Primusjim

HHN 29 Another year moving further into family-friendly territory. My 19th year attending Halloween Horror Nights and I guess I'm no longer in the target demographic. I've become one of those grumpy old guys who pines for the "Good Old Days" of HHN. The lineup of houses was actually an improvement from last year, but nearly every other aspect was about the same or worse. The overall atmosphere was incredibly unspooky. Most of the background music was 80's synth stuff that had no business being played at a halloween event. Why did they go with the 80's theme again anyway? I think a lot of people are hoping for more effort for HHN30. Fingers crossed for the return of Bill and Ted and the icons. Until then, we're saving quite a bit of money that we would usually spend at HHN and have lots of extra time to check out other halloween events. From 2013 on, during the Bill and Ted years we always purchased the most expensive Frequent Fear pass with Express so we could see the show as many times as possible and make sure we could attend the final performance of the year. In 2017, we did 24 nights. Without Bill and Ted, we have made due with the Rush of Fear pass, attending 12 nights in 2018 and only 9 this year. -Houses- HHN has never been scary to us. We are mostly interested in the incredible scenic work and costumes / makeup. That being said, we like to see that there has been some effort put towards making the event frightening. 1 - House of 1000 Corpses (8.5 out of 10) This was absolutely fascinating for me and my wife. The people who put this house together should be very proud. We hated this movie and the only parts we liked were Captain Spaulding (barely featured) and his incredible looking Murder-Ride (missing entirely). Plus, the fact that this house was in the tent between MIB and the iconic Fear Factor theater, which had housed nothing but awful mazes up to this point, it looked to have no chance. Yet somehow this was our favorite house of the year right from the get-go. We're still shocked. The facade and interior of the gas station are a note perfect way to start the experience. The transition rooms with the music video style footage projected on the walls and ceiling are as effective here as they are annoying in the actual movie. The sets, scareactors and costumes are all excellent. I love that we see several different environments and the scares are plentiful. They somehow turned a lame Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip-off movie into an exciting, fun haunted house attraction. We were incredibly impressed. Also, the fact that a certain phonebooth was parked in front of this facade made me giddy each time I saw it. I like to think that Bill and Ted were trying to pilot the booth back to the Fear Factor Theater but just barely missed. Maybe they'll get it right next year. 2 - Graveyard Games (8 out of 10) I actually didn't like this one at all on the first night. But by our ninth night it had become one of my favorites. Beautiful facade. All the sets are incredible, as are the costumes. Great use of effects, namely the brick wall disappearing to show the reanimated corpse inside attempting to scratch his way out and the hallway where the mother blows out the candles one by one. Excellent energy from the scareactors, especially the one who sometimes attacked while on his hands and knees right before the pitch black hallway near the very end. The creepy kids section of the graveyard is also worth mentioning. This house managed to maintain a feeling of dread for us from beginning to end. 3 - Yeti (7.5 out of 10) Easily the best sets from this year's event, just stunningly well done. I like that you actually get pretty far into the maze before the first scare. I love that you go through several cabins, tents and a barn, getting hit with cold air each time you return "outside." Then the variety of environments continues with icy caverns and a dark forest. The costumes and action are just the right amount of silly for my taste. 4 - Us (7.5 out of 10) In contrast to House of 1000 Corpses, we actually love the movie "Us" and we loved the house. Huge kudos to the cast for this house, they totally made it incredible. Since they don't have elaborate costumes, the success of this attraction is entirely up to the performances of the scareactors. They absolutely delivered each time, the crazy facial expressions and movements were spot on. I always had a big smile on my face as we made our way through this one. 5 - Universal Monsters (6.5 out of 10) This house was pretty well done. Good sets, with a large variety of different environments. Good costumes, although some of the modern updates to the character designs were a bit cheesy to me. Was the Phantom of the opera's set an exact rebuild of the Wicked Witch's set from last year's Scary Tales 3? It seems like it was. 6 - Ghostbusters (6.5 out of 10) I should have liked this one much more than I did. My biggest issue with this house is that all of the dialogue has been re-recorded for some reason. Instead of hearing Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd's voices reciting iconic lines, we get other people trying to impersonate them. As someone who has seen this movie an unhealthy amount of times over the years, this is incredibly distracting. The half-assed facade is sad, but the effects in the library rooms are well done. The Ghostbusters HQ set with a live-mic Janine is cool. The containment unit being turned off is also pretty awesome. I don't understand why they included characters from Ghostbusters 2 and the reboot, it is 100 percent unnecessary. The set and acting for the key master / gatekeeper scene is spot on. The hellhound puppets are perfect. The scene with Gozer atop the stairs is way too cramped to be effective. 7 - Depths of Fear (6 out of 10) The setting is so unique, the sets are incredible and the use of flat screens and water effects is very well done. Unfortunately, the creature costumes ended looking like super-hokey 1950s B-movie creatures to me and it really pulled me out of the whole experience. The creature inside the first room whose upper-body is suspended over the pool of water actually looks pretty solid, so I would have to guess that the problems came from making the design into a wearable costume. Some of them also seemed to have tiny T-Rex arms, making them hard to take seriously. 