" locations alluded to earlier; there were no buttons in the casino. To the Elvis scareactor, I don't know if you remember me from a week ago, but I wore the Vault shirt (I couldn't find my HNN shirt before getting on the plane). About 10% of the scareactors from each house would look at my glowing shirt and whisper to me "Vault is DEAD...". Alice did this every single time.

I've been flying out to HHN Orlando from L.A. for the past 9 years, and Gothic is the best house I've seen at HHN (either coast). While the IP houses fell flat, it seemed like the designers were trying to throw everything they had into the original content houses - which of course of what they do best. The Candle Room in particular looked to be such a labor of love. I do a synchronized Christmas Light Show every year and know how hard it was to make those individual candles work, each on a separate circuit. Gothic was flawless.

Did you read my review of this house over on the Hollywood site? We have the exact same feeling here. Walkers don't "reset" - they come at you until they get you. In the Hospital room, when I saw the gurney as a barrier, I thought "they understood this!". Thereafter, it was just like any ordinary house - jump, scare, reset. But, you say, look at Deadtropolis and Zombiegeddon! They did the lunge and reset in those houses, too. That is correct. And I loved those houses. The difference is that because they chose to rent the WD IP, they were obligated to live by the rules of how walkers "behave". And the rules state that walkers don't act like they did inside and outside of this house. The zombies in Deadtropolis and Zombiegeddon had no pre-set rules to play by. However they acted was therefore correct. This is one of the major reasons I hate IP in houses.... You want to know how non-walkerlike the actors got? I saw a walker out in front of the house carrying around a leg slung over his shoulder like a baseball bat. He was stalking people - not shambling. His "scare" would be to take the leg and do a half-swing at you. Can someone remind me which episode had walkers using weapons? Which one had walkers growling, barking, and breathing in people's ears? Both coasts were guilty as charged of this non-walkerlike behavior. I was at each event for multiple days, and wrote a hefty comparison in the Hollywood review section. In an amazing turn of events, the Hollywood house was superior in terms of content. In that house we saw the tank (they really built a tank...) and bicycle girl. The Hollywood house also included survivor camps, which broke up the monotony. I thought the Orlando house was more of an easter egg hunt than anything else (bunny slippers, duffel bag, Merle's hand, etc). According to what I heard on the Arcane Insights tour, bicycle girl was ordered for Orlando, but never arrived... I had really high hopes for WD at HHN, but in my opinion the talent (for the most part) really hurt the house, and the designers failed to place enough barriers to allow the talent behave like walkers. I know a lot of scareactors post here, so please don't take it personally. Orlando scareactors in particular kick major butt every year. I don't know if it was training or laziness, but the WD house talent was not good (the one exception was the hospital).

Is anyone doing a live blog from the event?

Wesker, One thing not clear from your map - is there a usable path between B&T and MIB?

I said the same thing before I went to HHN Orlando the first time. I live in CA, and have been to the Hollywood HHN forever, so I thought "how bad could it be?" You will be amazed at how much walking you will do at HHN Orlando when there are no pathways blocked. I think every person this board will back me up on this. They seem to have entrances and exits placed to maximize walking distance (wait till you see what a pain in the butt it is to hit the three Soundstage houses from queue entrances that are placed far apart - only to exit at the same exact location for all three houses). How I wish they would have one SS house exit lead to the next entrance. Blasphemy, I know - it would really ruin the feel of the event, but my God, all the walking saved... Same thing with the Tents and Parade building. Trust me when I say it's an exhausting event. The first year I went ('04), I circumnavigated the event twice, stopping at houses along the way each pass. According to my pedometer, I did 12 freaking miles - in 5 hours. Why walk the event twice in a night? Because you see a 75 minute wait and say "maybe the next house is only 15 minutes".

Thanks, Victoria. It's not too clear from the map - is there a direct path between B&T and MIB? From what I had read earlier, it sounded like they were not connected. THAT would suck.

Can someone please post a Sat view showing what exactly is blocked off?

Boy, that review was fully useless. The guy was a total moron. From what I have seen of these guys, I don't know how this will work at HHN, let alone the BJ theater (which is probably the biggest room these guys have ever worked). The act seems to be a cross between mentalism and sideshow. HHN has clearly presented both of these formats in the past. There's really nothing new in this act. Very much like Brian Brushwood (who I feel has a much more polished show). 20 Penny Circus (to me) is Penn & Teller on a 99 Cent Store budget. Having said that, this young act is the exact type that Penn & Teller love. It would not surprise me at all if P&T pushed hard for this act to perform at HHN.

I will be taking both the UTH and Arcane Insights tours on 10/12. BTW, the Arcane Insights for 10/5 has been sold out for a couple of weeks. 10/12 has several slots open when I booked mine a few days ago.

Locked in my travel plans. Will only be in Orlando 2 nights, so HHN on 11th and 12th (doing UTH and Arcane Insights both on the 12th)

Hmmmm.... This must be a clue.

That idea is very intriguing.

The archaeology and "look deeper" clues lead me toward the idea of a Catacombs sequel house. Catacombs: Horror Unearthed?

When I saw the TV/Icon/commercial clue, H.R. BloodNGutz came to mind. I know he wouldn't fit in anywhere at this year's event, what with all the IP, and it's been said before he will never be back. But just sayin'.

Just thought it might be worth mentioning... Lizz posted earlier a quote about a teacher. And we saw the Periodic Table photo. In the Alice Cooper house last year, they had an entire room devoted to School's Out. I seem to recall seeing a periodic table on the wall. Wouldn't surprise me if Orlando gets a similar room this year. That said, I don't see why we'd be getting clues for houses we already know are happening - unless we are getting a clue per house - in which case the Periodic Table clue may be for the AC house.