Dr. Phibes

Well, that would be terrifying.

I'm going to put this house at the top of my list, as far as scares are concerned, at least. The way the trenches are laid out makes it very difficult to predict where actors are going to come from. As for the actors themselves (or actresses, actually, because every damn banshee I saw except for one was wearing a nurse costume), I saw a lot of energy. Almost too much energy, actually. More than once, an actress would be crouched close to the floor and would lunge up at me from the side at about mid-section level, and would come much closer to me than can possibly be safe. The atmosphere of general chaos in the house really works in it's favor, and I love some of the set pieces I saw (like the soldier standing behind a barricade who gets torn in half from behind. The blood spay effect really hit home.) Also, to whoever was manning the compressed-air machine gun at about 6:45-7:15 on Friday night, nice shot! You hit me right in the heart.

When I first did Forsaken I thought this was one of the weaker houses. However, my experience did improve significantly between my run Friday night and my Sunday Night run. It's still not one f my favorites, but since it was later in evening on my second run, I was able to see the sets in greater detail, which helped a bit. I'm still not a fan of the costumes, but they actors seemed to be putting up a better effort on Sunday than on Friday. On the subject of roofs, I'd just like to say that I'd really never given the subject much thought until I saw about two pages devoted to discussing them. Probably because when I go through a house I tend to look at anything but the ceiling. Fun Fact: Just before I went in last night, I saw a woman and her friend run back out the entrance. One of them seemed to be having a panic attack.

You'd think they'd have bolted that down better. I've only done the Thing once so far, so I don't remember a great deal about it. I remember wishing there was a greater variety in victims (Someone else mentioned the high number of "trunk-faced things", which I'd agree was excessive). The actress who played what I assume is the lead character from the movie was very good. She looked genuinely terrified, and I actually did see her shooting at the Thing across the Hall. The guy on the harness, who jumps around above the scenery that some people mentioned was missing last night didn't really do anything for me when I saw him. He was moving too slowly and was to far away from me to be threatening.

I'm glad they didn't. After all, it's Halloween Horror Nights, so anything Halloween based would have been redundant. This house was a surprise for me. When I read the description, I expected it to be a Christmas themed house, just because when someone mentions "holidays" in that context, the Christmas season is usually what jumps to mind. Then I got there, and it ended up being a little bit of everything, and it was probably one of the most fun houses I can remember. I especially liked the video segments they have playing in the que. Speaking of which, if those ever find their way onto internet, would someone be a lamb and let me know where to find them?

I'd say this is probably the coolest house I've seen since Dead Exposure. I really wish I could say more about it, but then, I had a hard time telling what the Hell I was looking at most of the time. Given how disoriented I was, though, I did get a satisfying number of scares. Hopefully I'll be able to write a full review after a few more runs.

Well, I've already seen one of my (male) friends in short shorts and a bikini, so it's not like you'd be sparing me anything.

There's one actor in particular who probably got me more times than any other: the chainsaw guy from Hallowed past. Based on his costume, I think he's supposed to be one of Carnage's minions from 2002. I went through that house four times, and he got me three out of those four. I think the worst part is I know where he's going to be, and I can listen ahead in line for his chainsaw sound to gauge approximately when he's going to appear. But that doesn't make any difference. I know when and where he will appear and he still gets me almost every time.

Revised Total Nights: 2 Houses Hades: The Gates of Ruin - 2 Horror Nights: The Hallowed Past - 4 The Orphanage: Ashes to Ashes - 2 Havoc: Dogs of War - 3 Legendary Truth: The Wyandot Estate - 3 Catacombs: Black Death Rising - 4 Zombiegeddon - 2 PyschoScareapy: Echoes of Shadybrook - 3 --- Scarezones HHN: 20 Years of Fear: 6 Fear Revealed: 6 Zombie Gras: 5 Esqueleto Muerte: 1 Saws 'n Steam: 1 The Coven: 2 --- Shows B&T: 2 BB: Menace: 0 BB: Malice: 0

One little detail about this house bothered me: the ratio of plague doctors to victims. Maybe it was just my imagination, but it seemed like there were at least two doctors to each victim.

The button...

Don't you hate it when that happens?

Really, given their proximity and content, they may as well be considered one big Flashback Scarezone.

You know aside from the one pilgrim with a sense of humor, there wasn't much about this zone that really speaks to me. As I went on past, most of the witches and hags didn't even walk near me, let alone try and scare me. It just felt like a very empty space without much going on.