8 - Nightingales (4 out of 10) Too cramped, too much "stuff in face." Given the subject matter, it seems like this house should have felt more unique, but it didn't for us. I didn't like the creature designs, and the sets were repetitive and uninteresting. 9 - Killer Klowns from Outer Space (3 out of 10) This is the second year in a row that HHN has turned a Scarezone from the year before into a house. First with "Trick r Treat" and now with "Killer Klowns." Both times I felt that seeing costumes and props two years in a row really lessened the impact. The Killer Klowns costumes are absolutely perfect, I think if we saw them for the first time this year, in this house, it might have gone a long way towards covering for how cheap the rest of this house is. Klownzilla is pretty amazing, though. 10 - Stranger Things 2 (2 out of 10) We like this show, (although not as much as a lot of people seem to) but this was not a good house. Last year's version was very pretty to look at and the character look-a-likes were impressive, which kind of smoothed over the fact that it was not intended to be even slightly scary. The sequel isn't as effective. The sets this time around aren't really that great, (except for the cabin scene, which is glorious) and some of the look-a-likes are poor. We spend way too long in the tunnels in season 2. What is the deal with the repeating audio? "We're in the old junk yard, and we are GOING TO DIE! We're in the old junk yard, and we are GOING TO DIE! We're in the old junk yard, and we are GOING TO DIE! We're in the old junk yard, and we are GOING TO DIE! We're in the old junk yard, and we are GOING TO DIE!" You can see by the wait times and people walking around in the merchandise that this show is very popular, but if it comes back to HHN, I hope they can do better than this. -Scarezones- Scarezones have been kind of useless for years. Mostly they are still just annoying bottlenecks that keep us from the next attraction. 1 - Rob Zombie's Hellbilly Deluxe (6.5 out of 10) I kind of enjoyed walking through this zone. The heavy fog and lights at both entrances made me think of old school HHN scarezones. I appreciated that the go-go dancers and blondes in skin-tight leather were trying to bring some sexiness back to the event. Now if we could get the adult humor and language back, everything would be excellent. The album that this scarezone is based on is not too bad, but I really feel for the scareactors who will have to pretend to be enjoying listening to these four(?) songs on repeat for two solid months. 2 - Anarcade (5 out of 10) Pretty to look at. Very photogenic. A good representation of the overall theme of the event, too bad this is the only place that really shows that theme, most of the rest of the park looks quite crap. 3 - Vikings: Undead (3 out of 10) Some nice costumes and decorations, but mostly just an infuriatingly slow walk. The worst thing was, once we walked through as the lagoon show was about to start and "Hungry Like the Wolf" by Duran Duran was playing loudly in the zone, completely drowning out whatever ambient sounds we were supposed to be hearing. It was immensely silly, and something they need to address in the future. Having said that, the Duran Duran version was much more enjoyable for my wife. 4 - Vanity Ball (2 out of 10) We thought the fashion show idea had some potential, but they didn't go anywhere with it. Some of the makeup work was good, and it was fun to see some of the scareactors really work it, but it wasn't enough. More points lost for making me hear that awful dance cover of "In the Air Tonight" originally by Phil Collins. 5 - Zombieland: Double Tap (0.5 out of 10) Why would Universal choose this zombie "comedy" from another studio for a scare zone when they already own a far superior zombie comedy in Shaun of the Dead? I know, the answer is synergy because there is a sequel out this month. Another lazy scarezone in the NYC area of the park, where it's mostly just people in regular street clothes with some blood on them. The stage "show" was extremely poor, and it's identical for all four main characters. "Tallahassee" looks and sounds so little like his movie counterpart that it was only the banjo on his back that helped identify him. "Little Rock" looked pretty spot on, at least. -Shows- - Halloween Marathon of Mayhem (6.5 out of 10) The special Halloween version of the World of Color lagoon show was pretty successful. It's lightyears ahead of the old nightime lagoon presentations. The only real issue I had with it, as was mention before, was when the audio from this show spills out into the central park area scarezone. We only watched once from the official viewing area, but the fountains were nice to look at from many other places in the park. - Academy of Villains: Altered States (-69 out of 10) I didn't like this show again. It just felt like more of the same high-school talent show level quality from last year. I know a lot of people like AOV. Cool, don't get rid of them. Just move them out of this location where they 100 percent don't work. I felt like they tried too hard to justify that this dance show belongs at a halloween event. Two Marilyn Manson singles in one show! Spooky. Also, the chorus from "Master of Puppets" being used about eight different times throughout the performance was annoying. The reason that I miss Bill and Ted so much is that it kept the event fresh and gave us a reason to come back as often as possible. The actors were incredible at changing small things from performance to performance, and when something unexpected happened like a technical hiccup, they got creative in keeping everything moving, usually with magical results. The last show of the night was always the best way to finish a HHN visit. The performers were usually pretty exhausted by this point and anything could happen. When we downgraded to the Rush of Fear tickets last year, we were afraid that it wouldn't give us enough nights and we would miss not being able to go the last several weeks. But we found that we actually were fine. The houses were the only reason to go anymore, and we had been through them enough. As I write this, HHN29 is still happening, but we have lost interest. We're off to Howl-O-Scream instead.

