Jumboshrmp

I am reading the Live Q@A with Mike Aiello that is going on right now on the Official HHN Facebook page and saw this interesting question was answered.

I enjoyed reading your review. It was in the form of a story and I enjoy when it's done like that. However, next time I'd recommend you break up the review into paragraphs, or at least hit the enter button after every few sentences. I found it very hard to read the giant wall of text without losing my spot.

I looked hard to find the other thread that discusses this, but I couldn't find the one I thought already existed. Here is one that I posted in already, so maybe this is it and I just thought it was longer http://www.horrornightnightmares.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1315

I really wish they put curtains behind or around the back and sides of the facade like they had behind dracula last year. I could see the strobes from the finale before even walking into the house. Universal should put some sort of ceiling in the houses too. Every time I look up I see the roof of a soundstage, tent, or whatever building it's in. The hall with the jail cells is a really great scene, and while I'm usually a pretty hard scare, one guy to my right made me jump simply by whispering something to me.

Is he the really tall one that is holding some sort of weapon...possibly a hook? When I was lucky enough to walk through this house with nobody ahead of me, I was the direct target of this scare. He came from my right and thrust this sharp looking weapon at my face, stopping inches from me. Amazing scare.

I really like the atmosphere of this house, it truly feels like you are walking through a burning building. The fire was a huge letdown for me though. It would have been awesome and I would be talking very excitedly about it right now if they didn't hype it up ahead of time as being the first time a fire effect was used inside a house. If it had been kept as a surprise then I probably would love it. I didn't see Cindy at all but I probably wasn't looking hard enough or saw her and didn't realize. I only went through once, and it was cast A. I plan on going through at least 3 more times on closing weekend.

I didn't expect much of this house but it ended up being a really good time. I went through twice so far and got Scott's cast (Invader Butters) both times. Hilarious. I noticed a smell about halfway through that smelled kind of like some sort of meat. Was that what it was supposed to be? I would understand zombies smelling weird, since they are all dead, but I only noticed the smell in one particular room of the house, is there any significance to this?

I'm very glad to hear that they have added characters wearing all black to this zone to do some more aggressive scares, because I believe it is exactly what it needed. I haven't been through since opening weekend, and I loved the zone itself, but I didn't feel like it was being used to it's full potential before.

Good idea, it would fit well with a Halloween Event. Especially some of their instrumental songs. This is my favorite picture of Saws n Steam (the zone itself). It really captures the creepiness of Sting Alley with all that fog and those red lights. I'm 99% sure that this photo was taken by JWFearman's wife. I have walked right into other guests when going through that fog. Several times I look forward to spending a lot of time in this zone on closing weekend. You can't go wrong with chainsaws, especially when you have the people that this zone has in control of them.

This scarezones was one of my least favorite scarezones this year, simply based off of my own experiences in it. However, the theming and atmosphere of it was incredible. I love walking through a spooky area, and this one was just that. I didn't get many scares, and the actors didn't really seem to be trying to get anyone's attention, but it had a lot of potential. I did get one good jump out of this zone, and that was from the pilgrim on the side closer to Mel's. On my first time through I didn't realize that they were able to move away from the pole, and one leaned forward and yelled at me. I was expecting them to only be used for distraction. The Shrek Alley scarezones just seem to suffer a bit from their location. It's one area that you never really have to walk through. The only way you ever really end up there is if you intentionally want to walk through the scarezone.

There is a lot I have to say that has already been said by others, so I will skip over those points. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and your opinions are very different from mine, but I understand that different people go to the event for different reasons and expect different things. No year will ever leave everyone satisfied. I encourage you to keep writing reviews of HHN. Just because your opinion doesn't agree with mine doesn't mean I am not interested in reading it. However, keep in mind that you will sound dumb if you make a criticism on something, and then admit to not remembering anything about it. Here are a few comments I have on things that have been said. I agree with you on this. This is the same way I felt about Silver Screams from 2009. Hallow'd Past was very memorable to me because there was a huge contrast in set design from scene to scene, like you said. Even after going through only a few times, I knew the order of all the rooms. Sadly, I mostly agree with you on this too. I had very high expectations for Hallow'd Past. I still think it was a great house, but it wasn't the amazing groundbreaking house I was expecting it to be. Aside from the warehouse sections, very few scenes from the past are used. Treaks and Foons? A weird choice, and bad show if one of the casts doesn't even have an actor in that room. Also, I love being disoriented in houses, so I love the tunnel and the strobes, but I do see what you are saying. While walking through the Alice room I was trying to focus my eyes on what the characters in the scenes were doing and I just couldn't do it. Also, the tunnel is pretty lame compared to last year. A bunch of faces spinning around me? That was kind of silly, even though I'll always love that effect. The games drive me crazy, but even if they were to leave them there they REALLY need to turn the lights down. The entire rest of the park has modified lighting to make the park feel completely different during HHN. And at the front of the park they have huge floodlights illuminating the games area. The longer the houses are, the happier I'll be, but I don't seem to think any of the houses were too short this year except for Hallow'd Past. And it's odd that Hallow'd Past is the one that feels shortest, since all of the speculation led us to believe that it would be one of the longest houses ever at HHN. This made my day. When I read that line I burst out laughing!

