mystiquephreeq

SZ topics are up and pinned. A scare zone subforum will be added later today.

"This Halloween Horror Nights, we're inviting you to join the celebration of blood and bone at what can only be called The Festival of the Deadliest – an ancient tradition from the depths of where nightmares are born. A gathering of the most unearthly, hellish terrors has emerged from the darkest corners of despair. It calls to those who long for the thrill of the scare and wish to have their fears made real. You'll be drawn like moths to a flame, and once you join this hallowed celebration, your nightmares will never end. You'll find the heart of the Festival on the streets of Hollywood in Universal Studios Florida, but its claws have spread throughout Horror Nights "

"Set in a time decades ago, our docks in San Francisco find themselves the victim of an INVASION! Visitors from far beyond have crashed their vessel, and are now wreaking havoc on the streets of San Francisco. They aren't just here to destroy; these invaders are also on a mission to learn everything they can about us humans. Careful, or you may find yourself on the experiment table at the mercy of an alien scientist."

"Near the front gate, on Avenue of the Stars, we have our Altars of Horror. For me, this zone is very exciting because we're bringing something to the streets for our horror fans that we have never done before. In this zone, we're taking some of the larger than life characters featured in this year's houses, and letting them have their own scare zone. A lot of work goes into bringing these iconic film characters to life in our houses. Now you'll have the opportunity to get an even better look at them."

"Next up, we have a returning story to our New York streets with The Purge. This time, our approach was to create a zone that showed how we think the events of a Purge night might play out in our streets. There are some fan favorites returning such as our auction and a very polite gentleman. We also have some new surprises in store. For example, how do you clean up all the mayhem on the streets during a Purge night? Visit the clean-crew up crew with their trusty wood chipper to find out. Just don't get too close…"

"First up, it's time to make sure everyone understands the rules of our haunted holiday. Get a proper Halloween education in our Central Park scare zone inspired by the film Trick 'r Treat. We're excited to have Sam visit and make sure we follow the rules of Halloween. As a longtime fan of classic horror anthology films, Trick 'r Treat is a favorite of mine that pays perfect homage to that genre. In this zone, you'll have the opportunity to come face-to-face with several characters from the film, and learn for yourself what happens when you don't follow the rules."

Ask and you shall receive. More than pumpkins! We've got ghosts and doors.

Yes. Effective marketing would have noticed another company using the hashtag and corrected the erroneous information. Those other comparisons are inaccurate and Universal did react to the past reveals by corporate partners. A company has claimed that HHNOrlando has revealed all their themes. They made this claim while using a hashtag designed to track conversation regarding the event. While fans of the event know more information is to come, a person who doesn't follow the event would see the words "all their themes" and see only 4 houses. This error could, in fact, harm potential sales. My issue is not the fact that Crowne posted inaccurate information, but that it took fans of HHN to correct the information. A quick - "There's more to come. We haven't revealed all the horrors, yet!" reply by HHNOrlando would have sufficed. By the way, it was HBO's fault that episode 6 was leaked yesterday.

Above is Exhibit A in Marketing's inability to effectively market HHN this year! Why A and not Z? This is another freaking corporation!!! Fans should not be the ones needing to correct erroneous information being distributed by another corporation. This tweet is the best example of how ineffective marketing has been this year.

Definitely fingers crossed. I don't now why it never occurred to me until now given all the spec, but it's one of the first scenes in TrT (if I remember correctly). The girlfriend blows out the candle, and the boyfriend says something like, "You're not suppose to blow the candles out before midnight on Halloween." It's a perfect opportunity to use the timed/synced outages.

New topic: With the pumpkins up and TrT speculated, it is very possible that we will see those timed/synced outages from 08. It's one of the Halloween rules in the movie.

Blumhouse. Personally, the best strategy for Blumhouse is to announce the house and the Purge street. Market all Blumhouse together. That leaves TrT as the only IP left to announce. Announce that street, then the remaining houses and streets.

Ministry of Magic.

Phase 3 has been known about for years. Did anyone really think Uni wouldn't move up the timetable to compete with Star Wars? Fear Factor will be leveled to make way for the MoM. Add in the Forbidden Forest and it's the one-two Potter punch to show up Disney. Nintendo is taking out a large portion of KZ. Animal Actors will go as well. (The sprungs are safe to my knowledge and everyone keeps forgetting about B79B which should be complete. That's the new parade building) There is no where to put B&T. The show is outdated. Bill & Ted (no matter how dear they were to our childhood) are not known. This is a business decision that makes total sense. Deep breaths everyone. Everything will be fine. The event will continue. Editted to add: The Potter Xmas announcement clued me in months ago the Phase 3 had be pushed up. Mike stated there would be more news later this year.