I've seen a touring version of the Jabbawockeez. It was a similar level of suckage.

Another truly awful show from aov. It's a high-school level talent show trying so desperately to be halloween-related that it features not one, but TWO Marilyn Manson singles! So edgy!!! Having this as the only real show continues to push the whole HHN Orlando event further into kid-friendly territory. It''s Depressing.

As far as I can tell, all of the lines have been re-recorded. Winston's "I love this town!" doesn't sound right, neither does Venkman's "We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass!"

Why in the hell were all of the dialogue audio clips re-recorded for this house? It's extremely distracting for me. The awful Casey Kasem impression right off the bat (coupled with the lack of a facade really hinder my enjoyment of this house. There are definitely some great moments in this house, and some of the scareactors are dead ringers, but I just want to know what happened with the dialogue.

Those crowd participation images were impressively awful. But I did have a funny thought. If they do bring back Bill and Ted eventually (hopefully other people were demanding them back in the park-exit survey like I did, several times.) they could make fun of that aspect of the show pretty hard. I know the same director from the last several BnT shows also did Cyberpunk, but I just had this mental image of a butt appearing on a screen and everyone in the audience making fart noises. Yeah, as I said, I definitely feel like I should have enjoyed Carnival Graveyard more than I did, but it just never clicked for me.