I have a few comments to make about this review, but this one for now: I 100% agree with this. Universal is better than that. Carnival games really annoy me and I felt like I was in some cheesy state fair or a Six Flags park. They should get rid of the carnival games in Lost Continent and Toon Lagoon too. Amity is the only place where I feel that they fit in.

You know you want to: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cats-N-Combs/152154844819919 This is seriously my favorite house, ever. I walked out every single time going on about how consistant the scares were. I'm going on a Pecker marathon closing weekend.

Based on Opening Weekend, here are my rankings. A lot of these are very close and I had to think about it for a while before I decided Houses: 1) Catacombs 2) Hades 3) Havoc 4) Hallow'd Past 5) Legendary Truth 6) Zombiegeddon 7) Orfanage 8) Psychoscareapy Scarezones: 1) Saws n' Steam 2) 20 Years of Fear 3) Fear Revealed 4) Zombie Gras 5) Esqueleto Muerte 6) The Coven

They must have been doing this all night, it was EVERYWHERE. I like how if you look at this zone from across the lagoon it looks like a circus tent. I honestly thought that this zone was really lame at first, but now I love it, because where else can you be surrounded by dancing zombies?

Jumboshrmp October 28, 29, 30, 31 Instead of just going Halloween I decided to go 4 days on closing weekend

I originally liked the idea of pulsing but I think it's going too far now. I do the nightly HHN wait time updates on my phone and every house is a 30 or 45 minute wait on a thursday early in the event. Not only that....but Hallow'd Past said 60 MINUTES. I'm afraid to find out how much they are pulsing those lines if they got Hallow'd past up to a 60 minute wait...

If you aren't going to be doing Stay and Scream, I think that your plan actually is the best. Same plan as what I said above except Hallow'd Past, Catacombs, and Havoc are moved to the end, which makes more sense. Those three should be always done in a row, in that order, and it makes sense to do them last since they have the shortest lines.

Awesome! I won't be there but I know that once you come back we'll know a lot more of the tracks that were used this year!

I'd reccommend doing the scream early option, which is $15 extra. Then you can do the stay and scream area and start doing houses by 6:00 pm. If you do this, start at hallow'd past, which will exit to catacombs. After catacombs, you will end up right next to havoc, so do that. Then, head over to Orfanage, because that gets a long line and it stays long for the rest of the night. Then, go to Zombiegeddon, because thats another one that fills up fast. If you did it right, you will have done three houses before 6:30, and will have done everything except for soundstages shortly after that. Then, based on the wait times, use your best judgement and hit the remains three SS houses. This really is the best way to get everything done. If you forget what order to do the houses in, look at the order they are listed on the map. It's that simple. If you go on a busier night, you may have to make a few changes to this plan. If you can't finish Hallow'd Past, Catacombs, and Havoc before shortly after 6:30, go over to Orfanage, otherwise you'll never get a chance to do it without waiting over an hour. Then do Zombiegeddon before finishing the tent houses. The uneducated masses all head for the soundstage houses first, so don't do them until you've finished everything else. By the time you've finished all the other houses, the soundstage lines will have let up a bit, and the lines for everything you've already done will get longer.

That's a very good point. Didn't we all speculate that this would be one of the longest houses ever? It seems actually kind of short, and the ending very anticlimactic.

Honestly, I would but a ZAP T Shirt AND a Spirit Seekers one. Anything that most people wouldn't get and is an HHN reference would be awesome, IMO

Go to your profile, click Edit Profile, find the signature options, and paste this code in there exactly as it is. [img=http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7055/spookbabe.png]

Well guess what. Look what we have here :)