I read that as 1 house. Bayou and Angels teaming up against Demons. The past two days have been far too busy. And, my sleep deprived self wants to see the Voodoo Queen teaming up with Angels to takes down Demons now.

Thats not the wing outline I'm seeing. I'm seeing a wing folded forward.

I'll talk about the pics The close-up that is suspected to be the Dust Bowl/Scarecrow house doesn't give much to go on. I can see leaves, but I can also see the potential outline of a wing. This, of course, begs the question: Is it Dust Bowl as the Ifrit said? Or is it Angels vs Demons? The caption leads me to believe the Ifrit called it correctly. But that wing... The reel to reel seems so obvious for AvED. The quote that captions the pic is directly from the 1981 movie. Looking at images, the recorder isn't an exact replica from the movie or show, but extraordinarily close to the reel to reel seen in S1 E8 of AvED. The flooring in the first image (most likely Bayou) throws me off. I wonder how well they can achieve a low ground fog in an SS. I, usually, look up in houses. So I've never really paid attention to the floor. (I look up because I'm short and its reflexive. I'm always afraid I'll miss something because it actually goes over my head.) The concrete floor throws the whole vibe off for me. It's definitely not jungle. Those are "cypress trees with Spanish moss on them". Which leads me back to the floor. I want low hanging fog coming off the water that those trees should be growing in. (I'm old enough to have gone to Cypress Gardens more than once. I remember the boat ride. Never have been to Legoland though.) My initial reaction to the typewriter was "nice redrum Easter egg". Now, though. The Constant Reader in me is all: "Danny said Redrum! Jack wouldn't have typed that! Inaccurate! Inaccurate!!!" I guess to each their own.

There were rights issues with the Alien movies because Disney owned the theme park rights to the Alien movies. AvP was another loophole. Disney owns/owned Alien franchise theme park rights, but not AvP rights.

Death Water Bayou debuted in 2013. This year will be its 5th year at HOS. How long should Universal/Creative have to wait to implement their take on a common horror trope?

HHN did Hotel Hell. As for "ripping off" theming, shall we discuss the Unearthed HOS did? The font and concept were both done by HHN 2012. Or what's his name, Trickster? Was that it? He was such a blatant Jack/Eddie/Heath Ledger's Joker hodgepodge. It's horror tropes. Voodoo is a very common horror trope. There's nothing to "rip off". It's like saying HHN ripped off Nevermore in 2011 because HOS decided to announce their Poe house first. Bayou + Voodoo is a trope. Multiple entities are going to tackle that trope. Yes, Marketing is lacking. In fact, Marketing needs a serious overhaul in my eyes. They seem to be attempting some kind of troll/burn persona while simultaneously flailing to find their identity and clinging to tropes. This has nothing to do with anyone ripping off horror tropes that have been circulating long before the existence of either events. EDIT: Thanks to all who said they'd like to do a house with me. There's no guarantee I'll make the event this year. I missed last year. I may miss this year.

While I appear to have a few bars... I'm in the mountains so forgive any oddities with this post. Let down doesn't cover my feelings regarding the recent countdown. It simply confirmed my suspicions that marketing is inept. You don't create a page people need to join for a chance to win (the initial premise listed by sacrificing our souls was to win prizes and be the first to see content), create a countdown, then have the count down "reveal" another page people need to submit info to daily so that they can win the previously mentioned prizes. They've created clickbait. The disappointment and frustration exhibited by many is not unwarranted. But... I wasn't surprised. I had no hopes for any info. I guess my cynicism regarding the recent marketing spared me the frustration.

Am I the only one amused by this portion of the blog? "The house will feature various locations from the first two seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead and lots of blood. And for those “in the know,” the answer is yes…We’ll be going back to the cabin; with a few other surprises along the way."

08 Skoolhouse paid homage to TrT. It was widely known to be inspired by TrT.

Didn't the Ifrit tweet that it is Ash vs. Evil Dead and not ED 2? Or am I reading that riddle wrong?

It seems that way, but for the life of me I can't see why they would believe this is a good market strategy. The ones begging the most for an announcement are the GP. We "know" what we are getting. Yes, announcements set things in stone, but we have an idea, at least. If anyone is being "punished" it's the GP outside the HHN community. The leaks only spread so far. There are many who are still in the dark. And while an info dump was fantastic back in the day, we had something to keep us occupied and draw us in. As I've said: Marketing is doing a very poor job this year. They aren't holding the rabid fans' attention, how do they expect to hold the casual fans' and new potential fans' attention. The announcement will be anticlimactic to those who aren't following FB pages, FB groups, or forums.