itsabee

Did it last night, but I feel like I’ve definitely noticed it in earlier runs as well: there’s a voice over the speakers in the waterfall room talking about the implosion. I think it’s “implosion imminent,” or something like that.

Typing on mobile, so I can’t format much, I’m sorry! So the only true GATs are the buttons in Klowns (which my tour guide explained will be pressed by the ops if they see that you didn’t press them). Some of the ropes in Hunchback in Monsters are in fact interactive. Look for the ones that have fabric wrapped around them (two on your left right across from Quasi and then one on the right just before Creature). They don’t cause any kind of effect, but they are on elastic cords to make it feel like you can actively ring the bells. You can pull them down pretty far! There are no references anywhere to Jack, which my guide was confused about, but there is an easter egg in Graveyard Games. No, a literal easter egg; check out the top left area of the shelves of urns and see if you see something oval-shaped and sparkly... Also, there’s a King Kong mini-grave up above you on the right just before you enter the candle hallway. The coffins that you may see (other than the moving one, of course) look pretty genuine ... because they are. When a coffin is used for a funeral but is not to be buried with the person, it’s essentially rendered unusable for the funeral home. It would obviously be a little weird and maybe considered disrespectful to keep putting different corpses in the same box for a viewing. So, Universal takes advantage of this by buying those genuine used coffins straight from the funeral parlors. Fun, FUN fact: any time you see an open casket, it was constructed by the Universal team, but all closed caskets did previously contain a real human body at one point in time! The statue observation from Monsters is correct and was an intentional inclusion! My guide explained that they really wanted to take the monsters in an angry, fierce direction (an obvious choice for a horror event), but still wanted to pay tribute to the original designs. The facade includes those old designs while the interior contains the new ones. The Creature, though, was essentially perfect, so they didn’t really change much about Gillman’s look. Speaking of Gillman, take a look through one of the holes in the cave wall as you’re passing the second Gillman. Directly across across from the first boohole of the third scareactor is an alligator. He was used in Dead Waters in the swamp of the facade, and he was apparently loved dearly. His name is Francis! The Mummy room contains many unused props from the Mummy ride, mostly the queue. It’s very hard to see in the dark, especially when the scareactor is inside of it, but the first Mummy’s boohole has a sarcophagus in the back that was used in the “prop collection”-esque display from the ride’s queue before it was taken out for unknown reasons. They just moved it over and put it in the house!

It’s a bee was intentional but also my name! I like bees and I’m Abby !

Hell yeah ! What nights? Bee ! I like it ! I’m so glad that you guys had those minimal waits; Sunday was so good that I felt comfortable and encouraged to do Ghostbusters twice back-to-back because of those small crowds. What was your favorite house?

I’ll update this post as I go tonight! I’ll format it like this: house in italics, time of day in bold, and posted/actual wait time comparison in regular letters. UNIVERSAL CLASSIC MONSTERS: -6:06-6:10..........posted 20, actual 4 (walk on) DEPTHS OF FEAR -6:29-6:31..........posted 5, actual 2 (walk on, got stuck inside and got some cool pics of the dog everyone hates as well as a neat depth effect i hadn’t noticed before, will post later) -6:39-6:40.........posted 15, actual 1 (walk on, checked again and stilt role is replaced with standard infected miner with the dark hallway behind her) HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES -7:26-7:55.........posted 40, actual 29

Just so you guys know, it’s raining !!! Crowds might be light !

Honestly, this isn’t really helpful, but I found the same problem with Zombieland. Like, is it that hard to rip the dialogue straight from the source? Granted, I don’t know anything about the actors’ rights and whether or not they would have to sign off on their voices being used, but jesus, are some of these impressions off. Tallahassee doesn’t even have a similar dialect to Woody Harrelson. Yikes. Sorry to go off, but that’s what’s bothering me. Speaking of signing off, I know that Ghostbusters has apparently been extremely difficult to work with as an IP (last-minute house modifications, refusal to put the logo on the house shirt because of the blood on it, etc), so maybe that’s why it feels like that with the voice acting. Maybe the studio literally just wanted to keep the original content as far away from this house as they could by rerecording the lines. Can you, or someone who’s also seen Ghostbusters, compare the rest of the dialogue from the Busters, Gozer, etc to the house’s?

I know the thread may be a little dead by now, but I thought this was interesting!! I was initially just going to show you guys what the phone case looks like, but check out allllll of those logos inside. Neat?

I lost my marbles dancing to it because it was the first song I heard ever walking into the zone.