HHN 28 Eleven's Not-So-Scary Halloween Family Nights Really glad we bought the Rush of Fear pass this year instead of Ultimate Frequent Fear like we had the last several years. HHN28 was the weakest year since at least 23. There were no standout houses in the league of Dead Waters or Scarecrow. Everything came off as so tame and restrained. Very little gore, and without Bill and Ted, absolutely no adult humor, foul language and sexy scantily-clad performers. The whole event was very out of balance and is becoming too family friendly. The food choices sucked as well. This was my 18th year attending the event. -Houses- Slaughter Cinema (7.5 out of 10) The movie trailers on the Drive-in movie theater facade were fantastic. I wish they were available to watch on the HHN website. The cheesy style of this house was right down my alley. It was like a B-Movie original version of the Silver Screams house from several years back. I wonder why certain locations always have good houses. This tent location has been excellent for years, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hive, etc. Meanwhile, the "new" tent location on the other side of Men in Black has had the worst house of the year, every year. The dummy in the "Sorority Sacrifice" room that is wrapped in a tenticle is my favorite that I've ever seen them use in at HHN. I love the expression on it's face. Another great detail was the human heads that had been carved like Jack O' Lanterns in "Pumpkin Guts." "Schittie's Kids" was another favorite, such a great 80's pizza arcade vibe in that room. The giant puppet head in "Midnight Snacks 2: The House Swarming" is also great. 2 - Poltergiest (7 out of 10) Having the facade be the inside of the unfinished pool with the house above it was a stroke of genius. I wish they would have had a small Overlook Hotel in the distance over the hedge maze at the entrance to "The Shining" house last year. Walking through earthen tunnels with coffins popping out is nice, I wish they would have fixed all the holes in the walls that were letting light in, though. I loved the mirror scare immediately after you entered the home. Lots of great effects, giant puppets, scrims to make walls disappear and move. I do think they went overboard with fans and rain. 3 - Dead Exposure 2 (7 out of 10) HHN has never been scary to me, I mainly go to enjoy the quality of the sets and costumes. But this house did manage to make me a little uneasy. You're concentrating so hard on figuring out where you're going that it's pretty easy for the scareactors to get the jump on you. From what I recall, the original Dead Exposure house didn't have much in the way of sets, so this is a big improvement in my eyes. Not super-detailed, but I like the way they had almost "Sin City" like highlights on everything. We managed a solo run through this house one night near 2 AM and it was pretty excellent. 4 - Scary Tales 3 (7 out of 10) Good facade, although I wish they could have done something to make the Wicked Witch's safety cable a little less visible. Amazing sets and costumes, some great smells. A very solid sequel house. 5 - Stranger Things (6.5 out of 10) No facade, that's unacceptable. I like how the house starts at the very beginning of the first episode. I like the incredible sets. I like the lookalike characters. I don't like that most of the demigorgans are just standing in the open with zero attempts at scares. With them being visible for so long, it's way too obvious that its just a tall dude in a tight bodysuit with a mask that sticks off at the shoulders. Always being fully upright doesn't help either. The lab scene with the glowing portal was beautiful. 6 - Trick or Treat Scarezone: The House (6 out of 10) I feel like my enjoyment for this maze is much lower because we just saw this IP as a Scare Zone last year. It's a well put together house based on a good movie, but I couldn't help walking through and looking at all the props and costumes that we had already seen last year. Just comes off as lazy and cheap. I fear we'll have a similar situation with "Killer Clowns from Outer Space" next year. Great facade inside the parade building, but it does make the retelling of the story feel jumbled and out of order. The disappearing Sam at the top of the stairs is a great effect. That exit line for this and "Seeds of Extinction" - holy crap is that awful. My wife and I hauled ass around the park to get to the next attraction, we love walking. Exiting these houses was unbearably slow and lengthy. 7 - Carnival Graveyard (6 out of 10) This was an interesting and unique maze, I'm not sure why it never really blew me away. Maybe I just got annoyed with having to dodge the hefty amounts of water from the two guest activated triggers. The "Bungee Clown" overhead was always entertaining and there is a fantastic mirror fake-out near the end, but other than that, it was just okay. 8 - Seeds of Extinction (4 out of 10) No real facade. The walkways are too cramped to make for a convincing shopping mall. I think this is supposed to be a house in the same vein as "Scarecrow" and "Temple of the Ancients" and that's why everything is made to be claustrophobic, but it pulled me out of the experience. Plus, too much camo-netting was used and it was very obvious. The plant monsters didn't work either, not a fan. 9 - Halloween 4 (2 out of 10) *sigh* The last two Halloween mazes, based off the first two movies were excellent, especially the way they showed the hospital explosion and aftermath in the second one. But Halloween 4 is a terrible movie. There was no one out there asking for a haunt based on Halloween 4. This only happened because they already had all of the costumes and sets. It took no money or effort, and it shows. Looks cheap as hell. No facade. What is up with the lighting effect that flips between the guy in the hospital gown and Michael Myers? Is that supposed to blow our minds? "Woah, the big guy in the house based on a Halloween movie that is breaking necks is secretly Michael Myers?!" 10 - Blumhouse 2 (0 out of 10) Last year's Blumhouse maze sucked and no one wanted another one, but we got one anyways and it also sucked. A terrible haunt based on two terrible movies. Please stop it with the Purge already. Just awful. -Scarezones- Scarezones have been kind of useless for years. Ever since they became Selfie Zones, they are just annoying bottlenecks that keep us from the next attraction. This year was weirder than usual, the zones weren't evenly distributed around the park, leaving nothing but roaming chainsaw hoards in the whole back half. 1 - Killer Klowns from Outer Space (7 out of 10) Really impressive costumes and props from a super-cheesey movie shoehorned into a very small area. We loved the bubbles filled with smoke and the giant silhouette on the side of the building. Too bad they'll ruin it by giving us a house next year, based on the scarezone, based on the movie. 2 - Vamp 85: New Year's Eve (6.5 out of 10) This was a fun zone. With the 80's tunes and 80's musicians and icons as vampires, plus a decent stage show. The New York area of the park is great for scarezones. Because it's so open, it never really gets super congested like the other areas. 3 - Twisted Tradition (4 out of 10) We all love when they use the Jack O' Lanterns in the trees in this area, so that's cool. Other than that, there is very little to differentiate this zone from the Trick R' Treat zone from last year. My wife even thought they'd recycled the kids' costumes from last year's Trick R Treat zone. Some nice costumes and decorations, but mostly just an infuriatingly slow walk. 4 - Revenge of Chucky (3 out of 10) Didn't really do anything for me. The stage show was just okay. Some of the walkaround characters were pretty disturbing. 5 - The Harvest (1 out of 10) Waste of space. Weird displays for all of the IP houses with Scarecrow characters walking around? Felt like and afterthought. They can do a fun scarezone in this area if they try, "Scary Tales: Screampunk" from HHN25 was cool. -Show- - Academy of Villains: Cyberpunk (-69 out of 10) I hated pretty much everything about this show. As a big Bill and Ted fan, there was a very slim chance of me enjoying Cyberpunk, but the first Aov show was pretty good and the second was okay. The Iconic Fear Factor stage was a terrible venue for this dance show, it worked much better on the streets where people could move around if they were so inclined. The music was incredibly bad, and the T2:3D storyline was Dead on Arrival. Every segment of the show felt like it overstayed it's welcome (except for the audience participation dance off.) It's like they made a ten minute show and then had to stretch it to 45 minutes. (Or however long it was, felt like hours.) Competent dancing, though.