I'm going to just go ahead and vote for Havoc as the scariest house of the year. As I'm sure many people before me have already said, the actors in there DO NOT fuck around. They've got to be one of the most intense bunches of scareactors I've even seen, and God bless them for that. I can't say the chainsaw guy was really a surprise, since I could hear him from the outside of the house, but I guess that didn't stop him from getting just about everyone else.

Easily the most fun house of the night for me. Being something of a nerd, I had a hell of a time just picking out all the props and actors I recognized. The chainsaw guy managed to get me both times I went through, even thought my second time I knew in advance where he was going to be and when he would appear. He still fucking got me. Not to mention the seeing Dead Exposure again made me squee a little bit. I'll own up to that.

Yeah...that guy's a fucking monster of a man. I was so taken aback at his size I didn't even notice he had blond hair. Also, I don't know who the got to play Cindy, but she's fantastic. I came walking through the scarezone at half past one, most of the guest are already heading for the exit (I was starting to feel pretty damned-fatigued myself), and there I see Cindy, bolting from guest to guest like a squirrel that's been free-basing caffeine pills. That's impressie.

I actually like Jack's ringmaster suit more than the jumpsuit. He just looks spiffy. On a somewhat related note, I really dug some of the references to way back when that they included, like having the Crypt-keeper hanging out in a directors get up. I haven't even been going to HHN that long, and I get a kick outta stuff like that.

The CDT's the company for me.

Total Nights: 1 Houses Hades: The Gates of Ruin - 1 Horror Nights: The Hallow'd Past - 2 The Orfanage: Ashes to Ashes - 1 Havoc: Dogs of War - 2 Legendary Truth: The Wyandot Estate - 2 Catacombs: Black Death Rising - 2 Zombiegeddon - 1 PyschoScareapy: Echoes of Shadybrook - 1 --- Scarezones HHN: 20 Years of Fear: 4 Fear Revealed: 4 Zombie Gras: 3 Esqueleto Muerte: 3 Saws 'n Steam: 1/2 The Coven: 1 --- Shows B&T: 1 BB: Menace: 0 BB: Malice: 0

To be honest, there's really nothing I can rant about. This was probably one of my favorites out of the five years I've attended. All I have are very minor complaints. Several people already voiced their opinions on Fear, and I tend to agree that he should have been more involved. I even had trouble getting a damn picture with him; I guess he can't hear so well up there. The actors who portrayed some of the icons were a letdown, too. Don't get me wrong: the people they got to play The Usher, The Storyteller, and especially Cindy were all pretty much spot-on. The Director and the Caretaker just kind of hung around, though. Hell, most of the time The Caretaker wasn't even in the scarezone; he was hanging out over by Mel's, looking like he was hoping no one would come up to him. Jack just plain wasn't there when I went through. I even came back about an hour later and I still couldn't find him. But these petty squabbles aside, it was a pretty great events. None of the houses were duds, most of the actors were busting their asses to get scares, and even the security staff were all polite and courteous.

Based on my experience last Saturday, the line-pulsing works pretty well. The longest I had to wait for a house was maybe 45 minuets when I did a run of The Orphanage, which I think is pretty incredible since the last couple years I can remember having to wait over an hour for some of the houses, even when they did conga-lines. All in all, I was able to go through all the houses at least once, did Havok, Catacombs, Hallowed Past and Legendary Truth twice, saw the Bill and Ted Show, went on The Mummy and Men and Black, and visited all the scarezones except for Saws and Steam. I even got pictures with all the icons, except for Jack, whom I couldn't find for some reason.

I never noticed a photo booth, though I suppose that would explain why I couldn't find him in Fear Revealed. In any case, I think it's a neat thing. Jack is a character with a lot of personality, and getting your picture taken with him provides you with the opportunity to interact with him more than you would be able to in a haunted house. Besides, all the other icons are available for photo-ops, so what's the difference?

I've only seen the red button in Psychoscarapy. It's next to a grate that looks into a darkened room. When you hit it, the lights in the hallway go out, and a light effect inside the dark room turns on, revealing Jack strapped into a straitjacket at the far end of the room. There were also some sound effects, but i can't remember what they were.

So, I've gone to every event since 2006, and of those five events, this year is probably my favorite. Aside from Fear being generally undeveloped, everything was pretty well-done all around. It seems like every year I've been before there were a few houses that just weren't very good. This year though, even the weaker houses were pretty solid.