It just depends on how many stilt-approved reserves there are. Stilt roles have specific stilt auditions, and basically anyone that CAN be on stilts already IS because of that. Also, like I said, I don’t know if they just decided the role is way too high maintenance (pants issues, mask issues, stilt danger, etc) and so the character itself will be taken out of the house. It’s kind of late for a new character to be created to fill that hole, I think.

Probably...? I think there were a few scareactors doing that too, but yes, I did mention some!! Right now, my only sources are a little girl ghost in Graveyard Games, the first Phantom in the PotO section of UCM, and a former Ringleader in Ghostbusters. Jake hasn’t been cast yet because no one’s really called out, as they typically don’t in the first week, but if he does go somewhere I’ll definitely fill you in. Really, the only knowledge I can throw out there is weird, specific, yet basically worthless information about the Ringleader. There was a whole costume fiasco on opening night because the big stilt pants for that character require a certain type of suspenders, which went missing. The costume became modified during that night to include elastic sewn into the waistband. Again, though, he was taken out of the role on Sunday, so I’m not sure if he’s just out or the character itself is going to be gone. Look out for the stilt scare/possibly an empty space at the end of the hallway after Winston has his dialogue.

Same! If anyone hears anything, please let us know! I can go ahead and say, though, that one very fun fact is that the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is essentially a giant carved block of the kind of styrofoam that would come in a package. It’s mounted on a custom-built “stage”-style platform to hold it in place so that everything else can be projected onto it. Info gained from scareactor who backed up to it in his area and frequently leaned on it. From the same scareactor, through his experiences with stilts, I learned that apparently the creatures in Depths of Fear have pretty awful eyesight because of there being practically no visibility points in the headpiece. I guess it was an oversight. It makes the stilt performer in that house just that much more impressive, given that he’s on a slant AND blind, but I can’t help but worry for him. On that note, I have a question. So as I never shut up about, my boyfriend was a reserve last year and is one again this year. Because he was given a rundown of each house/his role within that house by the casting and show directors, he was able to provide a lot of nifty information last year. So, mods: is it okay to eventually start some kind of lore thread that contains the information people can get from UtH tours or backstage info from team members themselves? Or should the details go in their respective threads?

Yeah, the facades all look FANTASTIC this year!! Man, I really want to to off about just how cool Depths’ facade is, but I think you’d appreciate seeing it for yourself. Let’s just say it’s unconventional. But yeah, the clown from HoTC is actually just outside the house. I wasn’t sure if it was okay to take a picture or not, but we were crawling along because everyone was scared of Spaulding on the inside, so I got a quick pic. He’s just in the doorway and he’s a great introduction to the house.

Hi!! So I don't know if this is a thing, but I started this little topic because I was interested in seeing different pictures that people have taken at the event so far! I've heard a feel people ask about facades, so this might also be a good place to share what the event really looks like to the people that haven't been yet. Please feel free to add on your own, and if this is a topic that doesn't match the category, also feel free to move it, mods !

Oh my god, I understand! So the light sort of moves in waves, right? So certain sections are darkened while others are lit up? The lights were CONSTANTLY on past the point where you enter the spaceship I think?? I haven't seen the movie, but the big clown face with the big red nose, NOT Klownzilla. I think it may have been because the cast change just happened; perhaps they turn the lights on so that it's easier for the scareactors to head to their locations? Anyway, with all of the bright overhead lights, all of the neon just hurts. I think that with the right effects going off this could have come off a lot better. Have to do it again. Also, Klownzilla was stationary for me. That movement is kind of badass when it does work. Edit: Watching a vlog, and the Ordinary Adventures couple experienced what I saw at 3:28.

Stranger Things is where Poltergeist was last year while Ghostbusters is the one in front of the stage, so the waiting area should be the same regardless. In my personal experience on the first two nights, it doesn’t save much time to do the big houses first. Ghostbusters took 40 minutes even with being the first one through the gate on my turnstile because I was up at the front. Speed-walked there and everything, but still. I don’t know how it’s gonna be with Stay and Scream, but you could always try. The waits generally don’t improve over the night for those big ones, whereas it feels like the smaller houses only worsen. All in all, the ones I’ve waited a considerable amount of time for would have been 7:26-8:02 for Universal Classic Monsters, 8:20ish-8:45 for Graveyard Games, 8:50-9:45 for Nightengales, and obviously ST and Busters get some lines. I know that at least the beginning of the night, all of the back houses should be walk-ons; House of 1000 Corpses followed immediately by Depths of Fear had almost no wait for us on opening night, and were it not for it being opened a little later last night, Nightengales would have been good at 6:30. As we left Nightengales, we could see that Depths was still a walk-on. Anyway, back-of-the-park strategy is always handy, but if you want to do one of those bigger houses more than once (I don’t know about ST, but Ghostbusters has some sights), sure, go ahead and knock it out with S&S. I wouldn’t advise doing both of the big ones one after the other unless the goal is to get them out of the way. If the goal is to save time, the problem is that everyone else has the same idea and once they’re done with those big houses, they’re going to head to the smaller ones and the lines will increase. I hope you guys have so much fun at HHN and that the lines won’t be too harsh! If you run into problems and need recommendations or directions, I’ll be there Saturday and I’m more than willing to help out. Have a great time and do remember to plan a first house, but otherwise, I find it easier and more fun to decide in the moment. Cheers!