Anybody hear anything about passholder preview sign ups?

Very nice! I'm also working on a shirt for Bill and Ted's final year. It'll be done sometime this week and I plan on making it available online. Mine will be an illustration, like my poster for last years show, just not nearly as elaborate.

My wife and I have been working our way through the IPs in preparation for the event. We started by watching The Shining and reading the book and it's sequel, Dr. Sleep. I know it's not necessary for the maze, but I love seeing how books change being adapted for the screen. Going against the general belief, I think there are a handful of movies that are much better than the books they were based on. (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Prestige are the ones that come to mind right now.) We finally watched season 6 of American Horror Story, so we are now caught up. We watched Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness because she had never seen them. The first disc of Ash vs the Evil Dead just arrived from Netflix. I'm looking forward to starting that later today. We'll have some movies to check out for the Blumehouse maze, I'm sure. I'll skip the twelve Saw movies because I'm not a fan, and it may all be based on a movie that isn't out yet anyways. We're getting excited for the event regardless of the lack of announcements, but we are locals and purchased our Frequent Fear passes with Express about a week after they were made available. I can understand why people from far away would be frustrated.

covfefe.

Interesting. As Ted, or as other characters?

Thanks for the praise! I do plan on doing posters for a couple of the other years, but I don't think I'll ever do one this elaborate again. I made a point of including at least one character for each of the actors and dancers, including the swing actors. So this thing took me around four months to complete. I've had sketches for the 2014 and 2015 shows sitting around forever. I plan on doing another illustration right before HHN27 starts.

Thanks very much!

I'm guessing the guy getting dragged off the airplane will be featured somehow, and Beyonce's twins. I hope no one will mind, but I want to share this poster illustration I did for last year's show. I put it on last year's BnT thread, but it took me too long to finish it and no one clicks on that thread anymore.

not sure if anyone will see this in this long-dead thread. But I just finished this poster for last year's Bill and Ted show. You can see a bigger version here http://primusjim.deviantart.com/art/Bill-and-ted-2016-web-final-660412883