Hi friends!! Can anyone do me a favor and keep an eye out for the Ringleader ghost in Ghostbusters? He’s the top-hatted, long-pants-wearing stilt man in the hallway after you see Winston. My roommate (unintentionally) ruined two of the masks for the Ringleader because of a nosebleed and was taken off of the role; I don’t know if the character itself is getting cut because of an entire hard-cast scareactor being gone or if a reserve may get hard-cast to fill in the spot. If you saw him tonight or see him any time soon, please drop in with an update! Thank you!!

You know what? That’s valid. I’m not the RZ audience and I accept that, and people having fun is harmless and good.

See, I didn’t even know Klownzilla was supposed to move. It was static on opening night, at least around 11:00 it was. But yeah, typically, if my boyfriend isn’t cast as a reserve that night, he’ll come back into the park and do houses with me. He likes making scares, but not being scared - he clings onto my shoulders the whole time. I’m a 5’4, 110-lb girl who isn’t afraid with a taller, nervous boy who very much is, so we’re usually a unit target. He wasn’t with me last night, though, so I was left alone for the most part. I did end up getting way more scares last night than opening, though, so that was cool!!

I only have one word for this house: stink. It didn’t improve immersion because it kind of just smelled like dirt. That last room with the Nightingales finally hits you with that good HHN fog smell, though, and I actually said that out loud in the house.

The corpses with the bright phone screens also gave me that strangely funny-comfortable vibe, I don’t know why. Probably just because the queue video teens (and the first scareactor, god) were genuinely unlikable. The creep factor was cool too, especially with some of those effects. That hallway where the central ghost (Glowing Maiden? It’s on the Facebook page in the video but I don’t remember) talks about the “children” that disrespected the tombs and proceeds to blow out all of the candles one by one...oh wow.

On opening night, my boyfriend took pictures for me in front of the Vanity Ball banner on the stage. A nurse noticed, approached me, and struck a few different poses with me before looking me in the eyes and saying, “You don’t need surgery. You’re perfect,” and marching off. On the other hand, not sure how to interpret it, but the doctor at Metamorph was played by a dude my guy and I know by name, so we hung around just for a second. He looked at me, motioned up and down my body to which I did the same, and shook his head and motioned for me to get moving. Not worth his time because I’m not one of the scary supermodel creations or not worth his time because I don’t need to be???

To me, RBHD is the only zone I’ve walked straight through without stopping, and I’ve only done that once. I’ve even stopped around Anar-cade. What do you think is fun here? (also: Vanity Ball’s shows are really fun if you haven’t seen them!! It may not be “scary,” but a nurse jumpscared me so bad that I literally jumped; my feet left the ground.)

Also, it’s so interesting just how divided we all are about the houses this year. Blood Pit might have been good, but I wouldn’t know; I don’t think I’m a scareactor’s perfect target anymore, especially because a guy I met that was part of a group last night was a stereotypical dudebro, so I missed a lot of scares. The smell of death or whatever it was that they were trying to present just stunk and made the house feel gross enough to keep my mind off of the setting. I’ll give Klowns another shot, just to see what happens. I do remember someone pointing out that the plywood is what makes everything so loud, so I guess I can think about that. Could you give me a little layout of the rooms so I’d know what to look for? Someone mentioned key props and to be honest I don’t remember them inside the ship. I’m just hoping that I had a bad run last time and that KKfOS isn’t the sesnsory nightmare I experienced on opening night.

Yes, that was me!! Aw !!! Tonight it’s blue to match my HHN 28 shirt ! Also I never realized there were GATs or a problem with the song, probably because I was so ready to leave, but that would have been interesting. I think I might have just gone in at the completely wrong time and had the worst set of coincidences. It feels like a fever dream.