I've been to HHN26 nine out of the first ten nights, and feel ready to put down my thoughts up to this point. It might be fun to see how much my opinions change by the end, if at all. This is my 16th HHN, I've been every year since 2001. I think my enjoyment of this year's event was really helped by watching nearly all of the movies and episodes for the IPs involved in the couple of months leading up to opening night. We bought the Ultimate Frequent Fear Pass with Express this year. Even though it was extremely expensive, it has been great so far. Besides the opening night hiccups, we haven't had to wait more than twenty minutes in any line. I'm not going to spend much time on the scarezones. Until people's obsessions with selfies go away, scarezones are basically ruined, becoming nothing more than obstacles keeping us from the next house. I'll start with the rankings of the houses, from the ones I enjoy most, to least. Then I'll review the shows. I'm most interested in the atmosphere and the designwork involved. I don't really get scared, I'm more looking at the set, costumes and how they tell the story. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (10 out of 10) In the tent location that they seem to like to put some of their best offerings in recent years, we get a house based on the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. The facade is nice and faithful, but not as impressive as 2014's Halloween or 2015's Insidious. Obviously they can only work with the source material, but it's too bad it doesn't have much presense for me. Inside the tent all is perfection. Loving re-creations of all of the rooms in the house. The second room is the entryway we first see in the movie, with the staircase going up on the right and the sliding metal door on the back wall to the left. I love seeing the victim slide the door open, attempt to escape, only to get brained by Leatherface. Then the door is slid shut again. Perhaps my only disappointment is in the dining room. Grandpa is only a dummy. I thought the Grandpa character was the creepiest thing in the movie, I'd love to see a scareactor in that wheelchair instead of a non-moving prop. The rooms depicting the evidence photos are genius, with outstanding use of lighting and sound effects. Finally, the last room inside the tent is great, but we've only timed it right three times in our eleven trips through. The female victim comes into the room pursued by Leatherface. She briefly looks to us for help before jumping out the "window". Halloween 2 (9.5 out of 10) This house is actually better than the movie it is based on. Which is good, because the movie is very cheesy. Also, there are better Michael Myers masks in the house than in the film. I felt kind of cheated by the facade at first, but you kind of get a more traditional facade for the hospital inside the maze, so I think it's kind of clever that it starts with you walking behind the poster for the movie. I love that it picks up right where 2014's Halloween house ended, with Dr. Loomis shooting the shape in the bedroom and off the balcony. Great use of the sounds from the film. "I shot him six times! I shot him in the heart! He's not human!" Good representations of most of the kills from the movie, including the most ludicrous of all, when Mr. Myers stabs a nurse in the back with a scalpel and proceeds to lift her off the ground using only the tiny blade in the her back. What really shines about this house is the end. It may be my favorite ending to any haunted house I've ever done. First you have a well executed mirror fake out next to where the doctor is bleeding out on the gurney. Then you head into the room with the oxygen tanks where sharpshooter Laurie Strode neatly shoots the Shape in each of his masks' eyeholes. When my wife and I were rewatching this movie, this was the one thing I most hoped to see. "Please let there be a Michael Myers with blood running out of his eyeholes swinging his knife blindly all around. So ridiculous!" Amazingly, there is! It makes my night every time. Then we move on to some absolutely gorgeously designed and executed rooms representing the explosion and it's aftermath, including a burned Mikey Myers. Outstanding. American Horror Story (9.5 out of 10) No real facade for this house, but projecting the actual opening credits for the seasons as you enter that section of the maze works extremely well. It's interesting to me that this house is basically the opposite of what they have done with all the Walking Dead houses, it's basically just your favorite characters from the series. So, obviously everyone's enjoyment level will probably depend on familiarity with the source material. The Murder House portion looks great, but it feels to me like they had to stretch to find characters to fill this section, like Piggy Man who was only briefly featured in one episode. I was very surprised to see that Tate's room was basically the school massacre. It was done in such a way that it shouldn't offend anyone, but still... ballsy. I love the way they used both versions of the housekeeper Moira. The Freak Show section is incredible. Walking up between the trailers with the sideshow posters all around could not have been done better. The scareactors playing the various freaks are outstanding. Great use of lines from the show for Ethel and Mordrake. Then the very creepy Twisty the Clown. The one with his mouth mask half off is perfection. Twisty's murder bus has a Jack hood that was put over a victim's head during HHN 25's icon show. The room representing the Museum of Morbid Curiosities is a nice touch, especially since they added Ma Petite. I keep hoping to see Jimmy's hands in there before the end. Dandy's room and appearance are great, love the audio clip. Hotel. Excellent use of music from this season for the area with the Countess in the elevator, and the amazing scene of Liz Taylor and Iris coming in guns blazing. The costumes and casting results in some eerily impressive recreations of the characters from the show. Ghost Town (8.5 out of 10) Absolutely some of the most beautiful set design the creative team has ever done, just staggeringly good. I've heard that there is a corpse somewhere in the house for each of the ghosts, very cool. All of the scareactors look great. The "outside" portion with all the storefronts, traincars and watertower... just wow. The only reason this didn't score higher for me is that it doesn't really have an ending, and the mirror gag trying to create a feeling of being over a large drop wasn't all that effective this time around. The Exorcist (8 out of 10) I thought it was pretty brave, choosing to attempt to turn this iconic movie into a haunted house. The material doesn't seem ideally suited for this kind of representation, so I was very curious as to how they would do it. I hadn't watched this film in a couple of decades, i just remember that it scared me as a kid. It didn't effect me much this time around, but I was a bit nervous as it started. I felt the same way as we approached that gorgeous facade. I think it's the best facade of the year, it's just so recognizable. The first real room of the house uses some fantastic effects to integrate the archaeological dig in Iraq into the house in Georgetown. The all-black hallways after that are supposed to show what Regan is experiencing while her body is possessed, I'm guessing. I did like the subliminal and scareactor appearances of Mr. Howdy. The biggest challenge in translating this property from a movie to a haunt is obviously that 90 percent of the action takes place in one bedroom. So that basically means you walk from Regan's bedroom into Regan's bedroom, then onto Regan's bedroom, and so on with an occasional hallway to break things up. Regan herself is sometimes played by very enthusiastic scareactors and sometimes by extremely accurate props. The pea-soup puke section is appropriately nasty. The creative team also found a interesting way to end the house by showing Pazuzu possessing Father Karras, his leap through the window and onto the stairs. This is a house unlike any other I've experienced. Well done. Tomb of the Ancients (7.5 out of 10) I've seen a lot of praise going around for this house, and there is quite a lot that I like about it. Such as the extremely loud slamming doors in the first hallway, the costumes, the sliding floors (before they were taken out) the glowing hieroglyphics room, the claustrophobic passageways, and the Croco-lion creature. A lot of people prefer this maze to Ghost Town because it has more scares. Since that's not a factor for me, I'd take the old west themed house any day of the week. Here's the stuff that keep this house from scoring higher for me: Too much stuff hanging from the ceiling. The facade is god-awful. Completely half-assed. Look at the spray paint for the roots all over the stones of the temple entrance. Too much stuff hanging from the ceiling. The body just inside the first room is the cheapest, most unconvincing prop corpse I've ever seen, and that includes many no-budget home haunts. Maybe this a prop from the first ever HHN and they try to use it somewhere each year, but if so it needs to be better hidden and further from the conga line. Too much stuff hanging from the ceiling. The sacrificial alter effect with the priestess pulling out a victim's innards is very poorly executed. You can clearly see the shirt sag between the scareactor's shoulders and the fake torso, it bugs the hell out of me. Lastly, too much stuff hanging from the ceiling. Krampus (7.5 out of 10) I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I hoped I would but I thought the creature and set designs were top notch. The maze has beautiful sets galore, but doesn't take advantage of enough of the creatures. The facade is huge, but I think it's placed too close to where you enter the building to be fully appreciated. I love the smells, the snow, the xmas decorated house interiors and the fact that you go into a couple of different homes. I don't like fact that most of the scares are handled by Krampus' elves. The kitchen scene with the gingerbread men and the attic with the Teddy Bear and Jack in the Box are outstanding, the rest just needs more of that variety. I like the Krampus fake out using his cloak and an Elf, and I would be cool with not really coming face to face with him until the end if it had more impact. The Krampus' design is insanely creepy, but the only time you get a good look at him, he's tucked into a corner and the only thing I've seen him do is move his left hand a small amount. Missed opportunity. The Walking Dead (7 out of 10) I think everyone is tired of The Walking Dead being at HHN. This house is much better than the one from year 25, but not as good as 24. It's kind of neat going through sets from all of the seasons, but I keep thinking if they are going to keep forcing this house into the event, we need actors representing the beloved characters. I think seeing Rick, Daryl and Michonne taking out walkers could be great. But, as with the last few years, I'll hope this is the last year for this franchise at the event. Lunatics Playground 3D (6 out of 10) Yeah, this house is not great. Chance deserved something better. But, I think we get spoiled going to HHN each year, this isn't an awful maze. It's just clearly the least good out of this years lineup. For probably the first eleven or so years of HHN that I attended, creative seemed to spend tons of money on two or three houses, making them top-notch. Then two of three houses got enough budget to make them decent. Finally there would be one or two houses they seemed to have forgotten to save any money for, and they were crap. The example I alway think of for this is 2006s People Under the Stairs: Under Construction. That was an entirely awful house in every way, i would rate it a 0 out of 10. Lunatics Playground is nowhere near that bad. The 3D house gimmick is tired. If we are going to continue having a 3D house each year, they really need some new ideas. I had hoped that they would run with the "theater of the mind" idea in the promotions versus Chance's dull reality locked up in Shadybrook. You could enter a monochrome, grey cell with chance in a straight-jacket, then the blacklights come on to reveal crazy vibrant 3D colors or something. I don't know, it just feels rushed. I appreciate that it has a queue video tying into the events of last year's Icon stage show. I also love the drawing of Chance on the newspaper facade. it reminds me of comic book artist Jason Pearson's style. Now onto the shows: Bill and Ted's Excellent Halloween Adventure (9 out of 10) This makes three years in a row of really enjoying the Bill and Ted show. Some years don't connect with me at all, and I actively hated it in 2012, but it's been on a roll recently. I love the villain this year and how they structured the show so it doesn't feel quite as random as it could. I was most impressed with how they handled Hillary and Trump. They could have easily focused on them too much, but I think they found a good balance and didn't go too easy or hard on either. The actors and dancers are all doing a great job and seeing how the show evolves, how they try to mess each other up and how they recover from the odd technical problem, or wardrobe malfunction has been the most fun we've had at HHN this year. It gets better each time you see it, and we have seen it many times. Academy Of Villains (4 out of 10) I'm not a fan of this show. I wish we would have had a great icon stage show at this location again. The music choices are just so generic and uninspired. The shadow portion was pretty neat, and the dancing was alright but I don't feel like this should be at HHN. My wife and I made it through a whole show on one of our first nights, but haven't bothered with it since. ... and that's all I have to say about that. I can't believe how long it took me to put this review together. Congrats to you if you read this whole thing. Thanks. I wrap this up as I am confined to my house waiting for Hurricane Matthew to arrive. I should be recovering from another night at HHN and preparing to go again tomorrow. Screw you, Matthew! Hopefully, everything will be ready to go Saturday night.

Yes, it definitely gets better with repeated viewings. If you didn't think any of the jokes were funny, I guess it's not for you. I think there are several good jokes in the show, and they came up with a clever mechanism for having all these random characters show up. Some years they don't bother with any explanation at all.

Best drunk interaction for me so far was in the Walking Dead. The woman right behind me screaming what every room was: "OH! THIS IS THE SEWERS!!!! WE'RE IN THE SEWERS NOW!! IT'S THE SEWERS FROM THE SHOW!!!!! IT'S DALE'S RV!!! ALEXANDRIA!!!!" etc. Awesome.

Wow, I couldn't possibly disagree with everyone more. Academy of Villains is terrible and Bill and Ted is alot of fun. I just don't get a Halloween theme from a just a dance show with the most generic song choices possible. The shadow portion was kind of neat, but the rest was not. I especially hated the part where it was like, "Hey check out this guy! He can do backflips while holding a skateboard for some reason! Also, he can play a rudimentary hard rock drumbeat for twelve seconds! And he can do this..." No thanks. The fun in the Bill and Ted show is seeing what the actors you've been watching for years get to do this year. It's kind of like American Horror Story in that respect. Yes, it is sometimes disappointing when they don't get a role that really showcases their talent. "Do you want to eat a snow cone?" brought the house down every show in 2014, this year that actress only gets to do Chewbacca Mom and Melissa McCarthy. But she still finds a way to make those short scenes with those characters as awesome as possible. This years standouts have been Rylo and Hillary so far I think this years show does have about the same amount of plot as the last 15 years of the show I have seen. It's so strange people's tendency to think something used to be amazing but now it's just crap. There have been some real awful years of this show, but I don't think this is one of them. The avatar joke has to keep happening at least until the land opens. That's the whole point. "If anyone still gives a shit!"

Very busy opening night, and every single person seemed to have express or GAC. Seriously, at every house we had to wait to have our express checked because at least one group was having their return time written down on their GAC. All of the houses are at least pretty good with no awful houses. And there are several great houses, so we are happy. Here's our first impressions: 1 - American Horror Story 2 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 - Halloween 2 4 - Ghost Town 5 - Exorcist 6 - Walking Dead 5 7 - Krampus 8 - Temple of the Ancients 9 - Lunatics in 3D Bill and Ted was good, although I don't think my favorite dancer is there this year.

Thank you, sir!

Didn't somebody say we were supposed to be able to RSVP for the annual passholder previews on September 6th? I can't find anything about it. We rewatched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre a couple of days ago, I hope the grandpa make a few appearances, he was by far the creepiest thing in the movie. We're halfway through season 4 of American Horror Story. Lots of good material for the maze.

I'd say the ghosts in Insidious looked close to normal people with spooky lighting. The ghosts in Murder House were entirely indistinguishable from living people to the Harmon family. It was just Zachary Quinto waking around talking about Halloween decorations. I guess we could see the Doctor working on his Frankenstein baby, and maybe the burned guy. I have my fingers crossed for young version of the maid.

Anybody else watching / rewatching all the movies and shows related to this year's event? We've been doing this the last couple of weeks so we can hopefully appreciate the details that they put in each of the houses. Krampus - It wasn't as amazing as I was hoping it would be, but the creature and set design were incredible. So it has the potential to be a great house. I'm hoping for ice-covered suburban living rooms with split-open fire places. Halloween 2 - I forgot how incredibly cheesy this movie was. It should still be possible for it to make a good house. I hope we get a Michael Myers who has been perfectly shot through each eye hole of his mask blindly swinging a scalpel around near the end. The Walking Dead - We've already seen all the episodes, and like everyone else, are struggling to work up any interest in yet another house. It'd be nice if they found a way to change this up enough to make it interesting, but I'm not hopeful. American Horror Story - We've watched the first three seasons so far. (Yes, I know only the first of those will be featured in this year's house. I'm way too anal to watch the seasons out of order) The show is fun, but I'm having a hard time seeing how it will translate to a maze. It seems like a lot of the creepy stuff, at least so far, isn't really visual. Most of the ghosts in the murder house just look like regular people. I hope the stuff from the first season isn't just Rubberman jumping out at you several times. Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Watching this tonight. The Exorcist - Soon. Bill and Ted - No need to watch the movies for the hundredth time, but we may try to watch more of the stuff that they make fun of this year since there are always a couple of references that we don't get.